By Woodrow Carroll
With a 1-0 road victory over the Los Angeles Angels Saturday, the Chicago White Sox upped their season record to 42-69. Ordinarily, such a won-lost record would elicit little praise. Or, interest! However, given what the White Sox experienced last season, we might want to take a closer look at the franchise. And, maybe put a positive spin on the what the White Sox are up to.
With that 42nd victory last Saturday night, the White Sox have already surpassed last season’s victory total when the club finished with a final record of 41-121 (.253). If nothing else, the 2024 White Sox were consistent last year.
Last season, the White Sox posted a losing record in each of the seven months the franchise was in action. An 0-3 March start on through a 10-15 September assured the team of heading in the wrong direction from day one.
Time to get back to the present!
With a shot at a three-game sweep of the Angels Sunday, the Sox showed us why the club has a long way to go.
Up 5-0 at one point last Sunday, the Sox were overtaken by the Angels and suffered an 8-5 loss in the finale of the series.
However, let’s put a positive spin on the White Sox and the team’s recent run. To begin with, since the All-Star break the White have gone 10-5 through last Sunday.
Time to take a look at a few stats. Or, maybe we could call it a story line.
In the 1959, the Chicago White Sox captured the American League Championship. First time since 1919 the Pale Hose ruled the AL. The Sox topped the American League with a 94-60 (.610) record to reign supreme among American League clubs. Yet, five years prior to the what the ‘59 Sox did, the franchise finished 94-60 and was lost in the shuffle.
In 1954, the Cleveland Indians closed out the regular season with a 111-43 (.721) record. The Indians managed to deny the New York Yankees a sixth consecutive American League pennant along the way.
Believe it or not, the best winning percentage turned in by the New York Yankees in the 1950s was that of the 1954 Bronx Bombers. The Yankees in 1954 finished their 154-game schedule with a 103-51 final mark. And keep in mind that only the league champion qualified for the postseason aka the World Series.
As for the White Sox in 1954, the 94-60 mark that was good enough to carry the club to the American League crown five years later did little.
As for the Cleveland Indians, what had makings of one of the greatest teams in franchise history went down in flames to the New York Giants featuring the likes of Willie Mays, Dusty Rhodes and Leo Durocher in the World Series.
The New York Giants World Series sweep of Cleveland in the 1954 World Series, also, changed the postseason dynamic. From 1947 through 1953 it was the American League winner – six times it was the Yankees along with Cleveland in 1948 – that laid claim to the World Championship. Then things took a change in the National League’s direction.
Starting with the Giants in 1954, you found the NL’s Brooklyn Dodgers victorious in 1955, the Milwaukee Braves in 1957, the Dodgers, now in Los Angeles, beating the White Sox in 1959 followed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960.
The Yankees were no pushovers as evidenced by New York’s beating the Cincinnati Reds in 1961 and the Yankees seven-game series’ win in 1962.
Only once in the “modern era” has a team from one league won as many as four consecutive World Series. The Pittsburgh Pirates in 1979, the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980, the Dodgers in 1981 then the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982. Four different teams! But, no real dominance!