By Woodrow Carroll
In 1959, the Chicago White Sox ended a 40-year drought by winning the American League pennant. Prior to 1959, the last postseason appearance by the White Sox was 1919. Sadly, the 1919 White Sox are best remembered for the Black Sox scandal that saw eight players on the team accused of throwing World Series games. The Cincinnati Reds captured the Series, five games to three.
Even allowing for the World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in six games in 1959, big things were expected from the Sox by their fans following that season. Yet, despite fielding some very respectable teams along the way through 1967, it was to be another 24 years before the Sox reached the postseason again.
The 1983 White Sox were an interesting study. No scandal such as the 1919 team, and, no World Series appearance! By 1983 Major League Baseball had expanded the playoffs to four teams. The White Sox, under manager Tony La Russa, were in the West Division.
The 1983 Sox did not burst out of the gate. May 29 the Sox were 19-24, seven games out of first place at which point the they took off.
By midsummer the Sox were winning games consistently. The team’s run elicited a classic comment from Texas Rangers’ manager Doug Rader: “… (The Sox) weren’t playing well. They’re winning ugly.”
A graduate of Glenbrook North High School in Northfield, Rader ended up serving as a coach and interim manager of the Sox for two games in 1986 after La Russa was fired.
Ugly or not, the Sox stayed hot down the stretch. Turned out that the Sox ended up winning the AL West by 20 games in 1983 with the team’s biggest margin on the final day of the regular season. Rader’s Rangers finished in third place in the AL West, two games in back of second-place Kansas City.
The Sox record in 1983 was 99-63, the same regular-season record of the 2005 World Series champion White Sox. Unfortunately, the Sox drew the Baltimore Orioles, 98-64, as the League Championship Series and lost three games to one. After pitcher LaMarr Hoyt beat the Orioles, 2-1, to open the AL Series, the Sox scored one run their next three games and made an exit from the playoffs.
The Orioles defeated the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series, four games to one, in the first World Series not to use air travel since 1956 when New York Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers. Baltimore and Philadelphia are approximately 100 miles apart.
Honors: Ron Kittle of the Sox led team in RBIs with 100, and was AL Rookie of the Year; Hoyt, 24-10, was the Cy Young Award winner; and, La Russa was AL Manager of the Year.
Chicago was back in the playoffs in 1984, only it was the Cubs. The Sox slumped badly that season and finished 74-88 and was in fifth place in the seven-team AL West.
The Sox postseason struggles continued in 1993 when the Toronto Blue Jays defeated the White Sox four games to two in the ALCS. The American League Division Series in 2000 provided no relief with the favored Sox falling in three straight games to the Seattle Mariners.
Then there was 2005! How Sox fans remember the glorious run when the White Sox won the World Series championship: Three straight victories over the Boston Red Sox; The Los Angeles Angels were ousted, four games to one; and a four-game sweep of the Houston Astros to provide the White Sox their first World Series championship in 88 years.