Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox, like their red-stockinged brethren from Boston, were there right at the beginning of the modern professional game of baseball at the outset of the 20th century, winning their first World Series in 1906 over their cross-town neighbors, the Chicago Cubs of the National League. Like the Cubs and the Boston Red Sox, the White Sox would endure a brief spell of early success before enduring a World Series drought that would last generations, linked to an alleged curse known as the Curse of the Black Sox (also known as the Curse of Shoeless Joe) akin to the Red Sox’s Curse of the Bambino or Cubs’ Curse of the Billy Goat. What transpired was that after the White Sox notched up their second World Series win in 1917, the team seemed destined to repeat in 1919, but then lost to the Cincinnati Reds in extremely suspicious circumstances. It soon came out that organized crime syndicates had pressured certain White Sox players to lose the series on purpose for betting purposes, and these revelations led to eight members of the team, including Shoeless Joe Jackson (Babe Ruth’s idol and one of the game’s first superstars), being banned from baseball for life. The 1919 team were branded the “Black Sox” and so as the years went by and the team endured decades of disappointment, the legend* of the curse was born. Aside from a single appearance in the World Series in 1959, when they looked destined to win after beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 11-0 in Game One, but ended up crumbling in six, the White Sox never even saw a playoff series until 1983, when they lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS, a fate they met again in 1993 against the Toronto Blue Jays despite having one of the most stacked lineups in postseason history with slugger Frank Thomas at the plate, Cy Young winner Jack McDowell at the mound, and Gold Glover Robin Venture on third base (not to mention Manager of the Year, Gene Lamont). In fact, this was a problem that marked the White Sox throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. Every year, they seemed to have top individual awards but still only rarely made the playoffs or, if they did, make it anywhere near the World Series. Things finally clicked into place in 2005 under manager Ozzie Guillen when the White Sox swept their way past the Red Sox and crushed the Los Angeles Angels in five in the ALCS to set up the franchise’s first World Series in nearly half a century. Though all four games were close, they swept the Houston Astros in four straight games to win their third-ever World Series 88 years after winning their second. In the years since, the White Sox have continued to employ many excellent players and managers, but have only made the playoffs three times and not won a single one of those encounters. White Sox fans will be hoping for the team’s fortunes to turn around soon, telling themselves that surely, this time, the wait for a next championship can’t be nearly so long as the last one. 

Chicago White Sox Rivalries

The local rivalry between the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs was something of a joke throughout the years due to the two teams’ shared histories of drought and futility (right before the Sox won the World Series at last in 2005, the hapless pair had shared a combined World Series drought of 185 years). Another strange thing about the Crosstown Rivalry, as it is known, was that apart from the 1906 World Series (when the Sox beat the Cubs to win their first title), the teams had never played one another in an official league game before 1997, when interleague regular season matchups (between the National League and American League) were instituted. Since then, things have heated up considerably, with a bench-clearing brawl between the teams in 2006 after a huge collision at the plate. The White Sox also have strong divisional rivalries with the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers (who they have played against for a remarkable 122 consecutive seasons). Getting your hands on tickets to such popular matchups (especially Sox-Cubs) can be hard, so head to TicketX to find the most affordable tickets to the most in-demand Chicago White Sox games.

*The “Black Sox” scandal was such big news at the time in America that it eventually entered the realm of literature and film. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby contains a character who is an obvious reference to Arnold Rothstein, the gangster who allegedly bribed the players and the novel Shoeless Jackson by W.P. Kinsella was made into the hit film Field of Dreams (“If you build it, they will come”) starring Kevin Costner.