1938
After losing four straight exhibition games to the Cubs, a Luke Appling home run helps knock off the White Sox rivals, 10-9, in Los Angeles.

The bad news came in the ninth inning, when Appling at first base took off on a hit and run, with batter Joe Kuhel fouling off the pitch. Appling stopped his slide awkwardly, breaking a bone near his ankle. The shortstop, who was hospitalized in L.A. before taking a train back to Chicago, was given a recovery time frame of three weeks to two months.

Appling ended up taking more than three months to rehab and return. Coming off of a 6.2 WAR season in 1937 that saw him finish 17th in MVP voting, he pinch-hit twice in June but didn’t return full-time until July 8. From there, Appling struggled over 81 games, to a 1.8 WAR. It ended up as the third-worst WAR per game of his Hall of Fame career.

One day earlier, All-Star starting pitcher Monty Stratton was injured on the mound, delaying his first start of 1938 until May 24.

The 1938 White Sox finished 65-83-1, sixth of eight teams in the AL.

2002
Slugger José Canseco was released by the Montreal Expos, effectively ending his career. That makes his 2001 stop in Chicago (76 games, 16 homers, 49 RBIs, 0.8 WAR) the last stop of his seven-team, 17-year career. The last of his 462 career home runs came in Yankee Stadium on October 3, the only Chicago run in a 2-1 loss.

2025
Sean Burke became just the seventh pitcher in the last 100 years to start on Opening Day with fewer than 20 career innings pitched in the majors, and made it a successful one as the White Sox blasted the Angels, 8-1, at Rate Field.

The righthander worked out of danger in the first and second innings and then settled into a groove, allowing three hits with three strikeouts in six scoreless innings to aid the Sox in Will Venable’s first game as White Sox manager.

Burke made his fourth career start and fifth overall appearance. The only pitchers with the same or fewer than Burke’s 19 innings before his Opening Day start were Fernando Valenzuela of the Dodgers (17 2/3 innings, in 1981), Tom Poholsky of the Cardinals (14 2/3, 1951), Preacher Roe of the Pirates (2 2/3, 1944), Hal Gregg of the Dodgers (18 2/3, 1944), Eddie Smith (who’d go on to pitch for the White Sox) of the Athletics (19, 1937) and Carroll Yerkes of the Athletics (9 2/3, 1929).

Burke’s 19 career innings entering the day, then, were the fewest for a Sox Opening Day starter, eclipsing the previous mark of 61 by Patsy”Flaherty in 1903. Garrett Crochet, who had never made a regular season start in his career before Opening Day, had 73 relief innings before he took the ball in 2024.

Burke became the sixth pitcher in the last 70 years to start on Opening Day with three or fewer career starts, joining Crochet in 2024 (zero), Tanner Scheppers of the Rangers in 2014 (zero), David Nied of the Rockies in 1993 (two), Al Holland of the Giants in 1982 (three) and Valenzuela in 1981 (zero).