1952
The White Sox sold catcher Al Lakeman to the Phillies. Lakeman had been purchased from the Boston Braves after the 1950 season, but spent all of 1951 in Triple-A Sacramento, with meager results. The backstop had a sub-replacement career in the majors (-2.6 WAR), producing a positive WAR in just one of his nine seasons.<\/p>\n
2001 Though Baines would suit up all season, he saw action in just 32 games (11 hits) with a .131\/.202\/.143 slash and -1.2 WAR, and hung it up at season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n 2008 Gossage finished his career with 41.1 WAR over 1,809 1\u20443 innings, and his 310 saves ranks 27th all-time. In five years with the White Sox (1972-76, starting about a third of his games, he logged 9.9 WAR with a 3.80 ERA and two All-Star appearances. Gossage had a jaw-dropping 8.2 WAR \u2014 still the best-ever for a pure relief pitcher (Gossage also owns the eighth-best reliever WAR (6.0), for his 1977 season \u2014 after he was dealt in 1976 with Terry Forster to the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> for Richie Zisk.<\/p>\n 2014 Thomas played the first 16 years of his career on the South Side, and was a five-time All-Star and two-time MVP.<\/p>\n 2023 Hendriks\u2019 season would only last five games (2-0, one save, 5.40 ERA, three Ks in five innings, -0.1 WAR) due to arm discomfort that saw him return to the IL on June 10. He would succumb to Tommy John surgery, treating an arm injury he\u2019d apparently fought through for years, on August 2.<\/p>\n The White Sox declined his option after the season, triggering 10 years of $1.5 million payments through 2033.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1952 The White Sox sold catcher Al Lakeman to the Phillies. Lakeman had been purchased from the Boston…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[15843,19579,15844,35867,5570,5,138,49,4726,31244,2561,10412,10416,9076,1102,4,46763,13652,4727,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-511194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-15843","9":"tag-19579","10":"tag-15844","11":"tag-35867","12":"tag-5570","13":"tag-baseball","14":"tag-chicago","15":"tag-chicago-white-sox","16":"tag-chicago-white-sox-history","17":"tag-chicago-white-sox-roster","18":"tag-chicagowhitesox","19":"tag-frank-thomas","20":"tag-harold-baines","21":"tag-hoyt-wilhelm","22":"tag-liam-hendriks","23":"tag-mlb","24":"tag-rich-gossage","25":"tag-tim-raines","26":"tag-today-in-white-sox-history","27":"tag-white-sox","28":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115859498225310205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Just 145 hits shy of 3,000, Harold Baines re-signed with the White Sox<\/a>, marking the third time in his career he\u2019s chosen to rejoin the team via free agency. The soon-to-be 42-year-old only gets a minor league deal.<\/p>\n
Rich Gossage, who was drafted by and started his career in the majors with the White Sox, was elected to the Hall of Fame. It was the ninth ballot for Gossage, who earned 33.3% of the vote on his first try, in 2000, and stalled out in the low 40s% until 2005, became the fifth relief pitcher in the Hall, preceded by Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley and Bruce Sutter. Electing relief pitchers to the Hall has become a trend, making Gossage the third bullpen arm elected since 2003. Former White Sox outfielder Tim Raines earned 24.3% of votes, leading all first-timers on the ballot; somehow it would take him 10 ballots, until 2017, to be elected.<\/p>\n
White Sox legend and second-best hitter in franchise history, Frank Thomas, was elected to the Hall of Fame on his first try, with 83.7% support. Joining him in the Class of 2014 were hurler teammates Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Reminiscent of fellow second baseman Nellie Fox in 1985, Craig Biggio fell just two votes shy of election.<\/p>\n
Liam Hendriks announced via social media that he had Stage 4 non-Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma. While he didn\u2019t discuss his health in a press conference until May, Hendriks kept his fan base informed of the varying milestones in his recovery. The White Sox closer began his baseball rehabilitation assignments on May 5 and made his return to the MLB diamond on May 29 by pitching the eighth inning of an eventual 6-4 loss to the Angels.<\/p>\n