{"id":548201,"date":"2026-01-31T21:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548201\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T21:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T21:49:14","slug":"today-in-chicago-white-sox-history-january-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/548201\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in Chicago White Sox History: January 31"},"content":{"rendered":"

1909
White Sox<\/a> catcher Billy Sullivan secured a patent on the first chest protector. It contained a wind pad with compressed air and became the forerunner of the modern catcher\u2019s chest protector. Sullivan was the White Sox catcher from 1901-14. Sullivan gets the patent one day before his 34th birthday.<\/p>\n

1956
Buck Weaver died in Chicago, at the age of 65. He was one of eight members of the Black Sox to be banned from baseball for life, despite taking no money from gamblers. Until his death, Weaver maintained his innocence \u2014 and the record shows he hit .324 with 11 hits and was perfect in the field in the 1919 World Series<\/a> loss to Cincinnati. Commissioner Landis ruled that Weaver should be banished from the game based merely on his knowledge of the fix; in that case, manager Kid Gleason, owner Charles Comiskey and scores of players from other clubs, previous and since, should have been kicked out of baseball.<\/p>\n

1977
Kicking off what would become a magical year on the South Side, former skipper Al L\u00f3pez was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Special Veterans\u2019 Committee. On the BBWAA ballot, the former catcher never earned as much as a 40% share of the vote, but 10 years after his final appearance on the ballot Lopez was rewarded for his .584 winning percentage and two AL pennants as a manager.<\/p>\n

1994
Bo Jackson left the White Sox, signing for $1 million with the California Angels.<\/p>\n

Jackson staged one of the most remarkable comebacks in sports history by fighting through hip replacement surgery to return to the field in 1993 \u2014 dramatically hitting a pinch-hit home run in his first at-back in a White Sox uniform.<\/p>\n

However, things soured a bit in the stretch run, as Jackson struggled through a terrible August and went 0-for-10 with three walks in the ALCS vs. Toronto. Jackson and George Bell were vocal about preferential treatment being given Dan Pasqua and were very critical of manager Gene Lamont.<\/p>\n

The White Sox made a halfhearted attempt to re-sign Bo after the season, but ultimately let him go. Jackson returned to the White Sox as a team ambassador in 2014, and remains a White Sox fixture.<\/p>\n

1997
In a swap of young first basemen, the White Sox sent Mike Robertson to Philadelphia for Gene Schall. Robertston saw action in six games in 1996 for the Sox and would log just 33 more over the next two seasons, with the Phillies then Diamondbacks. Schall was apparently injured for much of 1997, seeing just 33 games for Triple-A Nashville. He never played in the majors again.<\/p>\n

Both first-sackers ended up with similar careers, with both finishing out their careers in Triple-A, Schall lingering for one season longer (2002) before calling it quits.<\/p>\n

2003
The U.S. Cellular Company and the White Sox signed an agreement selling the naming rights to Comiskey Park. The deal was worth $68 million over 23 years. The money received by the club contained the stipulation that it could only be used on renovations and upgrades for the stadium \u2014 not, say, for signing free agents. As a result of said renovations, U.S. Cellular Field became one of the finest-looking stadiums in baseball.<\/p>\n

Once U.S. Cellular no longer did any business in the Chicago area, the Guaranteed Rate company secured naming rights in November 2016.<\/p>\n

2006
White Sox legend Frank Thomas officially ended his career in Chicago, signing with the Oakland A\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The parting, of course, was not mutual, as Thomas had wished to remain in Chicago after winning a ring with the White Sox for the first time in his 16 years with the club. But injuries, squabbling with GM Ken Williams, and a trade for DH Jim Thome in November sealed Big Hurt\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n

Far from washed up, Thomas hit 39 homers and drove in 114 for a division-winning Oakland team that made it to the ALCS. Frank finished fourth in AL MVP voting, the sixth-best finish of his career.<\/p>\n

Thomas would hit the final 73 homers of his career away from the White Sox, including home run No. 500 in 2007 for Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1909White Sox catcher Billy Sullivan secured a patent on the first chest protector. It contained a wind pad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[16839,10779,16540,16541,15041,13412,10411,5,13405,26133,10909,10910,138,49,56549,4726,31244,2561,17993,10412,12164,8098,1018,21683,56115,72348,4,4727,396,38997,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-548201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-16839","9":"tag-10779","10":"tag-16540","11":"tag-16541","12":"tag-15041","13":"tag-13412","14":"tag-al-lopez","15":"tag-baseball","16":"tag-billy-sullivan","17":"tag-bo-jackson","18":"tag-buck-weaver","19":"tag-charles-comiskey","20":"tag-chicago","21":"tag-chicago-white-sox","22":"tag-chicago-white-sox-managers-and-coaches","23":"tag-chicago-white-sox-history","24":"tag-chicago-white-sox-roster","25":"tag-chicagowhitesox","26":"tag-dan-pasqua","27":"tag-frank-thomas","28":"tag-gene-lamont","29":"tag-george-bell","30":"tag-jim-thome","31":"tag-ken-williams","32":"tag-kid-gleason","33":"tag-mike-robertson","34":"tag-mlb","35":"tag-today-in-white-sox-history","36":"tag-white-sox","37":"tag-white-sox-executives","38":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115991921694533277","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548201","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=548201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}