{"id":344223,"date":"2025-12-12T10:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T10:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344223\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T10:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T10:51:08","slug":"today-in-chicago-white-sox-history-december-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344223\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in Chicago White Sox History: December 11"},"content":{"rendered":"

1924
White Sox<\/a> superstar second sacker Eddie Collins, who had led the club to a 14-13 record as player-manager to finish out an awful 1923 season, was named the permanent player-manager of the club. All Collins did was lead the battered mid-1920s White Sox to consecutive winning records (79-75 and 81-72) before getting fired\/released by Charles Comiskey without as much as a phone call after the 1926 season. Collins presided over two of the seven winning White Sox seasons during the horrid dry spell of 1921-50 for the franchise.<\/p>\n

1973
It was one of the worst deals ever made by GM Roland Hemond. The White Sox<\/a> acquired Cubs<\/a> star Ron Santo after Santo refused a deal to the Angels. Santo, who may have been able to be picked up on waivers, was acquired for pitchers Steve Stone and Ken Frailing, catcher Steve Swisher, and a player to be named later. (A week later, the PTBNL was shipped north: pitcher Jim Kremmel.)<\/p>\n

Santo did very little in his one season with the White Sox and was considered a clubhouse cancer and bully, often getting into disagreements with Dick Allen. Santo\u2019s highlight was probably the inside-the-park home run he hit on June 9, 1974 against Boston\u2019s Bill Lee at Comiskey Park. Santo was also one of the few players who disliked playing under manager Chuck Tanner.<\/p>\n

Santo hit a paltry .221 for the Sox, with five home runs and 41 RBIs. His WAR was an almost impossibly-bad -1.6, almost a four-win swing from the 2.3 he\u2019d posted in his last season with the Cubs; in fact, only 12 White Sox players in history had a worse WAR than him \u2014 and just eight had more than Santo\u2019s 418 plate appearances in 1974 with a worse WAR.<\/p>\n

1975
The White Sox traded third baseman Bill Melton, a former AL home run champ, and pitcher Steve Dunning to California for first baseman Jim Spencer and outfielder Morris Nettles. Melton had a bad back, and had worn out his welcome with the team \u2014 getting into a shouting match in a Milwaukee hotel lobby with broadcaster Harry Caray.<\/p>\n

Spencer, meanwhile, would win a Gold Glove in Chicago for his defensive prowess. He also had 18 home runs and 69 RBIs for the South Side Hit Men in 1977, twice driving in eight runs in a game that season.<\/p>\n

1980
Edward DeBartolo was voted down by other American League owners in his attempt to buy the White Sox from Bill Veeck. DeBartolo, the man who invented the modern shopping mall in Boardman, Ohio, may have had connections with organized crime. He owned horse racing tracks, and wasn\u2019t from the Chicago area. All were \u201cred flags\u201d for the other owners.<\/p>\n

In an effort to appease commissioner Bowie Kuhn, DeBartolo agreed to move to Chicago at least 20% of the time to have a direct connection to what was going on with the franchise. His compromises fell on deaf ears, as he only received three affirmative votes despite already funneling money into the ballclub (in part put toward the acquisitions of Jim Essian and Ron LeFlore) and vowed to invest money into modernizing Comiskey Park.<\/p>\n

When the first vote came up on DeBartolo\u2019s ownership, back in October, he fell just two votes shy of approval from the owners.<\/p>\n

In rejecting DeBartolo \u2014 father of San Francisco 49ers<\/a> and Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> owner Eddie Jr. \u2014 the door was then re-opened for the group headed by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn to get the White Sox. Their bid, with shakier financing, had previously been rejected by Veeck.<\/p>\n

1981
Another fine deal pulled off by GM Roland Hemond came when shortstop Todd Cruz and outfielder Rod Allen were sent to the Mariners for Tom \u201cWimpy\u201d Paciorek. Tom was coming off of an All-Star season with the M\u2019s in 1981. He would hit better than .300 for the White Sox in both 1982 and 1983, and also was one of the craziest guys to ever do commercials for the club.<\/p>\n

After he retired, Paciorek was a regular in the Sox broadcasting booth from 1988-99.<\/p>\n

1995
Harold Baines, with his No. 3 already retired after a trade to the Texas Rangers<\/a> in 1989, signed with the White Sox as a free agent. He put up a respectable 2.8 WAR with 22 homers, 95 RBIs and a .902 OPS in 1996, then was dealt in-season to Baltimore in 1997. He was acquired with catcher Charles Johnson at the trade deadline in 2000 for a third term and second playoff appearance the White Sox. Then Harold re-signed for 2001 in hopes of making it back to the playoffs and past the 3,000-hit mark \u2014 but neither goal was achieved.<\/p>\n

1996
After losing star pitcher Alex Fernandez to free agency and claiming that starting pitcher Kevin Tapani was faking an injury to his pitching hand (an injury that would force Tapani to miss the first half of the 1997 season after signing with the Cubs), White Sox GM Ron Schueler signed pitcher Jaime Navarro to a four-year, $20 million deal.<\/p>\n

Navarro was a complete bust. His three-year record with the Sox was 25-43, and he often publicly blamed his teammates for his pitching issues. No pitcher in White Sox history with more than 250 1\u20443 innings pitched (Navarro threw 542) has a worse ERA than his 6.06, and just four pitchers with more than 100 INNINGS have a higher ERA.<\/p>\n

Making matters worse was Schueler\u2019s refusal to talk with the agents for Roger Clemens after he had expressed an interest in joining the team. Schueler offered this comment on the matter: \u201dRoger Clemens is over the hill.\u201d During the same three-year period that Navarro was with the Sox, Clemens would win two Cy Youngs and 55 games.<\/p>\n

Navarro eventually did do something positive for the franchise \u2014 he was part of the terrific trade that brought Jos\u00e9 Valent\u00edn and Cal Eldred to the Sox in January 2000.<\/p>\n

2009
Fireballer J.J. Putz signed a one-year deal, $3 million deal with the White Sox, although with Bobby Jenks already on the team as a closer, Putz became the right-handed setup man alongside Matt Thornton. Putz had struggle through an elbow injury in his previous two seasons and ended the 2009 campaign in August after bone spur surgery.<\/p>\n

Putz was excellent on his prove-it deal to become a closer again, going 7-5 with three saves and a 2.83 ERA\/2.52 FIP in 60 games. His 1.7 WAR for the season ended up tying for third-best over his career. The righty parlayed his 2010 with the White Sox into a four-year deal to close for Arizona, and locked up a career-best 45 games for the Diamondbacks<\/a> in 2011.<\/p>\n

2024
Finding themselves in yet another rebuild, the organization traded All-Star left-handed pitcher Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox for minor league prospects Kyle Teel, Chase Meidroth, Wikelman Gonzalez and Braden Montgomery. Catcher Teel and outfielder Montgomery were regarded as Top 5 prospects in the Red Sox system, and all four players were among Boston\u2019s Top 14.<\/p>\n

Crochet had plenty of appeal to contending teams not only because of his performance in 2024, but because he was projected to make $3 million in arbitration in 2025 and would not be a free agent until after 2026. While working under an innings limit in 2024, he made all of his starts, in his first season as a starter coming off Tommy John surgery. He also recorded 209 strikeouts in 146 innings and finished fourth in Cy Young voting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1924White Sox superstar second sacker Eddie Collins, who had led the club to a 14-13 record as player-manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[172268,172269,172270,1466,138520,153581,172271,172272,152024,172273,172274,47418,108001,363,172275,99,172276,172277,172278],"class_list":["post-344223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-172268","tag-172269","tag-172270","tag-1466","tag-braden-montgomery","tag-charles-comiskey","tag-chase-meidroth","tag-chicago-white-sox-history","tag-chicago-white-sox-prospects-minor-leagues","tag-chicago-white-sox-roster","tag-eddie-collins","tag-garrett-crochet","tag-kyle-teel","tag-mlb","tag-roland-hemond","tag-sports","tag-today-in-white-sox-history","tag-white-sox-executives","tag-wikelman-gonzalez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}