2004 Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox have been the neglected stepsisters of Chicago baseball since their creation in 1901. Even though they have produced as many exciting teams as the Cubs in the past two decades, they have not sold as many tickets as the Northside team. With their games played at an excellent new ballpark, U.S. Cellular Field, the White Sox are paying back their loyal fans by fighting for the Central Division title this year.

The Chicago White sox fielded several powerful teams during the early 1900s, winning World Series championships in 1906 and 1917. But the club's success was marred soon afterward by the most infamous affair in major league history—the Black Sox scandal. Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven teammates were banned from baseball for life for their role in throwing the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.

The White Stockings were established in 1900 when owner Charles Comiskey moved his minor league team, the St. Paul Saints, to Chicago. In April of that year the team was officially renamed the White Sox and a year later the team became a charter member of the American League. (A team called the Chicago White Stockings, originally formed in 1870, became the National League Chicago Cubs.)

For their first World Series championship, pitchers Ed Walsh and Doc White led the White Sox over the crosstown rival Cubs in 1906. One of the era's workhorses, Walsh was the last major league pitcher to win at least 40 games in one season. The White Sox moved into the newly opened Comiskey Park in 1910, where several great batsmen led the White Sox to prominence from 1915 to 1919. Hitters Eddie Collins and Joe Jackson powered the team's offense while pitcher Eddie Cicotte and catcher Ray Schalk starred defensively during Chicago's World Series championship in 1917.

Capturing the pennant again in 1919, the White Sox were heavily favored to defeat the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. To the surprise of many, however, the Reds won the best-of-nine series. The White Sox returned to the top of the AL the next year but with eight games left in the season a grand jury convened to investigate rumors that Jackson and several others had agreed to play poorly during the 1919 series in exchange for $100,000. Though found not guilty by the court, several players admitted their involvement with gamblers, and the eight Black Sox (as they became derisively known) were banished for life from professional baseball by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Chicago then dropped to the bottom of the league.

Forty years would pass before Chicago won another AL pennant. In 1959, Manager Al Lopez guided the White Sox to the pennant with a lineup starring shortstop Luis Aparicio, second baseman Nellie Fox, and pitcher Early Wynn. But the team fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.

Chicago won another division title in 1983, when the White Sox assembled their best team since the Black Sox scandal. 1993 was another division-title year, and 1994 looked good until the strike ended the season.

A recent feature of the White Sox season is the interleague series with the Cubs. When the city of Chicago stops everything to watch these teams battle, there is no more exciting baseball anywhere.