Dan Helpingstine - Chicago White Sox: 1959 and Beyond

Four full decades had passed.

It was in the middle of the cold war. With memories of World War II still very fresh, the United States now faced a post-war adversary that was just as formidable and scary as Adolph Hitler. Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, was in the United States, his presence making everyone nervous. Then the air raid sirens went off in Chicago, and many thought it was time to head to their fallout shelters or stick their heads between their knees.

Fortunately, the world had not ended with the beginning stages of a Russian nuclear assault. What had happened? Unbelievable as it may sound, the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant.

Aparicio steps on second, throws to first. Double play. Game over.

That simple description and play sequence is known by many White Sox fans, even those too young to remember or understand what happened on September 22, 1959. The Sox were playing their closest pursuers, the Cleveland Indians, in front of a crowd of 54,293 in Cleveland. A win would clinch the American League flag.

It had been such a long timein so many ways. The White Sox had last gone to a World Series in 1919, and that Series was tainted with a scandal of the worst kind. Just who was innocent or guilty of throwing the 1919 Fall Classic to the Cincinnati Reds really didnt matter. Major League Baseball had to fight for survival, and the fall of the White Sox was a long and hard one. From 1921 to 1958, the White Sox never finished closer than five games off any pennant winner. The first years were truly rough. In 1932, the team truly bottomed out with a .325 winning percentage (.325 is a great batting average, but no every day player on the team hit .325 that year, not even the great Luke Appling) and a whopping 56 games behind the usual pennant winning Yankees. Amazingly the Boston Red Sox, losers of 111, dropped more games that year to save the other Sox from a last place finish.

The year 1959 would be different.

We pretty much thought we had it, 1959 pitcher Bob Shaw told writer Bob Vanderberg, recalling the fateful game against the Indians. But in sports you dont take anything for granted. You know its Lets win the damn thing and get it over with. Shaw was 18-6 that year with a league leading .750 winning percentage.

During the 50s, as with so many teams in its history, the White Sox were predicated on defense and pitching. The 59 team hit only 97 homers with just two players breaking into double figures. But in that historic September game at Municipal Stadium, Al Smith and Jim Rivera hit back-to-back homers in the sixth inning to give the Pale Hose a 4-1 lead. In the ninth, the Sox led 4-2.

Wrapping it all up didnt come easily. In this case, the nail biting made the victory all the sweeter. To make Sox fans nervous, the Indians loaded the bases with one out. Reliever Gerry Staley was on the mound facing tough left handed hitting Vic Power. Power made things simpler for the Sox when he hit a grounder in the direction of the sure-fielding Luis Aparicio, greatest of all Sox shortstops.

Jim Landis was in center field and had a birds eye view of the White Sox putting an end to 40 years of frustration. He was charging in when the ball was hit, but had a good feeling it wasnt going to get to him. It was a rare thing when a ball got through, he recalls, referring to the fielding prowess of the Sox double play combination of Aparicio and second baseman Nelson Fox. They were two of the best.

Landis felt two strong emotions about the pennant clinching. One was an emotional let down. After suffering a deep thigh bruise when diving back into first on a pick-off attempt, Landis finally got some action after an eight-day rest, but that was only as a ninth inning substitution. He sat glumly in the locker room feeling he had not contributed anything significant to the pennantclinching win. First baseman Earl Torgeson came over to cheer him up, a gesture for which Landis remains grateful.

Any let down didnt last. Along with the air raid sirens, throngs of fans greeted the Sox at Midway Airport. An estimated $20,000 of damage was done to Midway, mostly to fences, as swarms of fans came to greet the new American League champions. Sharing a cab on the way home from the airport, Billy Pierce and Torgeson saw flares on the lawns of homes on Garfield Avenue, and people sitting outside in the early hours of the morning.

So it was no time for any feelings of let down. Today Landis still has his strong, happy emotions about 1959 and the team comradie of that seasons ball club. When we would go out to eat, nine guys would go, Landis remembers. I pray the White Sox win another pennant.

Many of their fans are still praying.