The flaccid South Side offense strikes (out) again
At 37, former Tigers farmhand Rick Wolff (drafted out of Harvard in 1972) makes a one-series comeback with the South Bend White Sox of the Midwest League (Single-A) for the purposes of a Sports Illustrated article. Wolff pinch-hit at the end of his first game, then starts the next two, batting ninth and then creeping up to eighth — and finishes the series 4-for-7 with a ground-rule double, three RBIs and a .571/.556/.714 slash line. His one error at second base comes when a pickoff throw travels through the pocket of his 20-year-old glove. Wolff himself was 15.1 years older than league average.
This was no end-of-season stunt in a lost season, a la Minnie Miñoso two decades earlier. South Bend won its division in 1989 with an 85-47 record, and featured such future White Sox as Scott Radinsky and Roberto Hernández, along with four other future major leaguers.
After numerous charity and exhibition games, the White Sox and Cubs played for real for the first time in the regular season. The Cubs crushed their former starter Jaime Navarro, jumping to a 6-0 lead and hanging seven earned on him in an 8-3 win. Lyle Mouton had a solo blast with the game out of hand in the sixth for the first Sox-Cubs interleague homer for the White Sox, while the Cubs went roundtripper-free in their first Crosstown interleague game. This was also the first interleague game ever played at Sox Park, and thus Mouton’s was the first home four-bagger in interleague play for the White Sox.
Since then, the two teams have played each other every season multiple times. Despite already losing two games to the Cubs in 2024, the White Sox hold a 74-70 advantage in regular season interleague meetings, with two games left to play in 2024.
The White Sox struck out 16 times in a 3-2 loss in Seattle against the Mariners. This came on the heels of striking out 16 times the night before in a 5-4 loss to the Dodgers in Los Angeles. That tied the club mark first set in 2018.
Another oddity was the Sox hit six home runs in the two games but because they couldn’t get runners on base, every single home run was a solo shot!
Luis Robert Jr. and Jake Burger both homered once over the two games — and struck out seven times apiece!
