The Go-Go club can’t stop scoring
In a season-ending doubleheader (the 1918 season ended early because of World War I) at Detroit, Buck Weaver rapped out eight hits in 10 at-bats. The Sox would lose the games, 11-5 and 7-3. Weaver went 5-for-5 in the first game and 3-for-5 in the second. He had two doubles among his eight hits.
The 1918 team finished 57-67, a 189-point drop in winning percentage from the best team in White Sox history (then, and still), the 1917 club. The team was never more than five games better than .500, and beyond a World Series hangover suffered key injuries to or WWI absences from Red Faber, Reb Russell, Lefty Williams, Joe Jackson, Happy Felsch and Fred McMullin.
In a game at Comiskey Park, White Sox third baseman Boze Berger and outfielder Mike Kreevich led off the Sox half of the first with back-to-back home runs. It was the first time that ever happened in team history — as well as the first time it ever happened in AL history. The Sox beat Boston, 4-2.
It isn’t really that the White Sox won, 11-4, to sweep a doubleheader from the Tigers at Comiskey Park — but how the team won.
The Go-Go Sox, down 3-0 in the fifth, scored all 11 of their runs in their half. Al Smith homered to lead off the scoring, but the 10 remaining runs scored with two outs. The 11 runs remain the most the White Sox have ever scored in a fifth inning.
Chicago sent 15 runners to the plate and knocked both Paul Foytack and Tom Morgan out of the box in the assault — Morgan without even retiring a single Sock. Smith homered and singled, Luis Aparicio singled and was hit by pitch, and Nellie Fox singled and tripled during the frame.
Gerry Staley, entering the game with the White Sox up, 11-4, and with just two runners on in the eighth, somehow was given his 13th save of the season for recording the final four outs. The sweep added a half-game to Chicago’s lead in the American League, pushing it to 5 1⁄2 games over Cleveland.
With a two-run blast that drew the White Sox to 3-2 in the fifth inning, Chet Lemon clouted the 5,000th home run in franchise history. The White Sox battled back to take a 4-3 in the game before dropping the game to the Tigers, 5-4, in 10 innings.
It was a miracle game for two White Sox. Roberto Hernandez, then a starter, held the Royals hitless for six innings just three months after undergoing transplant surgery that took a vein from his leg and moved it to his arm. He would throw 93 pitches and get through seven innings of one-hit, one-run ball. He made just two more starts in 1991 (and his career), and this effort remains his sole game started and won.
Meanwhile Bo Jackson made his first start with the White Sox, hitting sixth in the order at designated hitter. After starting the game 0-for-3, Bo’s final at-bat was a sacrifice fly. Jackson had suffered a debilitating hip injury while playing in the NFL, and would see action in just 23 games in 1991, hitting .225 with three homers and 14 RBIs. In the offseason he would undergo hip replacement surgery and sit out all of 1992 working with White Sox training staff for a triumphant return in 1993.
Tim Raines had his American League record of 40 consecutive steals snapped when he was thrown out in the third inning vs. Toronto. Randy Knorr was the catcher who gunned him down, in Chicago’s 10-4 win.
