Future White Sox MVP Dick Allen He was born in Wampum, Pennsylvania.
Allen set a franchise record with 37 home runs in his MVP year of 1972, along with 113 RBIs. His 8.6 WAR in 1972 ranks second all-time among White Sox hitters (Eddie Collins, 9.4, 1915) and 14th all-time among all White Sox players.
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Perhaps most important of all, numerous sources credited Allen with saving the White Sox in Chicago, and his play boosted attendance when a move to Milwaukee or other cities loomed as a constant threat.
Allen died in 2020, even before being elected to the Hall of Fame. In the most recent Veterans Committee vote in 2021, Allen was just one vote away from immortality.
1948
WGN announced that it would televise Chicago White Sox games for the first time during the upcoming season.
Veteran radio hosts Jack Brickhouse and Harry Creighton they would become the first White Sox television announcers in history. The first game WGN broadcast was an exhibition game against the Cubs from Wrigley Field on April 16, 1948, in the freezing cold! The White Sox won 4-1.
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WGN televised White Sox games from 1948-67, 1981 and 1990-2019.
1951
The White Sox held spring training in Pasadena, California, after the war. It was near Hollywood, and that day the team had a special visitor: actress Marilyn Monroe called.
Monroe was to be the mascot for a charity game to be played at Gilmore Field (home of the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League) that Sunday. The game featured several All-Stars.
Monroe arrived early and took several publicity photos with the players, including Hank Majeski, Joe Dobson and Gus Zernial. All Sox players would later receive autographed photographs from her.
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The resulting photo shoot caught the attention of a player on the other side of the country: Joe DiMaggio, who contacted Monroe’s press agent to set up a meeting after the season, as he began life as a retired player.
1961
Former White Sox player and bullpen catcher Marcos Salas was born in Montebello, California. The catcher, drafted in 1979 by the St. Louis Cardinals, made a huge impact as a rookie, posting 2.2 WAR and an eighth-place finish in the American League Rookie of the Year poll as a member of the Minnesota Twins. However, Salas never played even 92 games after that season, touring with the Yankees, Tigers, Cleveland and, in 1988, the White Sox. The receiver had a barely positive season (0.3 WAR) supporting Carlton Fiskbut was released at the end of spring training in 1989.
Salas spent more than a year with the White Sox, as a coach and scout. Immediately after retiring, he began working as a coach in the White Sox system. He later served as a catcher in the White Sox bullpen from 1996 to 1999, and again under his former teammate. Ozzie Guillen starting in 2007. While coaching, Salas sought out the Sox.
Salas is also one of 10 Major League players in history whose last name is Palindromo.
2011
On International Women’s Day, former White Sox front office analyst Kim Ng She rose from assistant general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the highest-ranking woman in baseball, to MLB’s senior vice president of baseball operations.
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Ng started with the White Sox and was hired for an internship in 1991 in what she thought would be public relations. On the other hand, the assistant general manager Daniel Evans He saw promise in her analytical thinking and playing experience (Ng was a softball player at the University of Chicago) and took her under his wing. When Evans lost the White Sox general manager job he became Ken WilliamsEvans knew his future was outside of Chicago, and when he left for the Dodgers, Ng went with him.
Nine years after taking on this executive position in MLB and after at least four failed attempts to land a general manager position, Ng was hired as general manager of the Miami Marlins.
2019
Former White Sox catcher Mike Colbern died in Tempe, Arizona. He played the only 80 games of his career with the South Siders in 1978-79, posting a 0.1 WAR and a .627/73 OPS+. After that, he played two full seasons for the White Sox in Triple-A and finished his career with one season in the Atlanta organization.
In his retirement, Colbern became the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit for what lawyers converted (against Colbern’s wishes) into a reverse discrimination lawsuit against MLB demanding that his health care costs be paid in a manner similar to an approved plan that paid the health bills of Negro League players before 1947. Although that suit failed, Colbern later received $3,700 in medical payments as part of a partial restitution plan initiated by MLB.