Big blast: Frank Thomas was the first White Sox player to homer in a regular-season March game.
1996 Because of a quirk in the calendar the White Sox had a March Opening Day for the first time in franchise history, when they started the 1996 season in Seattle on the final day of the month. Frank Thomas hit a two-run home run off of Randy Johnson in the first inning, but the Sox lost the game, 3-2, in 12 innings.
Actor (final credit: murdered by Albert Einstein in "Carnage Hall"), musician (Ethnocentric Republicans), and Nerf hoops champion, Wiffleball aficionado and onetime bilingual kindergarten teacher, Brett Ballantini also writes about baseball, basketball and sometimes hockey, publishing at the NBA, MLB, NHL, and for Slam, Hoop, Sporting News, the Athletic, and others. He was CSN Chicago’s Blackhawks beat writer for their first Stanley Cup season of 2009-10, and took over the White Sox beat after that. He currently is the editor-in-chief of South Side Hit Pen and managing editor of SB Nation's South Side Sox. He also wrote a book about Ozzie Guillén but is running out of space, so follow him on Twitter @BrettBallantini and he'll probably tell you even more about himself than you ever wanted to know.
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