Inside-the-Park Home Run – South Side Hit Pen

Wheels: Paul Konerko — yes, that Paul Konerko — once hit an inside-the-park home run. (YouTube)

1917
The World Championship season began in St. Louis, where the Sox battered the Browns, 7-2. Claude ‘‘Lefty’’ Williams picked up the win. Just slightly more than six months later, the Sox would win the World Series, four games to two, over John McGraw and the New York Giants.

1969
The White Sox initiated major league baseball in Seattle as the first home opponent for the expansion Seattle Pilots. The Sox promptly rolled over and died to the new team, 7-0, getting shut out by future Sox pitcher Gary Bell who went the distance. Bell would be traded to the Sox in June.

1982
When the great blizzard hit the Midwest and forced cancellation of a number of games, the White Sox had to open on the road the following week … in New York … with a doubleheader. No problem, as the franchise which had already won a regularly scheduled Opening Day twinbill in 1971, put the wood to the Yankees by winning 7-6 in 12 innings, and then 2-0. It was the start of an eight-game winning streak to open the 1982 campaign, the best start in franchise history.

2000
For a man with no speed, he got around the bases fast enough this time! Paul Konerko hit an inside the park home run against Tampa Bay. It came in the first inning off Esteban Yan and drove in two runs. The Sox won, 13-6.

2011
White Sox utility player Brent Lillibridge belted the franchise’s 10,000^th home run when he took a fastball from Oakland’s Dallas Braden and hit it out of U.S. Cellular Field. It came in the fifth inning of a game the Sox eventually lost 2-1 in 10 innings.

Rare treat: A grand salami from Carlos May, in most unusual fashion.

Sept. 18, 1940 — A game originally played on June 20, with the White Sox beating the New York Yankees 1-0 in 11 innings, was ordered replayed by the commissioner’s office. A Sox win was literally taken away.

The South Siders found themselves, in the middle of a pennant race, losing 9-8 in the eighth inning of the replayed game (which was the second game of a doubleheader) when umpire Harry Geisel ordered the game ended, claiming it was too dark to finish. The decision meant a split for the two teams on the day.

Sept. 18, 1971 — White Sox outfielder Carlos May pulled off one of the rarest baseball feats of all when he hit an inside-the-park grand slam against Tom Murphy of the Angels. May, a left-handed hitter, sliced a drive down the left field line at Comiskey Park in the first inning. California’s Ken Berry, the former Sox outfielder, slammed his head diving for the ball, which rolled into the corner. By the time center fielder Mickey Rivers fielded the ball and threw it home, everyone had scored. The Sox, behind pitcher Tom Bradley, won the game, 5-1.