Welcome to the first installment of “Today in White Sox History.” Over the course of this season, I hope to write a decent number of these blogs to highlight and talk about some interesting moments from the past. You can expect to hear about a wide variety of things from records that were broken to memorable plays that occurred. Today’s flashback involves a feat Mark Buehrle would be very proud of.
On May 21st, 1943, the Chicago White Sox topped the Washington Senators 1-0 in the quickest night game in American League history. The contest lasted just 1 hour and 29 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly. The 8,567 fans at Comiskey were surely not complaining about the pace of play back then.
In this ballgame, Johnny Humphries toed the rubber for the Sox and went the distance. The righty struck out three, walked two, and allowed just three hits over his nine shutout innings.
On the opposite end, Dutch Leonard threw seven innings for the Senators and faced 31 batters. His only costly mistake came in the 5th inning when centerfielder Thurman Tucker drove in none other than Humphries for the lone run of the game. Leonard ended up surrendering a total of nine hits while walking two and striking out a pair.
Even though the 89 minutes of baseball back then seems unusually quick, it was not enough to be deemed the quickest game in MLB history. The fastest nine-inning game occurred on September 28, 1919 when the New York Giants defeated the Philadelphia Phillies 6-1 in 51 minutes. Click here to view the box score from this one, courtesy of Baseball Reference.
Now, let’s fast-forward to more modern times for the Sox. Perhaps one of the more quicker games that comes to mind involves the southpaw Mark Buehrle. Thanks to his brisk pace on the mound, the White Sox had one of the quickest MLB games in recent years back on July 6, 2015. However, if you remember correctly, Buehrle wasn’t throwing for our beloved South Siders. Instead, he was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays while Chris Sale represented the black and white.
A three-run eighth inning off Buehrle allowed the Good Guys to pull ahead to a 4-2 lead and victory. When all was said and done, the game lasted 1 hour and 54 minutes. That’s what happens when you have two pitchers who waste no time and go after their batters face each other.
If you would like to check out the box scores from either the 1943 game or the 2015 game, just click on the corresponding links below.
1943 Box Score | 2015 Box Score
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Featured Photo: BaseballHistoryComesAlive.com
BTW,
Great pic!
Hate to nitpick, and I LOVE this website, in part because of the great comments, in addition to the great articles, but the `43 box score makes a couple references to the Washington Nationals, and indicates it was a day game.
Thanks for the comments! The Washington Senators were referred to as the “Nationals” and “Nats” interchangeably by the media during their history spanning from 1901-1960. They later became the Minnesota Twins franchise as the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington. As for the time of the game, it is tough to find the exact start time of the game. However, there are multiple sources who say this was a night game despite it being listed as a day game on Baseball Reference.