December 25, 1940: Tommy Lawton's Christmas Doubleheader

Tommy Lawton

December 25, 1940: On this Christmas Day, a Wednesday, South Side Park burns down in Chicago. As far as anyone knows, the fire is not purposely set. It was the 1st home of the American League's Chicago White Sox (1901 to 1910), and of the Negro Leagues' Chicago American Giants (1910 to 1940). The American Giants won 7 Pennants while playing there, the White Sox 2.

There were 3 games played in the NHL. The New York Rangers played the Chicago Black Hawks to a tie, 3-3 at Madison Square Garden. The New York Americans lost to the Boston Bruins, 8-1 at the Boston Garden. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-2 at the Olympia Stadium.

Also on this day, under the wartime conditions of depleted rosters, Tommy Lawton plays for Everton against Liverpool at Anfield in the morning. Liverpool win, 3-1. Then he is asked to play as a guest player for Merseyside club Tranmere Rovers at nearby Cheshire club Crewe Alexandra in the afternoon. As he recalled, "The Tranmere people came into the dressing room, and asked if anyone wanted to play, as they were two men short. I said, 'Go on, I'll help you out.' And I did."

He didn't help much: Crewe won the match, 2-1. Still, on Christmas Day 1940, Lawton played a full 90 minutes in the afternoon, after having already done so in the morning. Given the heavy leather balls and ragged pitches (especially in Winter) of the era, this may qualify as a Christmas miracle.

Just 4 days after Christmas, the Luftwaffe bombed the Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe, which had been making Spitfire planes for the Royal Air Force.

Also on this day, Arsenal lose 4-2 away to West Ham United. They finished 4th in the Southern Regional, the Hammers 2nd, and Crystal Palace of Southeast London won. 

May 6, 1903: The White Sox Make 11 Errors In a Game -- and Win

Patsy Flaherty, in what turned out to be his final season in the majors,

1911, with the Boston Rustlers. The next season, they became the Braves.

May 6, 1903: The Chicago White Sox make make 11 errors. Even by the standards of this time, when baseball gloves were small, and didn't have "pockets" until 1920, this was a lot.

And yet, they won the game.

They hosted the Detroit Tigers at South Side Park, about 3 blocks south of where they would move in 1910, to Comiskey Park. Neither Baseball-Reference.com nor Retrosheet.org have a play-by-play for this game, only the box score.

But from that box score, we can see that pitcher Patrick "Patsy" Flaherty made 3 errors, suggesting that the Tigers tried bunting on him, and he either mishandled the bunts or threw them away; shortstop Lee Tannehill made 4; 3rd baseman Frank Isbell made 3, and 1st baseman Patrick "Cozy" Dolan made 1.

(Dolan was from Ireland and raised in Boston. Flaherty, a lefthander, was also of Irish descent, but born and raised in Pittsburgh. Yet, despite both being named Patrick, only one was nicknamed "Patsy." Dolan could also have been "Paddy." Yet he was called "Cozy" because he had a "habit of taking things comfortably under all circumstances." He died of typhoid fever at Spring Training in 1907. Albert Dolan, an outfielder from Wisconsin, reached the major leagues in 1909, and he was also nicknamed "Cozy.")

And yet, Flaherty went the distance. He gave up 9 runs, none of them earned. He allowed 6 hits and 3 walks, though he only struck out 1. He even got a hit in his own cause. Tannehill went 2-for-4 with 2 RBIs. Isbell went 1-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Dolan also gave him a hit. Fielder Jones -- and that was his real name -- played center field, and went 2-for-4 with a walk. Right fielder Danny Green went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

The Tigers made 3 errors of their own. Their 2nd baseman George Smith went 3-for-5 with an RBI, but their best player, Sam Crawford, went 0-for-3. (Ty Cobb arrived 2 years later.) The White Sox scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 9th to come from behind, and win, 10-9.

The South Siders' 11 errors remain a record for a single team. There are sources that "credit" the White Sox with 12 errors, and the Tigers with 6 for a total of 18, both of which would be major league records. Two years earlier, the same teams played, at the same ballpark, and the Tigers made 10 errors, the White Sox 4, and the White Sox won, 10-9.

Since the development of better gloves, the record for most errors by a team in a single game is 8, by the Kansas City Royals, in an 11-2 loss to the Oakland Athletics, at the Oakland Coliseum, on May 13, 1974.

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May 6, 1903 was a Wednesday. Bernard "Toots" Shor, whose New York restaurant was popular among sports and political figures from 1940 to 1971, was born.

These other baseball games played:

* The New York Highlanders lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 6-1 at Hilltop Park in Upper Manhattan. Eddie Plank outpitched Clark Griffith, and went 3-for-4 with an RBI in his own cause. Willie Keeler went 1-for-4 for the Highlanders, who officially became the New York Yankees in 1913.

* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Superbas, 20-2 at Washington Park in Brooklyn. Joe McGinnity went the distance for the win, and got a hit in his own cause. George Browne and Billy Gilbert each got 4 hits for the Giants. The Superbas became the Dodgers in 1911.

* The Boston Americans beat the the Washington Senators, 6-3 at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston. Cy Young outpitched Wyatt Lee. The Americans became the Red Sox in 1908.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 11-4 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Jimmy Slagle went 3-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Honus Wagner went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Cleveland Naps and the St. Louis Browns were rained out at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on August 31. The Browns swept, 8-3 and 6-2. The Cleveland team was named for its manager and 2nd baseman, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, who went 4-for-9 with an RBI on this day. They became the Cleveland Indians in 1915, and the Cleveland Guardians in 2022.

* And the Boston Beaneaters, the Cincinnati Reds, the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals were not scheduled. The Beaneaters went through some name changes until 1912, when they became the Boston Braves.