This Day In Sox History...December 26

[Lip Man 1]

December 26, 1958 - In the middle of a family fight involving the Comiskey’s and the attempt to sell the Sox, Charlie Finley (yes THAT Charlie Finley) offered $500,000 dollars to buy the club.

Dorothy Comiskey immediately began to give serious consideration to selling it to him, since that amount of money was gigantic for its time and surpassed the initial offer that came from Bill Veeck’s group. However, Veeck had purchased, for $100 dollars, an option period where he would have the first right to buy the team. Dorothy Comiskey and her advisors tried to determine a fair price to buy that option back and sell to Finley but were never able to do so.

Thanks in part to a final judicial ruling in March 1959 and because he raised his initial offer, Veeck’s group finally took control of the club right before the start of the regular season. Finley would eventually get into baseball as the controversial owner of the Kansas City and later Oakland Athletics where he’d win three straight World Series from 1972 through 1974.