Three factoids today:

May 17, 1969 – It was one of the few highlights in a dismal season. Sox pitcher Jerry Nyman one-hit the Senators, winning in Chicago 6-0. Nyman allowed only a one out single in the second inning to Brant Alyea…a comebacker right through the box that Nyman could not get a glove on. Nyman also helped himself with the bat in that game hitting a bases loaded double knocking in three runs. 

May 17, 2021 – Sox catcher Yasmani Grandal was the lone starter not to get a hit in a 16-4 beating of the Twins up in Minnesota. But he still landed on base four times via walks, scored three times and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.

Grandal, became the first player in White Sox history to have three games where he walked four or more times in a season.

May 17, 2021 – In the Sox blowout win over the Twins in Minnesota, national controversy erupted centering around the ‘unwritten’ rules of baseball. With the Sox leading 15-4 the Twins used a position player, Willians Astudillo to pitch the ninth inning. He lobbed up a 47 miles per hour pitch to Yermin Mercedes who blasted it over the center field fence. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli took exception to it as well as many baseball traditionalists. White Sox manager Tony LaRussa wasn’t happy with it either saying what Mercedes did disrespected the game as well as he missed the take sign on that pitch.

Some of Mercedes teammates and many Sox fans disagreed saying that using a position player instead of a regular pitcher also disrespected the game and that until the game is over players are expected to do their best regardless of the score. The next day, after the Twins threw at Mercedes, LaRussa ignited another controversy when he said that he didn’t think Twins pitcher Tyler Duffey deliberately did that, that it may have been a pitch that got away from him.  

Some Sox fans feel this was the moment when LaRussa began to lose the clubhouse and the Sox started sliding back towards mediocrity for the rest of the season and into the 2022 campaign.

Happy birthday, Carlos May!!