This Day In Sox History 8/6...

First off a personal note.

Some of you know I'll be having surgery Thursday 8/6 to repair a torn rotator cuff on my left (dominant) shoulder.

This means I'll be in a sling for roughly six weeks with rehab taking a couple months.

It was just something that built up over time from playing sports, working out and a lot of work around the yard and house.

The cuff finally snapped just before Memorial Day.

At first they thought I was going to have to have more extensive reverse shoulder creation/surgery but because the main tear is behind the shoulder and not on the top, that won't be needed.

Still it's going to be a challenge for the next several weeks at least.

Anyway...I wanted to post the daily White Sox historical factoids for the rest of this week.

Moving forward because these are in a file on my computer I should be able to just 'cut and paste' them even though I won't really be able to write or type for a while.

I'll be able to read comments and check in on the daily threads/posts but probably won't be able to contribute much. Hope the Sox are able to keep this surprising seasons going with two months remaining.

We'll see.

Now on with the show!

Two factoids today:

August 6, 1949 - Luke Appling played his 2,154th game at shortstop, passing Walt “Rabbit” Maranville for most in MLB history. He would play another 42 games there in the 1949 season and 20 in 1950, at age 43, before retiring. Appling played all but one of his seasons (1948) as a primary shortstop, and 94 per cent of his career games there. Today, Appling sits at eighth all-time in games played at shortstop, his all-time record broken 20 years later by another White Sox shortstop, Luis Aparicio, on September 25, 1970, his last game played that season.

August 6, 1959 – It was the third and final marathon game of the 1959 season. The Sox battled the Orioles in Baltimore and played for 18 innings before curfew stopped the night game tied at one all. The game lasted only four hours.

The most significant item to come out of it was the incredible performance by the Sox starter, Billy Pierce. Pierce pitched 16 innings! Let me repeat that...16 innings allowing one run.

Billy faced 61 hitters, struck out seven and gave up 11 hits, 10 of them singles.