I was in Staten Island tonight. First time ever. Chan and I saw the A-ball version of the Yanks get destroyed, 15-1. Unfortunately, the big league Dicks did some destroying of their own, sweeping the O's by a total score of 25-6. We kicked White Sock ass, 10-2, so we only lose a half game, now up 2 games in the AL East.

Deals are a-goin' down. Hello Mike Aviles, goodbye Yamaico Navarro. And we could be getting Rich Harden for Lars Anderson. Did I ever tell you about the Harden autographed ball I have? [Update: That deal isn't happening. You see how I said "could be getting"? That's because despite that countless media outlets said the trade was a done deal Saturday night, if I don't see an official announcement from the team, I don't think of it as anything but a rumor. I'll anxiously await apologies from all the media people who reported rumor as fact yet again. (First, though, they'll have to fix all their incorrect articles, many of which are still up. And by "fix" I mean "erase and pretend they never wrote them," because that's what they do.)]

Anyway, I'll have some Staten Island pics up at some point. And now for...

July 31st in Red Sox vs. White Sox History:

We dominate the White Sox on 7/31. We're 7-2 (4-2 in Chicago) with 1 tie.

1914 @CHW: 5-1 W
1917 CHW: 5-2 W
1924 @CHW: 5-4 L
1936 @CHW: 7-3 W
1971 @CHW: 6-0 W
1978 CHW: 9-2 W
1982 @CHW: 7-5 L
1984 @CHW: 14-4 W
1985 CHW: 1-1 T
1990 CHW: 7-2 W

In 1932, we took the lead in the all-time series vs. the White Sox. By July 18th, 1944, we had upped our lead to 32 games, 483 to 451. Since then, the two teams have played each other exactly even, 472-472. The Red Sox lead since '44 has been as high as 74 games, and the White Sox high point since then came in 1966, when they led us by 3 games. That's the only year they've led the series in the last 79 seasons. We've essentially been up on them by roughly 30 games since 1975.

As for that tie: The stats from that game, in 1985, counted, though the game was re-played in its entirety. It was the first "tie" the Red Sox had played to in a record 3,868 games. Dave Sax tied it with a sac fly in the bottom of the 7th, and then the game was called. Dwight Evans appeared to be attempting to decapitate the ump in the game--see picture and caption from the New London Day.

In the '84 game, every Red Socker in the starting lineup had at least one hit and at least one run scored.

After the 1917 game, H.C. Hamilton wrote a piece about the White Sox which began:

Alexander C. Slump has laid hold of the Whire Sox. Riding the pitching staff, harrassing the pitchers and threatening the fielders, the old demon wrecker of pennant hopes and ambitions has faded the Chicago pennant hopes for the time being, and unless quickly hanged in public will have enjoyed one more chuckle at the expense of a favorite.

That day, the White Sox would start a five-game winning streak and go on to hold a slim lead through much of August, before winning 18 of 19 from August 23rd to September 14th to wrap up the pennant. Then they would win the World Series. Looks like they had that public hanging of Alex.