Best White Sox season

By Trey Lyle

We are now moving to the south side of Chicago to talk about the White Sox and their best season. A team founded in 1900, the White Sox only won the World Series three times and out of those three teams, one stands out over the rest of them. 

​For their best season, we have to go way back over 100 years to the 1917 Chicago White Sox as the best season in franchise history. 

A team that won 100 games, which is still a team record for wins in a season, finished nine games above Boston in the American League. They went on to win the World Series against the New York Giants in six games. The team wouldn’t win another title until 2005. 

The team was built off of their pitching staff and had a league-best 2.16 ERA, which included four pitchers that had an ERA under 2. They also led the American League in shutouts with 21 and were third in strikeouts with 517. 

The staff was headlined by Eddie Cicotte, who led the AL in wins with 28 and ERA at 1.53. 

The team could hit as well, leading the American League in runs (656) and on-Base Percentage (.329). Plus they led the AL in stolen bases with 219. 

The team had three Hall of Famers in Eddie Collins, Red Faber, and Ray Schalk, but could have had more due to some of the players being a part of the infamous 1919 “Black Sox” team such as Shoeless Joe Jackson who is one of the best players not to be in the Hall of Fame. 

The only team to win a hundred games in franchise history and one of the best pitching staffs in the history of baseball makes the 1917 Chicago White Sox the best season in franchise history.