Routine Moments in Baseball History: The Chicago White Sox's Long Summer

Welcome back to Routine Moments in Baseball History, a running weekday feature that looks back at plays that have been ignored by the history books because history books only talk about things that are important or interesting. Today's installment is "The Chicago White Sox's Long Summer." 

Tommy Davis comes into second on an RBI double! Tommy McCraw scores easily from second! In the bottom of the sixth, it's now 1-0 White Sox! Scattered applause rings out in White Sox Park. It's scattered because there are fewer than 9,000 people in a ballpark built to seat more than 40,000; looking out at the stands you see mostly empty seats, a stadium on the brink of being abandoned. Being a Chicago White Sox fan is no fun in August 1968: The team is in the midst of its first losing season since 1951, the resurgent Cubs are becoming popular all of a sudden, riots tore through the city in April, and even the return of legendary shortstop Luis Arpacio—who at 34 isn't the player he was when he led the Sox to the 1959 pennant—isn't enough to bring people out to ball games on the South Side. Some home games are being played in nearby Milwaukee, which has fans and a stadium but no team since the Braves left, and the White Sox faithful are understandably nervous about this. Their players aren't playing well, their city is going to shit, and now the franchise might abandon them for good.

Davis taking his lead at second, watching the Red Sox pitcher, Dave Morehead, wind up and pitch to Leon Wagner. Tommy Davis isn't a part of this decline. He's the new guy in town—he was a bona fide phenom with the Los Angeles Dodgers and a star in the early 60s, but he broke his ankle sliding into second in 1965, and though he recovered the team traded him to the New York Mets for the 1967 season, who turned around and flipped him to the Sox a year later. It'd be the start of an odyssey that will take him to every major city in America, from Chicago to Seattle to Houston to Oakland to Chicago to Oakland to Chicago (again!) to Baltimore to California to Kansas City. Much later, he'd tell people he was "bitter as hell" about all these moves, about how even though he was a solid hitter (an amazing pinch hitter, actually, and what playoff team can't use one of those?) no one wanted to keep him on for long. Maybe that was because he had the reputation for being lazy, and he did go into the clubhouse between at-bats when he was a DH with the Orioles, but he could always, always hit so who cared what he did when he wasn't hitting? Not that he's thinking about any of that stuff now—right now he's watching the pitcher's arm, his eyes, counting out the steps it'll take to reach third and how many seconds those steps are going to take.

The wind-up and the pitch! Truth be told, Davis isn't a natural base-stealer. He stole 18 bases in 1962 and would steal 20 in 1970, but he's not too focused on taking bases like that, maybe because of lingering discomfort from that ankle fracture. But this is 1968, the Year of the Pitcher, and you need to scrape and claw for every run, every base. There's one out, so if he gets caught he's just a sacrifice bunt away from home. If the Sox went up by two runs, that'd be a sizable lead for pitcher Tommy John to work with.

Davis is going with the pitch! Crap. He didn't quite get a good jump, or his cleats slipped a bit—whatever it is, he can feel himself being a half-beat too late even as he's going into a sprint and is far too committed to go back to the safety of second. As he's running, thinking about his slide, looking at the third baseman, Joe Foy, calling for the ball, he's also wondering why he was so stupid. He could have stayed on second, in scoring position, just a single away from home. Now the ball is leaving catcher Russ Gibson's hand, now Foy is nabbing it from the air easily in his glove; Davis is going to try to leap or twist or do something to get around the tag but he's too late, the play is already over. The Red Sox will score in the next inning, it'll be tied after nine, and Boston will win it in the tenth.

This has been Routine Moments in Baseball History. Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.