White Sox news overshadowed by previous Blackhawks Stanley Cup clinchers (updated)

I could write about the White Sox losing 11-0 to the Pirates and showing nothing in any facet of the game.

I could write about Robin Ventura coming back and giving a very Robin Ventura quote.

"We’re not doing anything to threaten anybody on offense. We have to do that to stay in this. Our propensity to give up runs in the first inning and not score is going to be difficult. These guys have to find a way to grind and find a way to do it."

I could point out that Adam Eaton continues to lie low.

While some outsiders might blame Ventura and the coaching staff, Eaton said he's in no position to comment on such matters.

"It's not my place to tell what he's doing or how well he's doing or what position he's in," Eaton said. "That is nothing pertained to me. I go out and do my job, it doesn't matter who's managing it."

But the Blackhawks just won their third Stanley Cup in six years, which is the kind of sporting excellence we shouldn't take for granted. Therefore, I reserve my right to be happy about sports for 24 hours, as well as my right to update a post I wrote in 2013 about what the White Sox were doing while Blackhawks achieved hockey immortality. You'll note that clinching the Cup in Chicago isn't the only reason it felt like 1938 on Monday.

April 10, 1934

The White Sox hadn't officially started their campaign when Harold "Mush" March ended the hockey season by providing the only goal of Game 4 in double overtime to finish the Detroit Red Wings. The Sox were in Tucumcari, N.M., playing an exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. According to the Chicago Tribune's archive, they headlines ran on the same page.

For the Blackhawks: "HAWKS WIN STANLEY CUP; BEAT DETROIT, 1-0."

For the White Sox: "SOX MAKE EIGHT ERRORS; LOSE TO PIRATES, 12-7."

The lede in the Tribune for the latter story:

The White Sox today were seized with a malignant case of the fumbles, making no fewer than eight misplays in giving the good citizens of Tucumcari their first look at baseball as executed by gents on major league payrolls. The score of this all-time Tucumcari inaugural was Pittsburgh, 12; Chicago, 7, and of the Pirate total exactly one run was earned.

April 12, 1938

The Blackhawks cinched their second Cup with a 4-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 4, which was the last time they closed out a championship in Chicago before Monday's celebration.

Opening Day for the White Sox was still a week out. Once again, the Sox were playing an exhibition game, this time in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Fittingly, they played the Pirates, and failed to look like a professional team in the process. The Trib's headline: "PIRATES SHOW NO MERCY, SOX SHOW NO SKILL."

Perfect. Just perfect. The lede:

The downcast White Sox had their hides tanned again today by the Pittsburgh Pirates, 10 to 2. It was a dandy day for pre-game calisthenics, however, and the lads had the best workout they have enjoyed since leaving Tucson.

The victory was a popular one at this particular stop on account of the Pirates' having one boy from this two and two from just across the prairie, while the lone Oklahoman on the Sox roster, Rip Radcliff, got one of the Sox's eight hits.

April 16, 1961

Over in Detroit, the Blackhawks routed the Red Wings in Game 6 by a score of 5-1 to win their first Stanley Cup in 23 years. This is pretty neat:

The White Sox were also in Detroit, but they were handed hockey weather. A snowstorm postponed the final game of a series against the Tigers, and it was merely the latest delay in the early going of the first 162-game season in major-league history. The Tribune tells it in a story with the headline, "SNOW STORM ADDS TO SOX HITTING WOES."

The Chicago White Sox left here by train this afternoon but there was little else to remind the of the pre-airline days of baseball when a 154 game schedule was always in vogue -- and decent weather at least occasionally. [...]

Five days off for two all-star games in July leave the White Sox faced with the prospect of playing 159 games in [160 days]. And with bad weather blanketing Chicago, too, there hovers some doubt over the chances of the Comiskey park home opener against Washington Tuesday.

The baseball season started on April 10, but terrible weather limited the Sox to just three games over their first eight days. At the time of this postponement, the Sox had to plan for 23 doubleheaders. They ended up playing 33 of them.

June 9, 2010

Patrick Kane's mystery winner in OT overshadowed was bigger news than Brent Lillibridge's first homer as a member of the White Sox. And Lillibridge's blast was pretty big -- a pinch-hit, three-run shot that landed 428 feet away in dead center. He drove in the final three runs of a 15-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers.

Winning is contagious, and it doesn't even have to involve the same sport. That trouncing of the Tigers was the first of four straight wins .. which led to 11 out of 12 ... which eventually led to 26 out of 31 ... which resulted in a 9½-game deficit turning into a one-game lead.

• June 9, 2010: 25-33
• June 15, 2015: 28-34

(I made that comparison for the 2013 White Sox, and it didn't work. I wouldn't expect it to here, either.)

June 24, 2013

The White Sox had an off day -- an actual off day, not an 11-0 drubbing off day -- so we could enjoy the Blackhawks scoring two goals in 17 seconds without the 31-42 Sox messing it up, because they were messing up plenty.

The day before, a pair of eighth-inning errors turned a 6-4 White Sox lead into a 7-6 loss to the Kansas City Royals.

The day after, Gordon Beckham and Conor Gillaspie made like Bryan Bickell and Dave Bolland, teaming up to create their own unfathomable late-game wonder.

Fortunately, the afterglow of the Hawks' incredible victory -- and billyok's masterpiece below -- made it easier to digest: