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Sox Century: Aug. 18, 1917

White Sox overcome six errors to retake first place

Swede Risberg
Bain News Service / Library of Congress

Today, the White Sox had as many errors as hits.

They had six hits.

Which meant they had six more errors than the Philadelphia Athletics.

And yet they still won.

The White Sox didn’t make it easy on themselves. They took a 3-1 lead after one and a 4-2 lead after three, but they needed a tie-breaking sac fly by Ray Schalk in the eighth to decide the game because of the poor defense, especially from Swede Risberg.

The errors started piling up for Risberg at this point in the season. He committed three in this one alone, including two in the eighth. The papers said Risberg botched a couple of easy rollers to start the inning, and both runners came home to score after a sac bunt and a grounder that took a bad hop over Eddie Collins’ head to knot the game at four.

Fortunately, Chick Gandil led off the bottom of the eighth with a triple and came home to score. Given clean defense, Red Faber had an easier time with the ninth.

It says something about the difference in talent that the White Sox could win while playing this sloppy. The A’s had airtight defense on their side, but it couldn’t save the league’s worst pitching staff.

Walter Anderson only lasted one inning, giving up three runs on three hits and three walks (Joe Jackson continued his resurgence with a two-run single). They added their fourth run without a hit in the fourth. Jackson walked, took second on an out, then scored all the way from second on an attempted double play.

The Sox drew seven walks in all, or one more than Sox pitching allowed. Lefty Williams dealt five of them over 6 13 innings, but limited his damage to two runs in large part due to Faber, who stranded a pair of inherited runners.

The victory, paired with a doubleheader split by Boston, pushed the White Sox back into first place by three-thousands of a point (.617 to .614).

Record: 71-44 | Box score