May 19, 1969: White Sox hold off Class A Appleton in spirited exhibition

The 1969 Chicago White Sox didn’t fare well in other teams’ ballparks. En route to an American League-worst 27-54 road record, the team went 1-8 in Minnesota, 1-5 in Washington and New York, and 3-6 in Oakland, Seattle, and Kansas City.1

The White Sox did find one travel stop where they not only emerged undefeated but were greeted as heroes. On May 19 the team went to Appleton, Wisconsin, about 200 highway miles from Chicago, for an exhibition against its Class A affiliate, the Appleton Foxes. It was reportedly the first time a major-league team had played in the city of about 56,000 residents.2

The fans of Appleton, who had lost a scheduled 1968 White Sox exhibition game to rain, heartily welcomed the Chicagoans. And the White Sox pulled out an exciting 4-3 win that was closer than it might have been, given the disparity in levels between the teams.

The 1969 season was an unsettled one for the financially struggling White Sox. The team played nine home games in 1968 and 11 in 1969 at County Stadium in Milwaukee, and Wisconsin investors led by Allan “Bud” Selig were known to be interested in buying the team and moving it to Milwaukee permanently.3 The White Sox posted the second-worst attendance in the AL in 1968 – 803,775, or 9,923 a game4 – and fell all the way to the bottom in 1969, drawing just 589,546 fans or 7,278 per game.

The 1969 season also saw the final departure of longtime White Sox manager Al Lopez. Plagued by insomnia and a serious stomach condition, Lopez originally stepped down after the 1965 season. He’d returned for part of 1968 in improved health, but when his old ailments recurred, he retired for good on May 3.5 Veteran White Sox coach Don Gutteridge, a former big-league infielder, replaced him.

For all that instability, the White Sox were playing decently in the early going. In baseball’s first season of divisional play, they entered the exhibition in third place in the AL West with a 15-15 record, 4½ games behind the first-place Oakland A’s. The team was 7-4 in its previous 11 games but had dropped a doubleheader to Washington at White Sox Park the day before.

Appleton, formerly affiliated with the Baltimore Orioles, became a White Sox farm club in 1966. Four members of the White Sox had played in Appleton – third baseman Bill Melton, third baseman-first baseman Pete Ward, outfielder Carlos May, and pitcher Jerry Nyman.6 White Sox officials promised to bring the team’s entire roster to town except for pitcher Tommy John, the next night’s scheduled starter in Detroit.7

Gutteridge gave the start on the mound to rookie lefty Don Secrist, who had pitched three games in April and racked up a 12.00 ERA. Secrist pitched extensively in a swingman or spot-starter role in the minors, though all of his 28 major-league appearances over two seasons were made in relief.8

Meanwhile, down on the farm, the 1969 Foxes had gotten off to a fast start in the Midwest League. The team’s 11-2 start to the season placed it three games ahead of second-place Clinton (Iowa).9 Under the management of former Pirates and A’s outfielder Tom Saffell,10 Appleton ended the season with an 84-41 record, 11 games ahead of second-place Clinton, a Seattle Pilots farm team.

Eight members of the 1969 Foxes went on to the major leagues, and three of them played in the exhibition – third baseman Hugh Yancy and relief pitchers Bart Johnson and Richie Moloney. In his second professional season, the 19-year-old Johnson posted a 16-4 record and 2.17 ERA in 22 games for the Foxes, striking out 200 hitters in 170 innings of work. This performance was impressive enough to earn Johnson a September call-up all the way to the majors, where he went 1-3 in four appearances for the White Sox.

The Foxes’ starting pitcher also had a dramatic story, though it ended tragically. Lanky right-hander Paul Edmondson never pitched a regular-season game for Appleton. The local paper described him as a “one-game lend-lease,” temporarily brought in from Columbus (Georgia) of the Double-A Southern League to start the exhibition.11 The 26-year-old Edmondson compiled a 7-3 record and 1.87 ERA in 13 games at Columbus, good enough to earn his own promotion to the majors in late June. Edmondson stayed in Chicago the rest of the season except for a military obligation in July, going 1-6 in 14 appearances. It was his only big-league experience: He was killed in a car crash in February 1970.12

The Foxes had had their three prior games rained out, and rain threatened again on May 19.13 Despite the clouds, which yielded drizzle during the final two innings, 4,278 Appletonians came to Goodland Field for the game. The exhibition outdrew 16 White Sox home dates in 1969, three of which had been played as of May 19.14

Working quickly, Secrist and Edmondson pitched shutout ball for the first three innings. Future Hall of Famer Luis Aparicio collected the only hit for either team, an infield single.15

Aparicio led off the fourth inning by legging out another groundball single. May and Tom McCraw, the latter recently activated following a spring-training knee injury,16 followed with solidly hit singles to give the White Sox a 1-0 lead. After Melton hit into a double play, Rich Morales’s double scored May for a 2-0 lead. (Morales hit no doubles in 132 regular-season plate appearances for the White Sox in 1969.17)

Chicago rallied again in the fifth, starting with a single by Ed Herrmann. One out later, Walt Williams hit a grounder to second, but Appleton shortstop Jim Redmon dropped the feed from second baseman Roger Reid and both runners were safe.18 Bobby Knoop flied out. Edmondson hit May with a pitch to load the bases and set the table for McCraw, who whacked a two-run double to left, bringing Chicago’s lead to 4-0.

Secrist was perfect through five innings but faltered in the sixth. Right fielder Stu Singleton singled. Two strikeouts later, Reid’s hard-hit double to right field put runners on second and third for Redmon. Redmon, a second-year pro, hit seven homers in 443 plate appearances for Appleton in 1969. He hammered a Secrist pitch over the left-field fence, delighting the home fans and bringing the Foxes to within 4-3.

The game turned into a bullpen battle in the late innings, as Edmondson left after five innings and Secrist after six. For the Foxes, Johnson and Moloney were impressive, yielding only two hits and two walks over the final four frames. Johnson even struck out the side in the sixth inning, setting down Melton, Morales, and Woodie Held.

Gutteridge later said he summoned reliever Bob Locker to pitch the final three innings because Locker needed to work on his sinker.19 Locker, a five-year big-leaguer who led the AL in appearances in 1967, made an adventure of his relief appearance. (He pitched only five more games with Chicago before being traded to the expansion Seattle Pilots for pitcher Gary Bell on June 8.)

In the seventh, Appleton first baseman George Hunter reached third base on a single, an error by Williams, and a sacrifice.20 But pinch-hitter Ross Sapp couldn’t put down a suicide squeeze, and catcher Herrmann tagged out Hunter at the plate. In the eighth, singles by Singleton and replacement second baseman Dana Ryan put two aboard with two out. Locker got Redmon to ground back to the mound, ending the threat.

Hunter picked up another single with one away in the ninth, but the White Sox turned a game-ending double play to wrap up a 4-3 win in precisely two hours. The Appleton fans rewarded both teams with applause after the game. “It was the first time that I’ve ever heard fans clap at the end of the game,” a member of the White Sox’ traveling party told the local newspaper.21

Gutteridge praised the Foxes for their effort, telling a reporter, “The Foxes are a good bunch of kids. They didn’t know they were playing the big boys out there.”22 A local Wisconsin sportswriter echoed him: “It was the major league caliber of the play that made this real baseball. Against the pros, even the Foxes looked like pros, and unless history lies, some of the Foxes will one day be major leaguers.”23

The big-city Chicago Tribune, which did not send a reporter to the game,24 took a more cynical slant. In its coverage of the White Sox’ 7-6 loss to Detroit on May 20, the paper took note of the 4,278 attendance despite threatening weather and quoted an unnamed joker: “Why not move the franchise there?”25

Appleton remained a White Sox affiliate through the 1986 season. The White Sox made one attempt to return to town for an exhibition game, in May 1982. That game was rained out; the weather was so poor that the White Sox players didn’t get off their plane.26

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks Jeff Ash for inspiration.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of exhibition games, but the May 20, 1969, edition of the Appleton (Wisconsin) Post-Crescent published a box score.

Image of 1969 Topps card #388 downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Boston, where the White Sox went 4-2, was the only road destination where the Chicago team posted a winning record in 1969. That year’s White Sox weren’t world-beaters at home either, compiling a combined 41-40 record at the two parks where they played home games – White Sox Park in Chicago and County Stadium in Milwaukee.

2 First visit of a major-league team to Appleton: John L. Paustian, “4,278 Watch Chisox Post 4-3 Victory Over Foxes,” Appleton (Wisconsin) Post-Crescent, May 20, 1969: B5. The population of Appleton was reported as 56,377 in the 1970 US Census.

3 Mario Ziino, “Bud Selig,” SABR Biography Project, accessed May 31, 2022. Selig was unsuccessful in buying the White Sox, but succeeded in buying the Seattle Pilots out of bankruptcy in 1970 and moving them to Milwaukee to become the Brewers. Selig, of course, later became commissioner of baseball. Gregg Hoffman’s SABR biography of County Stadium also touches on the White Sox’ brief tenure there.

4 The Washington Senators were worst at 546,661 fans, or 6,749 per home game.

5 Richard Dozer, “Lopez Quits as White Sox Manager,” Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1969: 2:1; Maxwell Kates, “Al Lopez,” SABR Biography Project, accessed May 31, 2022.

6 John L. Paustian, “Foxes Play Chicago White Sox Monday,” Appleton Post-Crescent, May 18, 1969: D1.

7 “Stage Set for White Sox’ Appearance Here Tonight,” Appleton Post-Crescent, May 19, 1969: B5.

8 In nine minor-league seasons, Secrist made 242 appearances, of which 99 were starts.

9 Midwest League standings as printed in the Appleton Post-Crescent, May 19, 1969: B5.

10 The Appleton Post-Crescent reported that Gutteridge and Saffell had been minor-league roommates with the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Triple-A team in Indianapolis. Gutteridge and Saffell both played in Indianapolis in 1948, 1949, and 1950. Ron Witt, “Don Gutteridge Lauds Foxes for Showing Against White Sox,” Appleton Post-Crescent, May 20, 1969: B5.

11 Paustian, “4,278 Watch Chisox Post 4-3 Victory Over Foxes.”

12 Associated Press, “Crash Kills Sox Pitcher Edmondson,” Chicago Tribune, February 14, 1970: 2:1. Edmondson had celebrated his 27th birthday the day before the accident.

13 “Stage Set for White Sox’ Appearance Here Tonight.”

14 The 1969 White Sox home dates that failed to draw 4,278 fans, in order: April 19 against Seattle (3,901), April 22 against California (1,058), May 17 against Washington (1,981), June 19 against Seattle (2,318), July 3 against Minnesota (2,946), July 19 against Kansas City (2,109), August 16 against New York (4,135), August 30 against Cleveland (3,573), September 10 against Minnesota (3,989), September 11 against Minnesota (3,762), September 13 against Oakland (2,665), September 15 against California (3,181), September 16 doubleheader against California (3,509), September 17 doubleheader against Seattle (3,643), September 25 against Kansas City (3,285), September 27 against Kansas City (2,437). 

15 All game action from Paustian, “4,278 Watch Chisox Post 4-3 Victory Over Foxes,” unless otherwise noted.

16 Witt, “Don Gutteridge Lauds Foxes for Showing Against White Sox.”

17 He did hit a triple.

18 Paustian describes Reid’s toss as “a force-play throw,” which suggests that the Foxes were unlikely to have turned the double play and were simply looking to retire the lead runner. Redmon committed 34 errors in 108 games at shortstop with Appleton in 1969.

19 Witt.

20 Williams started the game in right field but moved to left at an unspecified point. It’s not clear from the Appleton paper’s game story where he was playing when he committed the error.

21 Paustian, “4,278 Watch Chisox Post 4-3 Victory Over Foxes.”

22 Witt.

23 Dave Grey, “Appleton Becomes Baseball Capital for a Night,” Oshkosh (Wisconsin) Northwestern, May 20, 1969: 29.

24 The Tribune ran a brief Associated Press story about the game on May 20 but did not publish anything to indicate it had sent a reporter to Appleton.

25 Richard Dozer, “South Siders Score Five in 8th Inning,” Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1969: 3:1.

26 Tom Goff, “Rains Wash Out White Sox Game,” Appleton Post-Crescent, May 28, 1982: B6.