Not only are the Chicago White Sox set to play their first postseason home game since 2021, they’re also bringing back a familiar tradition. Wednesday’s ALDS showdown with the rival Cleveland Guardians will be a blackout game at Rate Field. The AL No. 6 White Sox head back to the South Side with a 2-0 series lead and a chance to send Chicago to its first ALCS since 2005.
But before fans dress in black again, here’s how a last-minute idea in 2008 created one of the Sox’s most memorable playoff atmospheres.
How the White Sox blackout game began with a win-or-go-home thriller
Thankfully for all parties, “blackout” in this case doesn’t refer to Rate Field going completely dark. Let’s hope that the building once known as U.S. Cellular Field (it always will be The Cell or Comiskey, in our minds) doesn’t lose power.
In this case, every White Sox fan is asked to wear black, a tradition that began in 2008, when the White Sox hosted the Twins in a one-game tiebreaker to determine the AL Central winner. Although the Twins won the season series 10-9, the league didn’t use the head-to-head record to determine the tiebreaker host site. Instead, the White Sox correctly called heads on a coin flip. Seriously.
What’s especially remarkable is that the White Sox didn’t have much time to plan the blackout. They actually played their 162nd game, a makeup game against the Tigers, on Monday, Sept. 29. The next night, fans showed up. The Sox outlasted the Twins in a 1-0 thriller, with Hall of Fame slugger Jim Thome’s seventh-inning solo homer proving to be the difference.
“It was such a different atmosphere than what you are used to,” former White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski said in 2018. “Granted, it was a one-game [tiebreaker]. But just when you walked out and saw everybody in black in the whole stadium, it kind of took your breath away for a second. It was definitely intimidating.”
“What I remember is every pitch, every strike, there was a reaction," said former Sox Southpaw John Danks as part of MLB.com’s oral history from this game. "Every out, there was a reaction like it's the biggest play of the game.”
The blackout returned for Game 3 of the 2021 ALDS (Sox won 12-6 over the Astros), and even Astros manager Dusty Baker appreciated the approach: "That was pretty cool, actually. It was different than Wrigley Field’s vibe and atmosphere,” Baker said postgame. “If I wasn't playing a game, I would have enjoyed myself being here at this park. I don't know if I have an all black outfit or not, but I would have probably gotten one.”
White Sox can clinch a playoff series at home for the first time since 1906
The last time we saw the White Sox clinch a playoff series at home … well, we didn’t, because it hasn’t happened since the 1906 World Series. But within a blackout fan environment, the Sox can make history.
Nicknamed the “Hitless Wonders” because they had a league-worst .230 average in 1906, the White Sox faced the crosstown Cubs in their lone World Series head-to-head battle. The final game, an 8-3 White Sox win, took place at South Side Park and lasted less than two hours.
To appreciate how long it’s been, consider what baseball looked like in 1906. Cubs ace Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown posted a 1.04 ERA with 27 complete games and nine shutouts. He was one of 52 pitchers to throw at least 20 complete games that year, a group that even included Joe Harris, who somehow finished 2-21 despite a respectable 3.52 ERA.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers were still called the Superbas, and their first baseman, Tim Jordan, shared the major league home run lead with the Athletics’ Harry Davis. Their total? Twelve apiece. That’s the baseball world the White Sox last called home when they clinched a postseason series in front of their own fans.
Wednesday’s blackout crowd could finally see something generations of White Sox fans never have: a postseason series clinched in black on the South Side.
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