1906 World Series

The 1906 World Series was the first to feature two teams from the same city, "the windy city" that is. Chicago was split in two as the American League's (South Side) White Sox prepared to battle the National League (West Side) Cubs. The Sox, despite having a meager offense, managed to win the Series opener 2-1. In fact they would play true to form in the first four games of the Series collecting only six runs and eleven hits. The Cubs rebounded with a 7-1 victory in Game 2 that featured the one hit pitching of Ed Reulbach and the timely hitting of Harry Steinfeldt and Joe Tinker. Third baseman Steinfeldt, a .327 hitter after his off-season acquisition from Cincinnati, went three-for-three and Tinker had two hits and scored three runs.

In Game 3, White Sox pitcher Ed Walsh allowed one single off of Solly Hofman and a double to Frank Schulte in the first inning He then went on to hold the Cubs hitless for the rest of the way. The South Side's franchise emerged as 3-0 winners, with Walsh striking out twelve batters and George Rohe tagging Jack Pfiester for a bases-loaded triple in the sixth inning. Mordecai Brown drew the Cubs even the next day, denying the White Sox a hit for the first 5 2/3 innings on the way to a two-hit, 1-0 victory. The trend would not last as the White Sox bats came alive in Games 5 and 6. Nicknamed the "Hitless Wonders" by the local press, they came out swinging and drove Reulbach from the mound in the third inning. Continuing their momentum, they added four runs in the fourth and held on for an 8-6 victory. Frank Isbell paced the Sox's twelve hit attack with a Series-record four doubles and George Davis knocked in three runs as well.

The Cubs were stunned by their cross-town rival's renewed zeal and were unable to stop them in Game 6 despite their best efforts. The "born-again" bats from the South Side defeated Mordecai Brown (the Cubs' Game 4 winner) and cruised to a stunning Series-deciding 8-3 victory that was fueled by fourteen hits. The Sox had pulled off an upset of gigantic proportions despite hitting only .198 in the Series. Their top threesome, Patsy Dougherty, Billy Sullivan and Fielder Jones, the team's playing manager, combined for only four hits in sixty-two at-bats. Nevertheless they had out-hit the Cubs, who batted only .196. Their top hitter, center fielder Solly Hofman, had appeared in only sixty-four games during the regular season, yet he played every inning of the Series and batted .304.