In 1919, on this day the Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox 3-2 to clinch the American League pennant; Chicago's last hope victory was dashed when "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (pictured) struck out with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. White Sox fans were quick to protest the strikeout call; one particularly irate spectator lit his game program on fire and waved it menacingly at winning pitcher Hooks Dauss, not realizing he had dropped his still lit match.
Disaster at Comiskey Park by Chris OakleyWithin minutes Comiskey Park itself was in flames; sportswriters Hugh Fullerton and Ring Lardner, who'd barely made it out alive, phoned a running account of the disaster to Fullerton's editor across town. By the time the fire was extinguished, the park and dozens of blocks of the surrounding neighborhood lay in ruins. Among the fire's casualties were Abe Attell; ex-Philadelphia boxer Billy Maharg, a co-conspirator with Attell and "Sleepy" Bill Burns in the now-dead scheme to fix the 1919 World Series; White Sox traveling secretary Harry Grabiner; and Sox pitcher Eddie Cicotte, who succumbed to smoke inhalation en route to a local hospital. Sox reserve infielder Freddie MacMullin was permanently paralyzed from the waist down when his spine was severed by falling debris as he was fleeing the park.