‘68 Chisox sweep ‘98 Tigers to move over .500

9/17-9/18 - Comiskey Park
GAME 1 - White Sox 4, Tigers 2
Tommy John (1-4, 6.27) finally put it all together and began to live up to his potential.  After losing his first 4 and ballooning his ERA past 7.50 John finally showed the potential that his real life 10-5, 1.98 ERA reflected.  John benefited by being staked to a 3-0 lead after 2 innings of play.  Ken "F-Troop" Berry led off the bottom of the 2nd with a blast that just cleared the left center wall to make it 1-0.  A walk to Pete Ward and a perfectly executed hit and run by Duane Josephson put runners on the corners with nobody out.  Wayne Causey executed a perfect squeeze play to score Ward to make it 2-0.  Luis Aparicio singled to right to plate Josephson and the Chisox were up 3-0.  Tiger starter Brian Moehler settled down after the 2nd and began ripping through the Chisox order.  Detroit would get on the board with a solo run in the 5th thanks to a two out RBI double by veteran backstop Joe Oliver.  Bobby Higginson would hit into a rally killing DP in the 6th, but Deivi Cruz would score on the play and the Chisox lead would be cut to 3-2.  In the bottom of the 8th the well traveled Tommy Davis would single home Aparicio for a much needed insurance run.  Davis would not fare as well when trying to score from first on a long double by Tommy McCraw one batter later.  Higginson would throw a pea to the plate and nail Davis by 2 strides to prevent Chicago from adding a tack on run.  Chicago's pen would preserve John's lead as Don McMahon would toss a perfect 8th and Hoyt Wilhelm would throw a scoreless 9th for his 7th save of the season.

GAME 2 - White Sox 3, Tigers 0
Call this event the Joe Horlen (4-1, 2.98) show.  Chicago's veteran hurler tossed a tidy 3 hitter as he went the distance vs Motown.  The Pale Hose broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the 4th when Dick Kenworthy singled home Duane Josephson two pitches after Kenworthy botched a hit and run and the lead footed Josephson miraculously stole second on a errant throw by Paul Bako.  Two innings later Ken Berry would hit his second homer in as many days to make it 2-0.  Berry would get another RBI in the 8th when Tommy Davis would score on his grounder to second.  Horlen looked like he was tiring in the 9th when Higginson hit a warning track shot that would have been out of most normal sized parks.  Tony Clark followed that with a single and immediately there was action in the Chisox pen.  Horlen was able to get a second wind and get Frank Catalanotto and Luis Gonzalez out to end the game and preserve his complete game shutout.

9/19 - Tiger Stadium
GAME 3 - White Sox 8, Tigers 1
Chicago set their sites on the series sweep and delivered the knock out blow by battering Tiger starter Frank Castillo (3-2, 2.84).  After recording 2 easy outs in the top of the 1st Castillo gave up a single to Tommy Davis.  Tommy McCraw hit a 2 out RBI double to score Davis, who was moving on the pitch, to make it 1-0.  Ken Berry continued his hot hitting with an RBI single of his own to make it 2-0.  Chisox starter Jack Fisher would take the mound with a 2-0 lead, which would probably be all the run support he would expect and most probably need.  The Chisox lineup decide to deliver an early Christmas present to Fisher by gift wrapping a 6 run outburst in the 5th inning to put the visiting team up 8-0.  10 batters would come to the plate in that inning that included some hard hit balls and some bad fielding by Catalanotto at third base.  Chicago would have 4 singles, a walk and a lead off double by Jerry McNertney to surround Catalanotto's big miscue.  Fisher  would finally yield his first hit in the bottom of the 5th to Paul Bako who led off the inning.  Luis Gonzalez would walk and both runners would move up 90 feet on a Catalanotto ground out.  Robert Fick would would hit a one hopper to Sandy Alomar at second to score Bako for what would be Detroit's only tally of the game.  In fact, Bako's hit would be the Tigers' only hit of the game as Fisher went the distance allowing just 1 run on 1 hit to improve his record to 3-2, 2.23.  Both Davis and McGraw had 3 hits on a day where the normally hitless Chisox banged out 14 safeties.