The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-07-20

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 It's civic issue, this 14-year flop of a club so steeped in tra- dition, for, with all their faults, the Chicago trade still loves the White Sox.
 Graybeards look back at the Hitless Wonders of 1906, who outsmarted the Cubs in the world series and baseball followers of more recent vintage haven't for gotten the 1917 team that trimmed the Giants, and the club considered by many the finest ever deployed = the one that turned out to be the Black Sox, of 1919 and 20.
 Black Sox? How Chicago wishes it had Shoeless ole Jack son, Happy Felsch, Buck Weaver, Swede Risberg, Chic Gandil, Ed: die Cicotte, Claude Williams and Fred McMullen back!
 That was the greatest ball club I ever played against or saw," says Jimmy Dykes, current ly carrying the annual Chicago headache as manager. "In the American league of this season, the White Sox of '19 and 20 now WOulu UG SO ldL HI 4AOAt tAaS SSo couldn't hit 'em with a rock"
 Dykes admired the Philadelphia club of the days of Bender, Collins, Barry and Baker, and played with a fair sort of a col lection of AAAAAAAA's in '29. 80 and '31. His lifting his kelly to the postwar Sox gives those who Avatf fhnySa pnnd fdnQ nf just how capable they were.
 Did the 1919 world series scan- dal, which threatened to wreck the game when it cracked down upon the head of the late Charles A. Comiskey just as the conspira- tors appeared boot in the trous- CTS to repeat in the last half dozen games of 20, fasten 6 permanent jinx on the Sox?
 Whatever the cause, the team hasn't been anywhere near the top since, although one manager after another followed Kid Glea- son. Certainly all of the blame cannot be laid on the men at the helm, for strategists of known capability have attempted to turn the tide-Evers, Collins, Peckin- paugh, Schalk, Blackburne, Bush, Fcnseca and Dykes.
 Nor has a shortage of funds retarded the Sox. The elder Comiskey paid the San Francisco Seals $125,O00 for Willie kamm during the golden and giddy days of 1923.
 Two winters back the younger Ccmiskey handed like sum to the AAAAAAAA's for Dykes, Al Simmons, and Hule Haas.
 Last winter, $75,000 trans action brought George Earnshaw from the same source.
 Yet the White Sox to-day floun- der in the darkest corners of the cellar, 22h games in the rear of the leader, with the worstr ec- ord in either major league, and with no hope of getting anywhere in particular.
 The injuries of Luke Appling and Jack Hayes handicapped the club, of course, but no machine is stronger than it's reserves, and the helplessness of the Sox was brought uot when the second base combination was forced to the sidelines. Help was forthcoming from nowhere with great dis patch.
 In recent weeks, critics with tired old eyes unhesitatingly pro- nounced the Chicago club the poorest in the history of the ma jors-even less formidable than several of the misfit teams put on the field by Connie Mack during his seven years of doormatting.
 old Connie kidnapped kids from campuses, grabbed sailors on ships, used most anybody, but in the opinion of many veteran ob- servers never led band that looked quite as bad or made as many mistakes as the sox whom the once happy-go-lucky Dykes now is trying to laugh off.
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