The White Sox were one of the American League's eight charter franchises in 1901.

The White Sox originated as the Sioux City Cornhuskers of the Western League, a minor league under the parameters of the National Agreement with the National League. In 1894, Charles Comiskey bought the Cornhuskers and moved them to St. Paul, Minnesota, where they became the St. Paul Saints. In 1900, Comiskey moved the Saints into his hometown neighborhood of Armour Square, where they became known as the White Stockings, which was eventually shortened to White Sox.

One of baseball's most fabled artifacts, Black Betsy was manufactured by a local fan named Charlie Ferguson who used the northern side of a hickory tree to make the bat. Knowing that Jackson liked blacked bats, Ferguson darkened the bat with tobacco juice. Jackson kept Black Betsy until his death in 1951. It broke the record for the highest sold baseball bat in history, when it was sold for $577,610 in 2001.

Over the course of 18 full seasons as a baseball manager (15 in the major leagues and 3 in the minor leagues), López's teams never finished with a losing record. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.

On April 30, 1922, in just his fourth career start, Charlie Robertson pitched the fifth perfect game in baseball history against the Detroit Tigers at Navin Field (later known as Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. The Detroit lineup featured such Hall of Famers as Ty Cobb and Harry Heilmann, both of whom complained that he was doctoring the ball throughout the game, but American League President Ban Johnson dismissed the charges after checking game balls for irregularities.

Rudy Law's breakout season came in 1983, when as the Sox' leadoff man he had a career-high 142 hits and 77 stolen bases. His play helped the White Sox win their division and get to the 1983 American League Championship Series--the team's first postseason appearance since 1959.

Michael Jordan signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox in 1994 and was assigned to the team's minor league system. That summer he batted .202 with the Birmingham Barons, a class AA affiliate of the White Sox. Later in the year he batted .252 with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League.

The White Sox were heavily favored in the 1919 World Series, but lost to the Cincinnati Reds in eight games. Huge bets on the Reds fueled speculation that the series had been fixed. A criminal investigation went on during the 1920 season, and though all players were acquitted, commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned eight of the White Sox players for life, in what became known as the Black Sox Scandal. The franchise would not win another pennant for 40 years.

A five-time All-Star, Frank Thomas is the only player in major league history to have seven consecutive seasons (1991-1997) with at least a .300 batting average, 100 runs batted in (RBI), 100 runs scored, 100 walks, and 20 home runs.

At age 75, Appling hit a home run during the 1982 Cracker Jack Old-Timers Classic at RFK Stadium -- an actual drive over the left-field fence. But maybe that moment is not so unexpected, considering the Hall of Fame career Appling put up over 20 seasons with the White Sox.