The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago, Illinois. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Home games are held at Guaranteed Rate Field, located on the city's South Side, and the team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf. They are one of two major league clubs in Chicago; the other is the Chicago Cubs, who are a member of the National League (NL) Central division.
One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the franchise was established as a major league baseball club in 1901. The club was originally called the Chicago White Stockings, but this was soon shortened to Chicago White Sox. The team originally played home games at South Side Park before moving to Comiskey Park in 1910, where they played until Guaranteed Rate Field (First named new Comiskey Park, then US Cellular Field) opened in 1991.
The White Sox won the 1906 World Series with a defense-oriented team dubbed "the Hitless Wonders", and the 1917 World Series led by Eddie Cicotte, Eddie Collins, and Shoeless Joe Jackson. The 1919 World Series was marred by the Black Sox Scandal, in which several members of the White Sox were accused of conspiring with gamblers to fix games. In response, Major League Baseball's new Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned the players from Major League Baseball for life. In 1959, led by Early Wynn, Nellie Fox, Luis Aparicio and manager Al López, the White Sox won the American League pennant. They won the AL pennant in 2005, and went on to win the World Series, led by Paul Konerko, Mark Buehrle, catcher A. J. Pierzynski, and the first Latino manager to win the World Series, Ozzie Guillén.
The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member team of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expansion franchise in 1969, and has participated in four World Series, winning in 1985 and 2015, and losing in 1980 and 2014.
The name Royals originates from the American Royal, a livestock show, horse show, rodeo, and championship barbeque competition held annually in Kansas City since 1899. The name also fits into something of a theme for other professional sports franchises in the city, including the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL, the former Kansas City Kings of the NBA, and the former Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League.
In 1968, the team held a name-the-team contest that received more than 17,000 entries. Sanford Porte, a bridge engineer from the suburb of Overland Park, Kansas was named the winner for his “Royals” entry. His reason had nothing to do with royalty. “Kansas City’s new baseball team should be called the Royals because of Missouri’s billion-dollar livestock income, Kansas City’s position as the nation’s leading stocker and feeder market and the nationally known American Royal parade and pageant,” Porte wrote. The team’s board voted 6-1 on the name, with the only opposition coming from team owner Ewing Kauffman, who eventually changed his vote and said the name had grown on him.Entering the American League in 1969 along with the Seattle Pilots, the club was founded by Kansas City businessman Ewing Kauffman. The franchise was established following the actions of Stuart Symington, then-United States Senator from Missouri, who demanded a new franchise for the city after the Athletics (Kansas City's previous major league team that played from 1955 to 1967) moved to Oakland, California in 1968. Since April 10, 1973, the Royals have played at Kauffman Stadium, formerly known as Royals Stadium.
The new team quickly became a powerhouse, appearing in the playoffs seven times from 1976 to 1985, winning one World Series championship and another AL pennant, led by stars such as Amos Otis, Hal McRae, John Mayberry, George Brett, Frank White, Willie Wilson, and Bret Saberhagen. The team remained competitive throughout the early 1990s, but then had only one winning season from 1995 to 2012. For 28 consecutive seasons (1986–2013), the Royals did not qualify to play in the MLB postseason, one of the longest postseason droughts during baseball's current wild-card era. The team broke this streak in 2014 by securing the franchise's first wild card berth and advancing to the World Series. The Royals followed this up by winning the team's first Central Division title in 2015 and defeating the New York Mets for their first World Series title in 30 years.