José Canseco swings his last
1938
After losing four straight exhibition games to the Cubs, a Luke Appling home run helps knock off the White Sox rivals, 10-9, in Los Angeles.
That was the good news.
The bad news came in the ninth inning, when Appling at first base took off on a hit and run, with batter Joe Kuhel fouling off the pitch. Appling stopped his slide awkwardly, breaking a bone near his ankle. The shortstop, who was hospitalized in L.A. before taking a train back to Chicago, was given a recovery time frame of three weeks to two months.
Appling ended up taking more than three months to rehab and return. Coming off of a 6.2 WAR season in 1937 that saw him finish 17th in MVP voting, he pinch-hit twice in June but didn’t return full-time until July 8. From there, Appling struggled over 81 games, to a 1.8 WAR. It ended up as the third-worst WAR per game of his Hall of Fame career.
One day earlier, All-Star starting pitcher Monty Stratton was injured on the mound, delaying his first start of 1938 until May 24.
The 1938 White Sox finished 65-83-1, sixth of eight teams in the AL.
2002
Slugger José Canseco was released by the Montreal Expos, effectively ending his career. That makes his 2001 stop in Chicago (76 games, 16 homers, 49 RBIs, 0.8 WAR) the last stop of his seven-team, 17-year career. The last of his 462 career home runs came in Yankee Stadium on October 3, the only Chicago run in a 2-1 loss.