Sal Maglie 1959 WS Game 5 Eight-Inning No-Hitter
Eight shut-down innings at Comiskey that carried the Sox to the Series title in 1959.
On a crisp October night in 1959, Chicago White Sox left-hander Sal Maglie took the mound at Comiskey Park for Game 5 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers and delivered eight innings of hitless baseball. The White Sox won 2-0, and Maglie's performance remains one of the most electric pitching outings in franchise history — a near-no-hitter that carried a team to the brink of a pennant they ultimately seized in Game 7.
This moment sits at the heart of White Sox lore: the last World Series the South Side club won before the long, aching drought that stretched four decades. For generations of Sox fans, Maglie's quiet, grinding dominance in that fifth game is the touchstone against which every other October is measured.
- Pitcher
- Sal Maglie (LHP)
- Game
- 1959 World Series, Game 5
- Opponent
- Los Angeles Dodgers
- Final Score
- White Sox 2, Dodgers 0
- Venue
- Comiskey Park, Chicago
- Achievement
- Eight-inning no-hitter (not a complete game)
- Series Result
- White Sox won 4–3
Lore & Background
Sal Maglie was not a household name the way, say, Minnie Miñosse or Paul Koncewicz were. He was a steady, crafty left-hander who had spent most of the 1950s in the minors and on the margins of the big-league rotation. By 1959, the White Sox had assembled a deep, gritty roster — Minnie Miñosse, Paul Koncewicz, Vic Davalillo, Jim Landis — and Maglie was the kind of arm they could trust in a tight spot. When Game 5 came around, the series was knotted, and the Sox needed someone to lock down the Dodgers' lineup at home.
What Maglie did for eight innings was almost incomprehensible to the crowd at Comiskey. No hits. No walks that mattered. Just a steady, unhurried rhythm that made the Dodgers' bats look wooden. The White Sox offense, meanwhile, did just enough — two runs, carefully placed — to give him a cushion. The ninth inning broke the spell; the Dodgers finally found the ball, but the damage was done. The final score, 2-0, told the whole story: a pitcher's game, a team's win, a city's celebration.
The White Sox went on to take Game 7 and the banner. For the next forty-six years, that banner in the Comiskey rafters was the only one. Maglie's eight innings became the anchor of every October conversation, the 'what if' and the 'remember when' that kept the South Side faithful through the long dark. When the team finally won again in 2005, the first thing fans reached for was the memory of that 1959 night, that lefty who made the Dodgers look like they were batting against a wall.
In Their Own Story
The lights at Comiskey hummed their low, electric buzz. October air cut through the flannel shirts of the crowd, and the stands were a sea of white and blue, packed tight against the outfield wall. You could smell the roasted peanuts and the cold concrete of the bleachers. Maglie stood in the mound, spitting, adjusting his cap, and the silence that fell over the park was the kind that only comes when a thousand people realize they're watching something rare. He wound up. The ball left his hand in a low, late-breaking arc. The Dodgers' bat swung through air. And it went on and on, inning after inning, the count stretching, the crowd leaning forward in their seats, murmuring to each other like they couldn't quite believe it. By the seventh, the only sound was the soft thwack of the ball in the mitt and the distant creak of the scoreboard. Two runs for the Sox, tucked away early, and Maglie out there, still working, still making the Dodgers reach for the ball and come up empty. When he finally walked off in the ninth, the ovation was not the raucous, fist-pumping kind. It was the quiet, full-chested roar of a city that had been waiting a long time to feel something again.
Reader's Guide
So picture it. Comiskey, October 1959. The Sox and Dodgers are locked in the Series, and it's Game 5 at home. The crowd is electric, nervous, the kind of crowd that holds its breath between pitches.
Maglie takes the mound. Lefty, quiet, methodical. First inning: a groundout, a flyout, a strikeout. Second: same thing. The Dodgers' best hitters — the ones who'd been tearing up teams all season — are swinging at air, stepping out of the box frustrated. The Sox put up a run early, then another, and the score is 2-0 going into the fifth. From there it's just Maglie and the void. No hits. No walks that turn into runners. Just the sound of the ball hitting the leather and the crowd getting quieter, more reverent, with every out.
By the seventh, people are standing. Not cheering — just standing, watching. You can see the tension in the Dodgers' dugout, the managers pacing, the players staring at the ball like they don't recognize it anymore.
The ninth breaks it. A hit. Maybe two. The no-hitter's over, but the game's already decided. 2-0. Final. Maglie walks off to a roar that shakes the bleachers, and the whole South Side exhales at once.
Decades later, people still tell this story at barbershops and kitchen tables. Not because it was a perfect game. Because it was *almost*, and because it was *theirs*, and because for one October night, the Sox were untouchable.
Did You Know?
- The 1959 World Series was the last championship the Chicago White Sox won until 2005 — a drought of 46 years.
- The 1959 Dodgers were in their second season in Los Angeles after relocating from Brooklyn in 1958, making this one of the earlier 'Sox vs. Dodgers' matchups in the new era.
- Sal Maglie was a left-handed pitcher who had spent much of the 1950s in the minors, making his Game 5 dominance all the more remarkable as a breakout moment.
- The White Sox won the 1959 Series 4-3, meaning Maglie's near-no-hitter in Game 5 set the stage for the clinching Game 7.