The energizer Fox

Nellie Fox, in the midst of a 2-for-33 slump and an arduous 19-game road trip, plays his 274th straight game 69 years ago today in a 2-1 loss before a Friday night crowd of 12,159 at Baltimore.

The streak ends the next day as Chicago White Sox manager Marty Marion gives a day off to the pride of Pennsylvania's Franklin County.

The White Sox, who dust off Bobby Adams to replace Fox at second base, lose that game to the Orioles 8-1 before Marion reinserts Fox into the lineup the next day in 1955, beginning another streak of 798 consecutive games for the future Hall of Famer.

Marion later says that Fox calls sitting out after that 274th straight game “the most miserable day I ever spent in baseball.”

“It was,” Marion tells writer Dave Condon, “the most miserable day of my life, too – having to listen to him gripe from the bench.”