Let's Put the "x" in Sox

"Near the turn of the century, advocacy groups like the Spelling Simplification Board pushed for spelling reform with renewed vigor; they argued that millions of dollars were wasted on printing useless letters. The editor of the Chicago Tribune, Joseph Medill, supported the idea. Medill stripped final 'e's from words like 'favorite' in the pages of his newspaper and even suggested more wholesale changes that would have made written English look something like e-mail spam."

In a 2005 Slate article, Daniel Engber explains why the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox spell their names so oddly.