Bill Cissell/pagetext

|summary=was a middle infielder who was purchased by the Chicago White Sox in 1927 for a then-record sum of $123,000 in cash and players (Ike Boone and Bert Cole).  His 17-year professional career, which began in 1925, included nine seasons in the majors.  He also managed the Pacific Coast League's Portland Beavers for most of the 1935 campaign.  Cissell was considered one of the top players in the PCL, but once he reached the majors, he failed to live up to his billing and was considered a bust, earning him the nickname, "The $123,000 Lemon." Alcohol abuse was widely blamed for his failure to reach the stardom predicted for him, and his drinking plagued him for most of his life.  Six years after his professional career ended, Cissell was offered a job as an electrician at Comiskey Park, and he proved to be a good worker.  Tragedy struck, however, in 1948 when he was stricken with Buerger's disease, which made it excrutiatingly painful for him to walk and unable to work.  By the time he was discovered living in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment with his 13-year-old son Gary, he was destitute and malnourished and suffering from hardening of the arteries.  Despite his poor condition, Cissell's prognosis looked promising and he fully recovered from the nerve inflammation in his legs, but during his hospital stay he suffered a heart attack on March 5, 1949 and died 10 days later at the age of 45.