It’s historical ineptness in real-time.
There’s no fun baseball being played on Chicago’s South Side this season. How so? The White Sox are closing in on the 120-game loss record held by the 1962 New York Mets. The team has already lost over 100 games (106 games through August 31), and GM Chris Getz has fired manager Pedro Grifol, bench coach Charlie Montoyo, third-base coach Eddie Rodriguez, and assistant hitting coach Mike Tosar.
No team wants its name connected to the 120-game loss record registered by the 1962 Mets, even though several teams have come close, including the 2003 Detroit Tigers (119), the 2018 Baltimore Orioles (115), and the 2019 Tigers (114).
“No one wants to be associated with a record like that,” Getz said.
The headlines in the local Chicago newspapers and online media outlets also show how bad things are for the White Sox.
Chicago Tribune: “Chicago White Sox GM Chris Getz is trying to keep his head when everyone else is losing theirs,” and “A tough baseball month is ahead in Chicago as Cubs tease and White Sox wheeze.”
South Side Sox: “The sadness of being a White Sox fan.”
Chicago Sun-Times: “White Sox just as bad under Grady Sizemore, but players love him — and the feeling is mutual.”
The fans at Guaranteed Rate Field also showed how bad it is for them, holding up signs like, “C’mon guys, just win one. Please,” and “Sell The Team.”
At games, White Sox fans are wearing brown paper bags over their heads to signify how bad the season is, and they have taken to social media to vent their frustration. In the face of it all, the club has dropped ticket prices to $7.00 and will drop them again towards the end of the season to (get this) $1.00.
But historically bad teams don’t automatically lose fans. For example, nearly 925,000 fans paid to see the 1962 Mets play, an attendance total that ranked sixth in the National League that year. But there was an extenuating circumstance: it was the team’s inaugural season.
Making it worse still, the Sox are coming off a lousy season, going 61-101 in 2023. That performance was as bad as the 2018 team that lost 100 games. Those seasons of ineptitude are especially perplexing when you consider that Tony La Russa’s 2021 team won 93 games and made it to the ALDS, losing to the Houston Astros. Moreover, the White Sox won a World Series Championship in 2005 with Ozzie Guillen in charge, winning 96 regular-season games that year.
But that was then. Today, stories of unskillfulness abound. For example, Sports Illustrated published a story about second baseman Lenyn Sosar being hit in the face by a ball thrown to him in warm-ups. As one fan put it on X: “I have never seen a pro sports team this bad…. I don’t know what the fans did to deserve this. Atrocious.”
That comment pretty much sums up the 2024 White Sox.
