After getting swept by the hapless Cubs, reports are beginning to surface that a fire sale is now being planned for the Chicago White Sox that’ll make the Reds yearly reach-around look like the Mulder-Haren trade, as yet another season ends in ignominious failure. While some bastions of support still exist (generally within the prison population of Illinois) it’s understood that when your club is only a game and a half up on the Kansas City Royals, it’s time to give up the ship. This is a welcome development for most baseball fans, because despite winning a World Series in 2005, the Southsiders haven’t exactly become America’s team.
Outside of Internet phenom Jim Thome and the ever entertaining Ozzie Guillen, there isn’t a lot to like with this brand of White Sox. Ever since Jose Contreras was reunited with his family and was placed in a lower-pressure environment, the guy lost a lot of his good story and drawing power. Any team that values Scott Podsednik can’t be taken seriously, and the media blow-ups the team’s General Manager has with past players leave a bad taste in viewers’ mouths, since the world will remember Frank Thomas long after Kenny Williams is dead. Injuries abound with the 2007 club, and while almost none of it could have been planned or corrected, these kinds of things don’t happen to the Dallas Cowboys of the world. Unless of course you’re Michael Irvin.
The fact is, outside of a banner World Series victory in recent memory, the White Sox are probably one of the most wretched franchises that’s ever graced the national pastime. Before an 88 year championship drought was extinguished, they were even more pathetic than the Red Sox, but with far worse press coverage. Really, outside of providing misery for their own followers and fodder for the fans of other teams, the most notable thing about the CHW’s were those uniforms with the shorts, which were also some of the historically bad variety. Just like Rutgers football really has no place in the pantheon of great college teams, the White Sox don’t probably belong in the list of great teams and perennial contenders along with the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, A’s, and Dodgers. Ere go, this team was doomed from the start—it was written in the stars.
Now, does this mean things can’t get better? In a macro sense, yes. But good trades of essentially the entire team could put the White Sox in prime position to repeat some semblance of their 2005 success, provided the Twins, Indians, Tigers, and Royals, all get progressively worse as the years go by, and that has a pretty good chance of happening, right?
It’s time to revel in glorious schadenfreude, and outside of watching (VaJay)Jay Mariotti poking White Sox fans with a stick through his gilded cage, the greatest thing about the early demise of the White Sox are the wailings of the insidious Ken “the Hawk” Harrelson. If you are a person who believes in “goodness” and “truth” then Harrelson is almost certainly the Joesph Goebbels of a Major League Baseball organization. Not only during his announcing is he out-and-out rooting for the Southsiders, he tells outright lies to keep the fans entertained. Seeing Iraqi Information Minister Harrelson do the play-by-play for one of the league’s worst teams will bring delight to the millions of viewers who can actually see WGN.
Congratulations to the 2007 Chicago White Sox. For about the first month of the season, you guys hung in there pretty well. Unforunately, this would not be the case throughout the rest of the baseball year. The new rallying cry of your team will now be “Let’s not be worse than the Royals.” It’s an accomplishable goal, I think. Probably more so than winning another World Series this century, anyway.
5 comments:
lol, I guess you didn't grow up watching the Cubs. Easily one of the worst performing franchise of all time (play to money spent anyways). You probably couldn't find a more popular team that continuously disappoints.
The Cubs are like the pre-champion Red Sox. They spend money, they have loads of adoring fans and an very iconic ballpark.
The White Sox, on the other hand, are like Baltimore. They puff out their chests and spend just enough money on jackasses so that they never appear at the bottom of the league. In other words, they both just suck. (Although the White Sox are worse since they tore down their Camden Yards and now the worst ballpark in America.)
Although the White Sox are worse since they tore down their Camden Yards and now the worst ballpark in America
Both ballparks were built by the same architects. That's my useless and boring fact of the day....
You people don't know anything. If by perrenial contender you mean a team that's reached the World Series many years in a row, then yes the White Sox have a bad record. They're still a hell of a lot better than the several teams who have never been to a World Series, but I guess they're not included in your list of worst baseball teams(probably because you don't know all the teams in the MLB).
As far as contending, were you in a coma for the first half of the 1990's? How can you claim to be a MLB fan and not acknowledge their contention in that era, as well as the several other teams in franchise history laden with hall of famers.
It's really easy to say bad things about a team playing horribly, but believe it or not it happens to every team. I can't explain why the White Sox are doing so poorly this year, but neither can you. And nothing in your blog comes close to a legitimate statement. All I see is "blah blah blah I don't like the Sox." Well, good for you, but unfortunately that doesn't make them the worst team in the majors. It's pretty funny, nonetheless, to read people's attempts like this.
Oh and to the guy who doesn't know the name of the Sox stadium, it was Commiskey Park and new Commiskey when they made the new stadium in the 90s. They sold out and changed the name to U.S. cellular about 5 years ago I think. And I have NO defense for that one.
Much love,
random Sox fan
P.S. just a word of advice - articles hating on teams or whoever may draw rouse from people who share your hate, but usually just expose your ignrorance to everyone else. What's there to gain in hating on teams? I find it a lot more fulfilling to write FACTS and actual insights about teams, but why don't you just start with a team you do like and see if you can go a paragraph without a subjective and therefore irrelevant comment or two. Just a thought.
I'm glad you think it's funny, Thomas Paine, because that's what I'm always going for.
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