On Friday night, the Detroit Tigers broke the longest active Major League Baseball (MLB) playoff drought, clinching a wild card spot in a 4-1 victory. Announcing the final call with glee was Jason Benetti, longtime announcer of the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Southside native. Benetti was beloved by nearly every Sox fan, but nonetheless, he was forced out of the 101-loss team after the 2023 season to find work in Detroit because he was, according to an interview by NBC Sports Chicago, too analytical. Benetti was celebrated in the Tigers’ clubhouse as the players around him showered him with beer, champagne and love, but the night was overshadowed by another piece of immortal MLB history. The Tigers’ victory over the Chicago White Sox, marking the Sox’s 121st loss of the season. Never in the modern era of baseball (post-1901) has a team lost this many games in one season. This Sox team will forever be remembered as one of the worst teams to ever take the field, and as a Sox fan I could not be more excited for what is to come.
Three years ago this team was putting together the makings of a dynasty. Their young core of prospects had been signed to long-term contracts. Players like Luis Robert, former number one prospect Yoan Moncada and breakout ace Lucas Giolito were primed to dominate the American League Central for years to come, starting with their 93 win and 69 loss 2021 season. The South Side was buzzing with excitement, especially as the Chicago Cubs in the Northside continued to fade out of the spotlight. It would be impossible to cover everything that went catastrophically wrong for the Sox in an article like this, but it will suffice to cover the basics. The team has been in need of a coach since Ozzie Guillen was sacked in 2011. In just the last few years, they went from the geriatric Tony LaRussa—hired exclusively because he was a friend of owner Jerry Reinsdorf—to the unenthusiastic and completely incompetent Pedro Grifol and finally to interim and first-time manager Grady Sizemore. Personality issues have marred the clubhouse for the past few years; many leaders and veterans have refused to put in work with young players or show support for the community. The team has also dealt with more than its fair share of injuries, leaving their once promising young core on the sidelines while replacement-level players struggle to keep up with major league skill.
None of the issues mentioned above are unique to these White Sox; the only culprit worth losing sleep over is the owner. Reinsdorf has continually withheld competitive salaries, chosen yes-men to fill leadership roles and made the call to get rid of all the wrong players. While it is evident that he genuinely cares about the team, he refuses to operate past a 1970s understanding of the game. The concept of moneyball is completely lost on him, even as the owner of a team that loves to cosplay as a small-market franchise. Reports have come out about the Sox refusing to pay for scouts and analysts, instead relying on gut feelings and hokey old adages. Without any ability to evaluate talent or improve the existing team, contracts were handed out to all of the wrong players. Carlos Rodon was allowed to walk away after a near-Cy Young (pitcher of the year) campaign. Lance Lynn, Dallas Keuchel and Yasmani Grandal were each signed to a massive contract and played well for one year before age caught up to them. Moncada and Eloy Jimenez were too hampered by injuries and poor training to ever reach their star potential. In 2022, Dylan Cease made a significant bid for the Cy Young, but after a mediocre 2023, he was traded for a few second-rate prospects. Former captain and batting crown champion Tim Anderson fell into personal troubles, struggled to make contact and got KO’d at second base by the Guardians’ Jose Ramirez, completely ending his once respected career and in many ways ending any excitement the team had built up.
Prior to the 2024 season, almost all of the aforementioned players were traded or released, and the ones that were not were sent away during the trade deadline. In return, Reinsdorf and his incompetent front office put together a team of failed prospects, Triple-AAA sub-replacement level players and wash-ups—one of whom (Andrew Benintendi) earned the White Sox’s largest contract ever handed out. Only one active player in Friday’s game had an on-base percentage of over 0.300, an utterly abysmal figure given that the MLB average is currently 0.313. Their pitchers did not fare much better this season, as a vast majority of their pitchers hold Earned Run Averages high above 4.00, and only five players came away with a positive Wins Above Replacement on defense. There was absolutely nothing redeeming about this torturous team that Reinsdorf orchestrated.
Still, I could not have been more excited to see the Sox finally break the record. Being a White Sox fan, or a fan of any Chicago sports team for that matter, means reveling in the pathetic achievements of the team. Bears fans are perhaps the most well-known for their outspoken love masked as hatred for the team stemming very similarly from mismanagement and poor production outside of one fluke championship year. As true Chicagoans, Sox fans love to gripe and complain. We boo the manager, and we boo the players—we know what it means to be insignificant and written off. The coastal elites, southern gentry and even those cheese-heads up north have no idea what it means to have an owner so unwilling to let his team succeed that they break a record that has stood since the nineteenth century when the Cleveland Spiders lost 134 games in 1899. The most characteristic moment from this whole season, however, was the team’s unwillingness to go down without a fight. After they tied the record, they went 5-1 with their only loss being to the Tigers on Friday. This team was so bad that when it mattered most, they could not even be counted on to lose, which was the most poetic way to end the season. Benetti may have been down in the clubhouse celebrating with his new Tigers family, but we White Sox fans had something much more exciting to celebrate. For the first time since they won the World Series in 2005, the Sox went down in the history books so the next generations can understand what it means to live through the pain of loving their team. Chicago is the city of the big shoulders, the hog butcher to the world and now the home of perhaps the most infamous baseball team of all time.