‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’
Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to offer you a brief lament, one which ironically must stand in for a longer piece I fear I may never get the chance to write. Yes, we need to talk for a moment about these goddamned Chicago White Sox.
And I don’t use “goddamned” colloquially or casually; I am in fact of the belief that God himself literally reached down from the heavens to put a curse upon the 2024 White Sox, which is the only explanation possible for their ability to lose 120 major league baseball games this season, tying the record for disastrous failure set by the New York Mets back in 1962 when they were an expansion team filled with nobodies. Inaugural manager Casey Stengel once lamented back then, in the locker room after a blowout: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
The answer both then and now was, of course, “Not really, no, at least not at a competitive level.” So it’s been strangely exhilarating for a lover of dark humor to see how many weird and wonderful ways the White Sox have found to be terrible on their way to equalling the Mets’ record of futility. The problem, of course, is that the White Sox are so bad that now, at the most inconvenient time imaginable, that they have even forgotten how to lose correctly. So after losing their 120th game, and with only six left in the season, they have torn off three in a row against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, two of them gritty comeback victories and the last a total blowout. It’s a terrible time for this team to find their courage, after a season’s worth of failure. And it’s delaying my celebration of historic awfulness, which I’ve been anticipating writing since mid August at least.
Thankfully, the White Sox are heading to Detroit tonight to play a Tigers team desperate to keep their playoff hopes alive. Unlike the moribund Angels, they’ll be playing for real stakes, and it would be both shocking and hilarious if they weren’t able to hang even one loss on the Sox. So stick around, I may get to write that piece yet. Until then, let’s celebrate yet another way in which Chicago has stolen New York City’s crown.