In the closing minutes of the last home game for the 2024 Chicago White Sox, one could feel the Earth’s rotation grind to a halt.
It was as if Guaranteed Rate Field itself let out an exhausted, terminating sigh of relief. Even the fireworks that marked the end felt rushed, brief and eager to be done with. The hurt was past. The horror — at least here on 35th Street (there were still three games left to play in Detroit) — was over. A lone gull looped high above right field, averted its eyes and flew off. The sky was cloudless and the flat metal top of a vendor’s grill, already scrubbed and cold, chimed with the clumsy clang of dropped tongs. Individual sounds leaped out.
“Let’s go White Sox,” a fan in the left field stands cried, hoping for one farewell chant.
He was met with a single, sarcastic clap, several rows over.
If, by chance, anyone had come to root for the Los Angeles Angels, they left. Indeed, within 10 minutes of the last out, only a handful of pensive White Sox fans remained.
It was an odd wake, full of melancholy, contradiction, elation.
Sort of like leaving the DMV.
The day’s score was White Sox 7, Angels 0. And yet, that season record …
Fan Appreciation Week — no, seriously — was done, and as you surely know by now, it did not end with the White Sox crowned the worst baseball team since 1900. Loss number 121 — one more loss than the 1962 New York Mets — would have to wait.
Apocalypse later.
A middle-aged man with a faded White Sox cap who asked not to be named — he had skipped work to witness a train wreck — pointed out that, in fact, though this was bad, sure, the Cubs, historically, have lost at least 1,000 more games than the White Sox. And that’s true: the Cubs have lost 10,760 games to the White Sox’s 9,607. (Though it must be noted the Cubs were founded 18 years earlier and had a head start.)
Either way, that’s cold comfort, and before Chicago, Major League Baseball, the South Side and the gods of competition move on, let us pick over this one last disaster scene.
Nick Sheridan of Indiana sat alone in the right field stands, staring blankly at the John Deere groundskeeping vehicles that were already crisscrossing the bases, preparing the infield for winter hibernation. Surely he was pondering fate or the nature of loss? The harsh beauty of baseball? What it had meant to stave off the inevitable for just nine more innings?
“Actually,” he said, “I thought I’d wait out the traffic.”
Then he pondered a little and added, “I also haven’t been to a game in two years, but felt I needed to be here. Beautiful day and I’m also glad that I did not witness history.”
Talking to fans who remained at the ballpark, you heard that a lot: They didn’t come as much this year, but felt they needed to be there now. They’d seen TV coverage and big empty sections of a ballpark built for 40,000 people. A funeral is sad, but an unattended one looks unbearable.
Speaking of attendance: The last home game of this terrible year still somehow pulled in 15,678 on a Thursday afternoon at the end of September. Not so bad, considering.
Janie Urbanic, who runs a non-profit in the South Loop for aging Chicagoans, stood in Section 320, working a spoon around the last drops of an ice cream cup. She tries to come to the final home game every year; she’s been doing it for 30 years. She looked around her and said this is the most people who had been in her section all season. There were 14 people there during the game, including Urbanic. That’s not what bothers her. What bothers her are “disconcerting people who came to cheer failure. Some of the games here this year were hard to watch, but that response was harder.”
“Disaster porn,” another fan described it.
Stadium DJs fed this, wittily. Green Day sang: “Wake me up when September ends.” Dire Straits added: “That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it / Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free.” In the rear of Section 108, friends Ron Casten and Mark Waskelo playfully argued over the merits of a meaningless win versus a historic loss.
Waskelo: “You want them to win but since they’ll inevitably lose, it should been here.”
Casten: “No, look, you don’t hope for a loss, regardless.”
Guaranteed Rate Field, at the very end, fueled on $5 beers and $5 Polish sausages, became a funhouse mirror of a successful season: Shirtless men danced a jig, and ushers, no longer feigning to check tickets, hugged each other and said their goodbyes until next season. Pizza heating lamps clicked off and cases of Miller Lite were stacked for storage. Cuban Comet Sandwich went quiet, 35th Street Taco went quiet.
Liz Kuziela, who works as a server on the 300 level, said there are parties and goodbye meet-ups for service workers, but now, “You just hear the people with me in back going, ‘Is this over yet? Not yet? OK… over now?’” She said there were days this season while walking to work, you wouldn’t even know major league baseball was being played there.
During the final three outs, a security guard in the bleachers walked from section to section, calling out: “Hey guys! I just want to tell you thanks for coming out this season!” That got a cheer every time. Though several rows behind, a man sat by himself with red misty eyes. As a reporter approached, he read their media credentials and said: “No! Not right now!” When the last out came and the fireworks went off, there was a final cheer — longer than a typical final cheer. Brendan Casey turned to the strangers behind him in the bleachers and said plainly: “Like a bad dream … Just a bad dream …”
Everyone nodded.
Two stragglers —Aldo Blanco and son Frankie Blanco Shubert — were hesitant to run off after the last pitch. Frankie carried a sign. The sign offered snacks to the players if they got a hit, but more importantly, it also said that they still had faith in the White Sox.
So you think the Sox still have a chance this year, they were asked.
Aldo laughed. But Frankie, seeing beyond this year, said earnestly that the Sox will get better, it won’t always be this bad. Aldo, listening, looked charmed by his son.
“We didn’t come today to see history,” Aldo explained. “And we did not come expecting miracles.”
