When Jerry Reinsdorf stood in the balcony at the Ramova Theatre overlooking SoxFest Live, you couldn’t help but think of Statler and Waldorf, the elderly Muppets characters who heckled Kermit the Frog from a similar, overhanging balcony box.
The only difference was the heckling wasn’t coming from the White Sox chairman. It was aimed directly at Reinsdorf, as a few angry Sox fans chanted “Sell the team.”
This definitely was not part of the revamped program at the small Bridgeport venue, but it made the Ramova feel like home.
Otherwise, SoxFest Live, or “SoxFest Lite,” as some called it, went off with only a few glaring hitches. The “reimagined” version of the annual fan gathering, once held inside large downtown ballrooms with several panel discussions and signing sessions, was downsized after a five-year hiatus following the 2020 gathering at McCormick Place that featured stars like Yasmani Grandal, Dallas Keuchel and Tim Anderson.
A crowd of about 600 attended Friday’s opening night, according to one employee, while Saturday’s finale grew to around 900. Anyone who would pay for tickets and try to find parking on a Saturday night in Bridgeport to hear about a team that lost a modern-day record 121 games and spent almost nothing on free agents this offseason truly qualified as a diehard Sox fan.
Marketing boss Brooks Boyer, who survived the 2023 purge that cost Rick Hahn and Ken Williams their jobs, has his hands full trying to convince fans to come out to the ballpark during the rebuild.
Even though Luis Robert Jr., the team’s one remaining star, was not on hand for the festivities, Sox fans didn’t seem to mind the meet-and-greet with prospects like Noah Schultz, Hagen Smith and Braden Montgomery, who may or may not make the opening day roster.
After a band played the hits — including “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Thunderstruck,” comedian Kevin Bozeman warmed up the crowd with a monologue that roasted new Sox manager Will Venable, whom he called “uncomfortably attractive.” Bozeman joked that Venable would try to “seduce the umpire” by looking directly into his eyes when arguing balls and strikes.
It was very evident this would not be as cutting edge as the Netflix roast of Tom Brady. Last year a comedian at a Sox season ticket holder event at the Field Museum made a joke about Tony La Russa and the museum’s dinosaur exhibit, which apparently was too close to home.
There’s plenty of material to work with when making fun of the Sox, but Bozeman opted to ignore easy targets like Reinsdorf’s age, gunshots at the ballpark, the nonstop injuries or the record for all-time losses in a season.
Instead, he told the crowd they were a resistant bunch.
“We know how to take a punch … unlike Tim Anderson,” he said.
Rim shot. Poom, poom.
That joke, of course, was a reference to the former Sox shortstop being knocked to the ground during a 2023 fight with Cleveland’s José Ramírez. A cheap shot at Anderson, perhaps, but that’s the way it goes in Bizarro Sox World. One year you’re the face of the franchise, even holding a bat-flipping seminar at the 2020 SoxFest. Now Anderson was the butt of a bad joke at SoxFest Live. It’s a new era.
After the monologue, Bozeman hosted some party games onstage with Sox players and a few people from the crowd, calling shortstop Colson Montgomery “Colin” until being corrected by fans who shouted out “Colson.” Montgomery was too polite to correct the comedian and probably didn’t want to damage his chances of making the team.
Eventually, the program moved on to the main event, the “State of the Sox” panel, featuring the Sox front office, minus GM Chris Getz. This was once an annual SoxFest slugfest — with executives Williams and Hahn taking shots left and right, and delivering their own sharp retorts. Even if you weren’t a fan of Williams or Hahn, you had to admire their ability to deal with the hostility.
Getz, who made it to Friday’s panel, was not on hand for Day Two, so the panel featured Venable, bench coach Walter McKinven, director of player personnel Gene Watson, director of player development Paul Janish and Chicago Sports Network broadcasters John Schriffen and Steve Stone.
Unfortunately, the attention span of Sox fans had waned by this point in the evening. The crowd murmur in the back of the room and in the balcony made it difficult to hear what anyone was saying.
SoxFest quickly went off the rails. Fans without microphones shouted indecipherable questions, and most of the panelists gave canned responses inferring everything would be fine.
The loudest boos were reserved for Watson after he said Sox fans would soon understand this was the “best front office” in the major leagues. It was like standing in front of a landfill and announcing it would one day become Disneyland. Sox fans were not buying it.
McKinven, who came over from the Milwaukee Brewers, made a rookie mistake by suggesting the Sox weren’t as awful as everyone believed, pointing to the playoff team of 2021. That 2021 season is a lifetime ago to many, so McKinven also was booed.
That left it to Stone to try ending the panel on a high note. After everyone but Stone and Schriffen departed the stage, Stone predicted the Sox would “make every effort to not let (the opposition) have four outs (per inning)” under Venable. Stone was applauded for conceding the obvious about their porous defense in ’24 and the need to correct it immediately.
Before a history lesson that virtually no one paid attention to, the audience was treated to a video revealing upcoming promotions, featuring three Sox fans sitting in a hot tub during the polar vortex discussing the bobblehead giveaways.
It turned out the “actors” were from Section 108, the diehard fan group that lambasted management when Hahn was GM, but now has been recruited to help market the 2025 season. Somehow it makes perfect sense considering the shaky state of the franchise and the nation.
Food and promotions are two things the Sox do well, so hopefully Getz and the baseball operations department can catch up and give fans a decent enough product to go with their encased sausages and free hoodies.
Sox fans have taken a few gut punches in the last three years, but they’re still standing.
Reimagine that.
