It seems all but assured that the Chicago White Sox will end their 2024 campaign as the worst team in Major League Baseball history in terms of won-loss record.
With a 33-114 record as of Friday before preparing to “battle” the merely conventionally atrocious Oakland A’s on Friday night, the White Sox have to lose just six of the 15 games remaining to tie the 120-loss record posted by the 1962 New York Mets in their very first year of existence. With the Sox having lost 17 of the previous 20 heading into the weekend, that seemed a safe bet.
So what might a Sox fan root for during the remainder of this season of infamy?
How about losing a little less frequently in the next week or thereabouts so that fans can see their White Sox break the record in person at Guaranteed Rate Field on Sept. 24, 25 or 26?
We don’t think it right that fans in San Diego or Los Angeles should be privileged to witness the breaking of such a long-standing record. If justice is served, beleaguered South Side fans should be the ones to see their team make history. Plenty of White Sox fans we know would like nothing more than forcing owner Jerry Reinsdorf and general manager Chris Getz to watch the product they’ve created achieve its full “potential” in front of the home crowd.
The baseball gods need to be most benevolent in order for that to happen. As we write Friday afternoon, the Sox will have to go 5-4 in order to return home Sept. 24 with the Mets record still standing and face the Los Angeles Angels. That’s asking quite a lot of a team that has lost nearly four of every five games this year.
If it happens, though, Chicago ought to make that one of the hottest tickets we’ve seen in this desultory baseball season on both sides of town.
History awaits. Go, Sox!
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