CHICAGO – At the White Sox-Angels game on Tuesday night, lifelong Sox fan Thomas Marchese wore a promotional White Sox yacht captain’s hat.
His friend and fellow Sox fan Sven Burke explained the odd choice of headwear: “He’s going down with the ship.”
This week, the White Sox sat on the verge of making the kind of history no ball club wants to be remembered for: most losses in a single season since the 19th century.
In 1899, the Cleveland Spiders finished with 134 losses. Few teams in the modern era have even come close to that level of futility.
The expansion Mets set the modern record at 120 in 1962, a mark the White Sox tied last weekend.
The White Sox began the season with consecutive losing streaks of four, five, six and seven games. They also had separate runs of 14 and 21 losses.
Hardcore Sox fans said the gloomy reality set in early.
“It didn’t take long,” said Betty Thornson, who retired and became a 20-game White Sox season ticket holder a few years ago. “I knew it was going to be a very long season. It was just so disheartening to watch that because these kids are playing their fannies off.”
Burke, who lives three blocks from the ballpark, knew something was up early in the season “when I didn’t have to worry about parking on game day. … No one’s trying to sell parking, there’s a spot right in front of my house.”
Fans of all stripes were betting that the ball club would lose at least one more game during their final homestand of the year, a three-game series with the Los Angeles Angels.
On Tuesday, a rain delay of more than an hour set the tone for the evening at Guaranteed Rate Field, the only MLB park whose sponsor features a logo with a giant downward-pointing red arrow. The crowd was noticeably annoyed. It became clear many people had come just to say they were on hand to see a historic loss.
The crowd booed bad Sox plays and frequently broke into enthusiastic chants of “SELL THE TEAM” targeted at White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who has been accused of pinching pennies and contributing to a lousy clubhouse atmosphere.
“You see all the other clubs competing for players that are highly sought after and gonna make a difference on the team and it really feels like we’re not even in the conversation, and that’s painful to watch unfold,” Marchese said.
After the seventh-inning stretch, the Sox spirit squad tossed balled-up T-shirts into the crowd. In an unprecedented move, someone actually threw a T-shirt back onto the field in disgust.
The historically terrible performance of the team “has a lot of emotion behind it,” Marchese said. “It is gut-wrenching to watch. I’ve listened to almost every game on the radio coming home from work, if I’m not here, and it’s affected my mental health.”
Despite some T-ball worthy plays by both teams, the Angels were ahead 1-0 at the end of the seventh inning and made it 2-0 in the top of the eighth. But then, a miracle.
The Sox rallied for three runs in the bottom of the eighth and held on to win, improving their record to 1-94 this year in games they have trailed after the seventh inning.
When the White Sox made the final out and won the game, the crowd actually booed. The team had prevented attendees from witnessing the modern loss record.
“We were so close to history!” an exiting fan screamed to no one.
For the second game of the series Wednesday night, pairs of tickets on StubHub were selling at $1.35 each. Fans were gouged with $8.89 in fees, bringing the total price for two tickets to $11.59.
Low demand caused ticket prices to crash, one of the few silver linings of the nightmare season, Marchese said.
“This season most games I have not paid more than $5,” he said. “It’s been so cheap it’s ridiculous.”
The Wednesday night crowd was more subdued, likely because the Sox were ahead or tied through most of the game. The organist played “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” and most people clapped their hands.
In a silent protest, Sox fan Steve Miller from South Bend, Ind., carried a small sign on the concourse behind the outfield seats. One side read “Jerry, sell the team because our fan base deserves an owner that wants to win.”
“Every time we do a rebuild, we get strong people in positions and then they don’t want to find free agents to fill our gaps,” Miller said. “So, it’s like the same thing over and over.”
The Angels tied the game in the top of the eighth and threatened to deliver that historic knockout blow. But the Sox came out on top with a walk-off hit in the bottom of the 10th inning.
The teams played the final game of the series on a baseball-perfect Thursday afternoon. No negative chanting. No vultures cheering for a loss. In the end, the White Sox blew the game open with a seven-run rally in the seventh and swept the Angels, once again defying – or delaying – history.
The Sox play their final three games in Detroit.
In a bit of irony, Thursday’s game contributed to a bit of negative Angels history: The team set an new all-time franchise record for losses in a season at 96.
If there is one thread that ties White Sox fans together, even in the face of such historic failure, it’s perhaps the most potent emotion in all of sports: hope.
“You get a couple of good players there, and hope springs eternal,” Thornson said. “These kids (have played well) in the last few games and maybe next year it’ll roll over. It’s sad but I’m already thinking that.”