Rongey: Sad there's no scoreboard watching for Chicago White Sox

It's not usual when one of your favorite times of the year simultaneously carries a bit of sadness, but we're in one now.

While it seems most people in Chicago are partial to spring and summer, I've always been in love with fall.

Sure, spring brings with it the beginning of baseball and the end of the frost.

Summer means we're provided with the promise of baseball every day for the foreseeable future while releasing us from the burden of parkas and scarves.

But fall always has been my preferred season.

Mainly because, for me, there just isn't anything like fall baseball. It's not just the weather, of course. It's the feel. The crisp air simply reminds me of ballgames where every single pitch matters like it's the one that could save or end the season.

This past week and weekend finally felt like the beginning of that. Temperatures in the upper-60s coincided with a White Sox home series, and it was perfect.

Well, nearly perfect.

As much as I adore pennant-race baseball, and the subsequent postseason, it's just never the same when the team you most want to be there is going to miss out.

Yes, the White Sox will play out the string and I'll take as much pleasure in each game as I can until it's gone.

Even disappointing baseball is better than no baseball, and we're just a couple of months away from missing those 72-degree nights at the ballpark. That's because I love those nights, even if a “W” doesn't come with it.

However, like everyone else, I was hoping the Sox would force us to care about what the Texas Rangers are doing every night. Scoreboard watching is the anxious byproduct of a team in the middle of a dogfight for a playoff spot.

I remember vividly keeping tabs on every Minnesota Twins game in September 2008, cheering for and celebrating losses. Texting and calling one of my die-hard White Sox fan friend after every one of their games and ours. Listening to him curse Joe Mauer and watching him throw things.

Freddie's married with kids and mellowed out by now. He hasn't chucked his hat across the bar in awhile, but then again, the Sox haven't given him a reason to do so during a playoff hunt in quite some time.

And that's the unfortunate thing about this September. The temperature is right, soon it'll start to feel like October, and there's going to be a true race in the AL wild card, but the Sox won't be a part of it.

I'll still watch baseball closely because a playoff race is a playoff race, even though many already have turned their attention to Bears season (which tends to happen in a football town like Chicago).

I'll live vicariously through another team's worry and success.

Somewhere in Fort Worth, there's a Texas Rangers version of Freddie who will be cursing Joe Mauer over the next few weeks. I just wish it was our Freddie who was doing it.

• Chris Rongey is the host of the White Sox pregame and postgame shows on WSCR 670-AM The Score. Follow him on Twitter@ChrisRongey and at chrisrongey.com.