For the White Sox, less is more, especially when it comes to winning
The White Sox can only ruin it from here. Winning streaks, even little ones, will ruin everything. Victory is the enemy.
Not only does winning mess up the distinctiveness of the White Sox, winning changes the Sox from unique and tragic into dreary and ordinary.
What the Sox need is even fewer runs and more bases on balls. Slumps and funks and poor pitching, missed chances, failed rallies and curious strategies are the way to go.
How much better are the simple shrugs of sympathy than are the bitter groans of cruel regret.
Losing road trips, dismal homestands, the looming month of May crushing down as if it is already September, all the pressures of achievement can be ignored. Retreat is just another word for style.
The Sox are in a safer place, a saner place, a place where surprise is unwelcome, where disappointment is reassuring, where a two-run inning is a worry and a winning streak is to be avoided at all times.
Keeping company with the woeful Orioles of ’88 is, of course, a start, but the Sox can do better. There are many records within reach if only the Sox bend low enough.
Worst Sox team of all time? Trying to find anyone to argue that is harder than finding someone who cares. That is why it is important to have goals, to give this season a frame before it floats off into ignorable mediocrity.
The Sox require a number to authenticate their awfulness and the habit of even horrible baseball teams to wander into a rally complicates the job. The number to settle for all time just how awful the Sox are is 49. That’s raw incompetence, fewest wins in a season, not as distinctive as the recent 2019 Tigers’ 47 wins, but achievable.
The ’48 Sox won 51 games for a percentage of .336. This was slightly worse than last season’s .377, but we have to believe those Sox were probably just trying too hard.
While winning 50 or so games could put the Sox in the company of notable failures, the ‘76 Expos, the ‘66 Cubs, the ‘52 Pirates, it is still not distinctive enough. To be truly and eternally celebrated, they would have to stop at 39, just short of those legendary Mets of 1962 — 40 wins, 60½ games behind.
No greater effort is really required. If this team can go on just as it is it can finish well under 40 wins, maybe even under 30 and no modern team will be able to hold their heads that low.
I say the Sox ought to shoot for at least 50 games behind. Since the realignment into divisions in ’69, it is hard to finish too far behind, but the ’98 Devil Rays manage to be 51 back, so falling behind 10 games a month could take the Sox into late September for a shot at immortality.
Being the worst is not as easy as it seems. The ‘03 Tigers blew their opportunity to replace the Mets as the worst team of all time by winning five of their last six and thus are parked with other baseball afterthoughts. The Sox have to guard constantly against sudden competence.
Along the way, the Sox may pick up other little earmarks for history, losing a game by more than 27 runs, losing from eight runs ahead, grounding into more than 174 double plays, giving up more than 6.01 earned runs a game, walking 738 or more batters.
The team record of 15 losses in a row should be a cinch, and while the impressive 23 consecutive losses by the ’61 Phillies may require some outside help, the Sox do control their own destiny.
The Sox can be the highest compost heap in baseball’s long history of piling up such stuff. Oh, sure, competition is a little tougher this season than when the Philadelphia A’s won only 36 games in 1916. There was no Oakland or Kansas City or Miami to make a race of it.
Can the Sox do it? Faith can move mountains, if not runners into scoring position.
Remember, aim low. The worst of luck. And may the farce be with you.