If White Sox can't catch Cubs now, can they ever?

The White Sox are blowing another opportunity.

The climate is primed for the Sox to put a dent in the Cubs' hold on Chicago, but they aren't making any progress.

Neither of these franchises is inspiring right now, but at least the Sox are only a half-game out of first place while this is the worst collection of Cubs in my lifetime. However, the standings never seem to matter in this two-team race for the hearts and minds of Chicagoans.

What's significantly different this time is the ill will the Ricketts ownership has drawn toward itself.

There was that controversy over whatever was the family's involvement in a Political Action Committee associated with a racist proposal to beat Barack Obama in November.

Then there is the ongoing attempt to extract public money to renovate Wrigley Field, a strategy that has the stench of rich people asking the rest of us for a handout.

Often the past couple of decades the mood often was, “I love the Cubs, but I don't like them.” Now some of those fans have fallen out of love, too.

Yet the Sox aren't gaining any ground. Attendance at Cubs-Sox interleague games indicates Chicagoans aren't happy with either of these teams.

This looks like a competition with no winner even as the Cubs remain more popular.

The Sox' marketing department still can't find a way to lure more people to home games, and general manager Kenny Williams expressed again this week that he can't improve the club if fans don't come out.

Nobody wants to hear that any more than anybody at Wrigley Field wants to see Alfonso Soriano in the batter's box admiring one of his batted balls.

The Sox have a couple of months to take advantage of the Cubs' latest struggles, but they just don't seem capable of doing so.

Maybe the issue is moot and the Cubs are destined to remain the city's dominant daffy gaffes. But of all the times it looked like the Sox could make a big move, this might be the most advantageous.

If it doesn't happen this time, it might be time for the Sox to concede that it never will. If they haven't already surrendered, that is.

How many times over the past few decades has it appeared that the Sox were on the way up, the Cubs were on the way down, and they would pass each other on the way?

With a few notable exceptions when the Cubs teased with spasms of competence — playoff teams in 1984, '89, '98, 03, '07 and '08 — the Sox had a better run in the standings.

Yet the Hare with the better record hasn't been able to catch the Tortoise with the worse record.

OK, so here's another chance, and the sense is if the Sox don't do it this time they never will.

This is an opportunity that didn't seem possible last autumn when Tom Ricketts recruited the successful Theo Epstein to join the Cubs as president of baseball operations.

The Cubs were darlings again. But now Epstein's off-season moves have the Cubs competing for baseball's worst record, ownership has credibility problems, and the faithful are frustrated.

Yet the White Sox are doing little to challenge the Cubs' local supremacy, including being unable to sustain last month's surge in the standings.

If the Sox don't take over this town this year or next, it might be time to assume they never will.

mimrem@dailyherald.com