White Sox: September 2008 Archives

Chicago provided enough support to its two baseball teams that both reached the playoffs. The same can be said of Los Angeles.

As for the self-proclaimed "Capital of the World," New York won't have any playoff baseball coming through this year.

It's October and there will be plenty on the plate in the Chicago area the next few weeks. It can't get any better than this for an area baseball fan.

May the best team win.

I'm guessing that White Sox and Cubs fans can agree on one thing when it comes to who they'd like to have doing play-by-play during the most important games of their teams' baseball seasons. Not Dick Stockton.

I haven't blogged about the Pale Hose since July 31, when the the Sox brought in Ken Griffey Jr. to upgrade their outfield and bench.

The ups and downs since then have been numerous and over time I've trained myself to avoid the knee-jerk reaction blog. 'This is the nature of baseball,' I would tell myself. 'No reason to get worked up when they can come out and just win tomorrow.' I even avoided writing when the then-MVP Carlos Quentin went down with a broken wrist.

Well here we go.

After another lackluster loss on Wednesday toa team that probably can't wait to just get the season over with, the Sox continue on an frustrating voyage (11-14 in their last 25) as they head towards October.

Luckily for the team and Sox fans, the Minnesota Twins are currently experiencing their own breakdown. A 10-16 stretch in that same period, culminating in Wednesday's three-game sweep at the hands of the once-mighty Cleveland Indians, has kept the Twinkies back 2.5 games.

Sox fans are all cognizant of the fact that nearly everyone in the bullpen has proved unreliable (We saw your last two outings, welcome to the club Scott Linebrink!) but it's even more disappointing that the team's top sluggers have all gone quiet in these, the most important games of the season.

Without Quentin, most fans' eyes turned to Jermaine Dye to pick up the slack. In his last 11 games, J.D. has hit .244 with four walks and six RBI's. Hardly the production one would hope from a potential MVP candidate down the stretch.

But wait there's more.

In his last 11 ballgames, Jim Thome has hit .184 with six walks and seven RBI's. I guess that infield shift has been working.

Everybody's favorite tough guy A.J. Pierzynski might have pulled the wool over the umps' eyes when the Sox played Tampa but he's been unable to muster much trickery when at the plate of late. In his last 11, Pierzynski has hit .191 with no walks and three RBI's.

Of course no one can match "Dirty 30" Nick Swisher. His season has gone from poor to rotten in the last month. In his last 11 contests, the fan favorite has hit .103 with two walks and two RBI's.

Only the bats of Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramirez, Juan Uribe and Dewayne Wise have provided much life as of late.

The fact of the matter is that if the Sox hitters and relievers were performing as expected the last couple of weeks, the Sox would be up at least six games in the division. Instead, they continue to play inconsistent ball, hoping Minnesota will lose and praying - down on their knees praying - that they will have a significant lead when they roll into the hellmouth that is the Metrodome next Tuesday.

It's a lousy way to head into October - if they even get there - and certainly doesn't give fans much hope that the Sox will win more than a game in the postseason.

Let's hope things change and change quickly - as in tomorrow. As the immortal Hawk Harrelson says, "It's time to cinch it up and hunker down."

On Friday afternoon, The Score's Terry Boers and Dan Bernstein set aside putting down their callers for a couple minutes.

And they actually went through an entire segment without loudly sighing into the microphones as a result of their listeners' stupidity.

Instead, the two took some time out to make this preposterous declaration: If a professional sports team does not win that league's championship, then they are not a success.

WSCR's drive-time duo made this black and white assessment while discussing the injuries that have fallen on Chicago's two baseball teams: Carlos Zambrano's arm troubles and Carlos Quentin's season-ending broken wrist. The dynamic duo then went on to ridicule a Cubs fan that called in, for believing that this season could still be success even if the Cubs failed to win the World Series.

"If you believe that, then you're part of the problem," angrily pronounced Bernstein, the same man who often chides callers for taking sports too seriously.

Sorry fellas, success is not determined only by who has the last champagne celebration of any given season. It's determined by fans.

By Boers and Bernstein's definition, out-of-nowhere teams like last year's NL Champion Colorado Rockies, the Illinois football team, and the Stephen Curry-led Davidson basketball team among others - were not successes.

The two curmudgeons also made it a point to rip any fans that look back fondly on non-Series winning years. Boers specifically faulted Cubs fans that look back with affection towards 1969 or 1984.

Sorry Terry, success is measured by meeting or surpassing expectations but also by moments and memories that last. It takes a pretty gloomy personality to deny the authenticity of taking happiness or pleasure from such moments.

The current White Sox season would be a success as long as the team is able to squeak into the playoffs.

For Cubs fans, judging this season may be a little different but it's hard to imagine many fans calling the season unsuccessful if the Cubs were to make but lose in the World Series.

It's too bad. I wonder if Boers and Bernstein consider themselves failures after getting hammered in this quarter's ratings by the only competition they have, WMVP's mediocre but "happy" trio of Mac, Jurko and Harry.

I'm sure they'd just respond to that by going back to their tried-and-true formula - sighing loudly into the mic and calling me a moron.