Tuesdays with Tom: The 2024 Chicago White Sox - The W.O.A.T. in American Pro Sports
We salute the worst professional sports team in U.S. history; plus thoughts on antenna television, college sports scandals and Derrick Rose
Worst. Team. Ever. Hyperbolic statements like this are common in sports conversations. But when it comes to one team, it’s no exaggeration. In the modern era of Major League Baseball (post 1900), the 2024 White Sox are literally the worst team that’s ever played the game. And when you consider that baseball is the longest running pro sport, it is possible this White Sox team is the worst in the history of American professional sports. Earlier this year, I said that they would be “boringly bad.” Well, they were certainly bad, but this type of ineptitude is far from boring.
The White Sox are no strangers to losing seasons. Since their inaugural season in 1901, they have only won three World Series titles. Two of those titles came before World War I ended and the third one occurred nearly 20 years ago. In 124 seasons, they’ve made the postseason only 8 percent of the time. The White Sox are under .500 in the 19,206 games they’ve played. That’s a rather stunning amount of listless, losing baseball. But somehow, all that putrid history was just a table setter for 2024.
It’s easy to forget that in 2021, the White Sox had a team with a lot of promising players. They were AL Central division champs, with four All-Stars and many believed they had a bright future as a World Series contender. That dream ended with the violent suddenness of a xenomorph pregnancy. That White Sox team won exactly one playoff game and spent the better part of the next two seasons being a perpetual disappointment. Manager Tony La Russa, who shockingly came out of retirement at the behest of team owner Jerry Reinsdorf, was exiled in the middle of the 2022 season, which ended with an 81-81 record.
The following year, Pedro Grifol was hired to lead a team that did significantly worse. After that 61-101 season, Reinsdorf fired team executive Kenny Williams and general manager Rick Hahn. All-Star shortstop Tim Anderson went from being the face of the team to getting his face punched in a game. His teammates didn’t seem to mind. The absurdities weren’t even contained to the poor play or mid-game knockouts. Someone fired a gun in the stands of Guaranteed Rate Field last year.
This year, Reinsdorf promoted assistant general manager Chris Getz to full-time GM. The directive was clear. Not only did Reinsdorf want the Sox to be bad, they had to be cheap, too. Despite playing in the third largest U.S. city, Reinsdorf manages the White Sox more conservatively than Mr. Krabs at the Krusty Krab. They have had a top 10 payroll just once in the last 10 years, even though eight of the last 10 World Series winners had top 10 payrolls. The White Sox are one of only two teams that have never signed a $100 million contract to a player.
The one thing sports fans can usually hope for in a terrible season is top draft picks for the future. But due to the MLB’s new anti-tanking rules, the best this White Sox team can draft is 10th overall in 2025. Not that it matters much when it comes to White Sox draft picks. Did you know that they’ve only drafted three multi-time All-Stars with their first round picks since 2000? Between their complete disinterest in paying for top tier talent and these frequent drafting mistakes, they’ve regularly mismanaged their roster construction over many seasons.
This all leads us to the history making 2024 season. They started off 3-16, averaging only two runs per game and getting shut out in seven of those games. From May 22 to June 6, they lost 14 games in a row. At the All-Star break, they were 27-71 and 32.5 games out of first place in the AL Central. Their run differential is among the all-time worst for a MLB team, sharing space with teams that have been extinct since the 1800s. This White Sox team has blown 56 leads. They’ve suffered 11 walk-off defeats. They’ve been shut out 19 times. They’ve scored double digit runs in a victory only twice this season. Any way you can imagine them losing a game, they’ve done it. A lot.
They nearly lost every game they played between the 4th of July and the end of Lollapalooza. During that stretch, they notched a 21-game losing streak. It's the second longest losing streak in MLB history. It’s difficult to survive one such losing streak in a normal season. They had three different 10+ game losing streaks in the same season. They’ve had the most 12-game losing streaks in one season since 1899. Pedro Grifol was fired on August 8th. His 89-190 managerial record in one and a half seasons is indicative of the organization’s poor judgment across the board.
63 different men have suited up for the White Sox this year. That’s a mind-blowing number for a roster that has a 26-player limit most of the season. The constant re-shuffling of the team was a combination of injuries and mid-season trades. Their lone All-Star, Garrett Crochet, is only on the team because he had outrageous trade demands for other clubs. Everyone else that was deemed expendable and had any value was sent away. Players that were once viewed as franchise cornerstones, like Yoan Moncada, are rotting away in obscurity.
Unsurprisingly, the White Sox are in the bottom five of MLB fan attendance. Their average capacity this year is around 17,000. Many nights it looks a lot smaller than that. This is perhaps the most damning component of this epically horrible season. White Sox fan apathy has never been more prevalent. Given the team’s history, it’s difficult to envision a renewed excitement as long as Reinsdorf is in charge.
The White Sox broke their previous franchise record for losses with nearly a month left to play. On September 22nd, they tied the 1962 New York Mets for most losses in a 162-game regular season. They inexplicably showed some life once the record was on the table. They swept the Los Angeles Angels at home, including their first win after trailing in the 7th inning in 94 attempts. The fans booed them after they snatched victory from the jaws of historic defeat. If there’s a sadder moment in franchise history, I want no part of it. The White Sox couldn’t even lose when fans wanted them to.
On September 27th, they finally broke the record. It came at the hands of the Detroit Tigers, the last team that threatened this mark in 2003. Former White Sox announcer Jason Benetti was on the call for Detroit. Benetti was chased out of town by Reinsdorf. The karmic justice was palpable. They lifted the entire AL Central into playoff contention by posting a 10-43 record within the division. Today, the White Sox stand alone with a record of 41-121. Their .253 winning percentage is the third worst in the modern MLB era. The only reason it’s not the very worst is because those other teams didn’t play 162 games. Since they have no peers in baseball, it’s fair to ask where they stand amongst the biggest losers in other American pro sports.
In the NFL, three Super Bowl-era teams have turned in winless seasons. The 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers went 0-14. The 2008 Detroit Lions and 2017 Cleveland Browns both finished 0-16. The 1974-75 Washington Capitals went 8-67-5 in their inaugural NHL season. The 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats went 7-59 in the lockout-shortened NBA season. When you want to debate who the worst modern-day U.S. professional sports team ever is, it starts with this list.
Comparatively, I’d argue being a White Sox fan has been the worst of any of these clubs. Expansion teams are expected to start poorly. The Buccaneers and Capitals have won titles in the last six years. The Bobcats don’t exist anymore. Even the historically inept Lions and Browns have made the playoffs in recent years. The White Sox have existed longer than all these teams and, with a few exceptions, they’ve been losing for far longer and more often than them all. This is just the exclamation point on a lifetime of being losers.
Until now, this team flew under the radar because they never lost in a memorable way. Even their fans have rightfully tuned them out. But when they started chasing all-time loss records, they got everyone’s attention. The White Sox are so bad that they’ve become a national sensation. From that perspective, this will go down as one of the most unforgettable White Sox seasons. We will likely forget most of the players and coaches who made it happen, but this team’s record will be discussed for years to come.
There is one name we won’t forget: Jerry Reinsdorf. This is the culmination of Reinsdorf’s legacy as a sports owner. The rest of the world is learning what White Sox and Bulls fans have known for years. Ken Rosenthal’s oral history of the sins of Reinsdorf confirmed every suspicion that fans have felt about the 88-year-old team owner. Jerry Reinsdorf is an alarmingly arrogant autocrat. He is deeply unserious about fielding a competitive team. It’s obvious he has little regard for fans. This is reinforced by his minimal efforts to invest in winning or offering a compelling experience at his mediocre ballpark.
He is already telegraphing his blatant disinterest in competitiveness about next year’s team. Reinsdorf has fostered a culture so toxic that players have to be coaxed into supporting a cancer-stricken teammate. Even being in the stands is a drag. It used to be fun to go to a White Sox game. Unfortunately, things have gotten so sour that I didn’t think twice about not attending a game this year. I yearn for the day when the Reinsdorf family no longer owns the White Sox. That day may never come.
I’m glad this albatross is hanging over Jerry Reinsdorf’s neck. I wish it didn’t happen to one of my sports teams, but as an owner he deserves the shame for the unprecedented failures of the 2024 Chicago White Sox. I believe that those other historic losing teams tried to avoid being that terrible. I can’t say the same about the White Sox and that makes them the most egregious of any team in that category. Honestly, it’s funny that they were this bad. The players seem to agree it's morbidly hilarious. We may never see another professional sports team like them. Every year a champion is crowned at the end of the season. But being the worst team in American history? That’s a once-in-a-lifetime dishonor that few ever get to witness.
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Tom’s Thoughts of the Week
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Today is the official start date of Chicago Sports Network, the new regional sports channel that is replacing NBC Sports Chicago for Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox games. CHSN will air 300 games a year across a five state footprint for Chicago sports fans. The big unknown was how fans would be able to watch. The answer? It will be free for viewers that have an antenna connected to their TV. Last year, I wrote about the struggling RSN business and speculated that a new direct-to-consumer local Chicago sports package would be very costly for fans. For now, it won’t cost any money, as long as you have an antenna in the area, or a television package that CHSN has come to terms with. Currently, that only includes DirecTV. It’s a minor nuisance for fans that don’t have a TV antenna to buy one just to watch your local teams. But you can’t beat free and I’ll take that over spending $20 a month to watch a legendarily bad baseball team or two other clubs that have seen better days.
The rollout of the name, image and likeness (NIL) industry in college sports has been very messy. Matthew Sluka added a new controversial wrinkle to this mess last week. The UNLV quarterback announced he is leaving the football team and taking a redshirt season. He’s claiming that UNLV promised him $100,000 in NIL money and that “these commitments would not be fulfilled in the future.” It’s a mystifying departure considering that the Rebels were 3-0 with Sluka as their starting quarterback and he had just joined the team after four years playing at Holy Cross. It’s not totally clear who is telling the truth here. There is some reporting that Sluka’s family asked for additional funds after this verbal agreement. The Slukas claim that their son only received $3,000 of the promised $100,000. No matter how you see it, this is a terrible look for Sluka, UNLV and college football. It’s shady that UNLV might have made false promises to a promising transfer player or went back on their word due to undisclosed factors. It’s also stunning that Sluka is abandoning his teammates in the midst of a potentially historic UNLV season over a financial dispute. It’s hard to envision other programs trusting him after a stunt like this. Ultimately, this is a prime example of why this NIL system desperately needs to be regulated. The NCAA is effectively worthless when it comes to policing their sports. The whole reason NIL even exists is because they refuse to acknowledge that their student-athletes are worthy of being paid employees. NIL is a convenient loophole that allows player payments without dipping into the pockets of the NCAA. But since there are no rules within NIL, situations like this will become more and more common.
Derrick Rose retired last week after a 16-year career in the NBA. The 35-year-old Chicago native has been playing basketball for over half of my entire life. It’s been several years since he was an elite player, but he remains one of the most impactful athletes I’ve experienced. I’d argue that he is the greatest “What If?” athlete of our lifetime. The legend of Derrick Rose began when he was at Simeon Career Academy in Chicago. My friends raved about his play at the IHSA State Tournament, where he won two state titles before graduating. He was a freshman phenom at Memphis University and a few free throws away from winning a national championship that season. Despite entering the 2008 NBA Draft Lottery with a 1.7% chance of winning, the Chicago Bulls won the rights to the No. 1 overall pick. It felt like a fairy tale. Chicago’s hometown hero was going to play for the Bulls. Rose wasted no time living up to the massive hype. He won Rookie of the Year in the 2008-09 season and led the Bulls to a playoff berth. In his first playoff game, Rose torched the Boston Celtics with 36 points, tying a record set by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for a rookie playoff debut. It was an electrifying seven game series against the defending NBA champions. The Bulls narrowly lost the series, but the excitement around Rose’s future was higher than Mount Everest.
From 2008 through 2012, Rose made three All-Star teams, first team All-NBA and became the youngest MVP in league history at 22 years old. Along the way, Rose made some of the most sensationally athletic plays you’ll ever see on a basketball court. He led the Bulls to a 62-20 record in the 2010-11 season and the team made the Eastern Conference Finals. They lost in five games to the Miami Heat, but the future seemed unbelievably bright. In the 2011-12 season, they were the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference again and the favorite to win the title. But late into their first game against the Philadelphia 76ers, Rose tore his ACL. He missed the entire 2012-13 season and most of the following season with more knee injuries. By the time he was healthy again, he wasn’t the same. The Bulls traded him to the New York Knicks in 2016. He spent the last eight years of his career as an off-the-bench scorer for the Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies. Every once in a while, you’d see flashes of the old D-Rose, like when he scored 50 points for the Timberwolves. Rose’s career is one of the most bittersweet tales of unfulfilled potential in American sports history.
He was far from perfect. He said some silly things, disappeared on one occasion and became vilified by fans and the media when he didn’t come back to play hurt. He was quiet and pretty naive. He let friends and family talk him into some bad decisions. The pressure of being the anointed savior of Chicago and a beacon of hope for struggling inner-city communities seemed like a burden on him. But he loved the Bulls. He was devastated when they traded him and never wanted to leave. We can only speculate what would have happened if he never got injured, but I’m convinced he would have been an all-time great in the NBA. It's possible (maybe even likely) that he would have won the first Bulls championship since Michael Jordan. I think the greatest compliment you can give Rose is the respect other stars had for him. In a league with some of the greatest athletes on planet Earth, Rose regularly blew the minds of people like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant. He was feared and admired, even if his temperament was nothing like his peers. It might not be the career we envisioned for him, but he provided Bulls fans some of the greatest years of basketball we’ve seen since Jordan. He will always be a legendary Chicago athlete in my book and one I’ll never forget.