The Futility of Rooting for Historic Failure: Why Sox Fans Shouldn't Hope for Rock Bottom

There's no sugarcoating it, 15-36 is ugly. It will likely get worse over the next five weeks as the Chicago White Sox are in the thick of an absolutely brutal stretch in the schedule. The team has managed to play roughly .500 ball since the ghastly 3-22 start, but the caliber of competition is going to remain high until the final weekend of June. The team is on pace to go 48-114, yet some in the fan base want it to sink even further.

We've moved past being "fun bad". The team was "fun bad" in 2019 and this feels nothing like that. There was a semblance of hope, albeit misplaced, during that season that things were about to turn for the better. There are no such delusions this year as Rebuild 3.0 is in full gear. But if you go on social media platforms, you'll see Sox fans trashing the team more than anyone.

Truth be told, being a Sox fan means you have an inherent sense of pessimism about the team. You almost always have this sense of impending doom that nothing will work out for the club. It's in our DNA at this point, and there have only been a few short instances in our lives that have allowed that feeling to momentarily vanish only to reappear stronger than ever. But this is different.

Hoping To Hit Rock Bottom

I really don't understand why a certain portion of this fan base wants a historically bad team. I think a lot of the conjecture you see on social media espousing this notion is merely engagement farming and trying to take advantage of a popular talking point. It is likely just a loud minority of fans publicly saying this but it's still annoying.

If we are being honest with ourselves, we all know that this organization is in dire straits. For all the success pitchers are having in Double-A Birmingham, that is still a far cry from not walking the ballpark at the corner of 35th/Shields on a Wednesday night.

The wounds from the failure of Rebuild 2.0 are still fresh and didn't even have enough time to be bandaged before new ones emerged. The failed last era of White Sox baseball has led to a great deal of cynicism regarding the next group of prospects that are being hyped up by prospect evaluators, so many fans are taking to laughing at the organization as some type of defense mechanism.

People say you have to be able to laugh at yourself when things are tough, but this is to the extreme. We have people on social media platforms stating that they want the team to lose every game for the remainder of the season. But what exactly will that accomplish?

Does anyone genuinely believe that this team having the worst season in baseball history will change anything? Will it somehow cause an organizational shift in the processes that have gotten us to this point? The fact of the matter is it won't. In the end, hoping for this team to be historically bad will only be detrimental to the fan base. Those of us who care about this team, are already maligned locally and nationally at every turn, yet some think the team losing 130 games is just what is needed to change things.

Everything Stays The Same

So, I'll ask again: what does this Sox team having the worst season in baseball history accomplish? The team can't pick higher than 10th in next June's draft due to changes in the draft rules as a result of the last collective bargaining agreement. Tanking was all the rage back in 2017 and 2018 so you could get the best draft position possible, but that is no longer a benefit. As a result, losing games this year serves no genuine purpose.

Do you think being the worst baseball team ever will cause Jerry Reinsdorf to change how he operates this team? If you do, I would like you to lay off whatever mind-altering substance you are currently indulging in at the moment. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that nothing will cause that man to change how he runs this franchise. He has no pride, no self-respect, and he does not care in any way that he is dragging this franchise down into the depths of sports hell.

Yet, some think that being a national embarrassment and rubbing his nose in it will cause him to act differently. I'm old enough to remember when the unfortunate events of 2016 were going to cause Jerry to act differently. People were saying he was upset about being an afterthought in the city then and surely it would force him to change. When Rebuild 2.0 kicked off, people really bought into the notion that he was going to do things differently. We know now, it was all smoke and mirrors.

During the heart of that era, some believed that Jerry overstepping his baseball executives and convincing his buddy to come out of retirement to "right a wrong" from when I was a child, was a sign that he was acting differently. Surely, he was going to do everything in his power to position his pal for success. How did that work out?

Nothing that happens on the field matters to Jerry Reinsdorf. He's proven that time and time again. The fact that this team is run like a mom-and-pop shop in a major market won't change because this team loses 130 games, folks. That man has proven to be Teflon over the four decades his reign of terror has spanned. Remember, he said he couldn't go outside the organization for a top baseball executive because he wanted a quick turnaround, yet here we are.

If anything, a historically bad season and continuing decline in attendance will only give him more ammunition to try and fix things even less. If this season ends the way that some of you want, would anyone be surprised to see him strip payroll down to $70M next year? Do you really think all-time ineptitude will cause Jerry to do anything but pinch more pennies? And how will that turn around this team's fortunes on the field?

The only time Jerry Reinsdorf crawls out of his hole is to counter any national reports that shine him in a negative light. Whether it's David Sampson saying to always finish second, The Last Dance portraying him as the man who broke up the Bulls dynasty, or a video leaking of him cracking jokes about not winning enough, then and only then will we hear from The Chairman. He can't dare be bothered by the day-to-day misery he has caused this fan base.

So, forgive me for not wanting to see this team be historically bad. It literally will accomplish nothing but give opposing fans more reasons to clown us well into the future. It won't help this team from a talent acquisition standpoint because of changes to the draft rules, and it won't inspire change in the way the organization does business. There is no reason to want this team to lose on a nightly basis. They're not going to win much because they have such a significant talent deficit, but to hope for losses is idiotic and embarrassing.

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