It’s possible the White Sox will win their game Tuesday against the Angels at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Anything is possible. I mean, it’s possible Diddy is a solid citizen.
Remember, the Angels are a very bad team, 30 games below .500. But the Sox are to very bad as a crocodile is to a dime-store turtle.
The Sox’ record is an astounding 36-120. They already have tied the 1962 Mets for the most losses in a season in modern baseball history. One more loss would make them the flagbearer for worst team ever.
And it’s in sight. Nay, it’s rushing toward them like the lead bull down a street in Pamplona, Spain.
Discounted ticket prices are jacked up for the game in anticipation of a larger-than-empty crowd for the morbid spectacle. I checked SeatGeek, and upper-deck seats are going for an extortionary $4 a pop.
Move on to the home finale Thursday against the Angels — after the excitement over the almost-certainly losingest team has waned — and cheap seats go back to a more reasonable $1 apiece.
My thought? Yank the kids out of school. Yank out the whole class. For $30, you can be that big spender you’ve always dreamed about being.
It’s a pity the Sox, with six games left, finish the season with three games in Detroit. You wish it were here, in Chicago, so we could own it in collective shame.
Still, the grand finale Sunday at Comerica Park — the final bullet in the chamber, so to speak — would make a terrific road trip for the history-minded. StubHub seats will get you in for $15, and you’ll see something that, in its way, is more impressive than the World Series championship the Sox won Oct. 26, 2005, in Houston.
Consider that the Sox have won three World Series in the last 123 years. (I still have a cork from one of the gushing locker-room champagne bottles after that glorious 2005 sweep. Not aging well.) But some team wins a World Series every year. What these Sox are doing in 2024 never has been done.
Modern baseball generally is considered to have begun in 1901, after the American League started and joined the National League. Go back to 1899, however, and you’ve got the Cleveland Spiders, who went an all-of-baseball-worst 20-134.
That record is not truly legit, however, because Spiders owner Frank De Haas Robison bought the St. Louis franchise before the season and yanked all of his good players from the Spiders — including a pitcher named Cy Young — and put them on the St. Louis squad. That year, the St. Louis club was wondrously named the Perfectos, sadly to be replaced by the Cardinals.
At any rate, the Spiders, minus any talent, were so bad that they did things such as lose a game they were leading 10-1 in the sixth inning. They finished the season with a 1-40 stretch.
Even the 1962 Mets should have an asterisk by their 40-120 record. They were a half-baked expansion team filled with hacks, has-beens and hapless kids. They, like the Spiders, had an excuse.
The Sox?
They have none.
What they’ve done is inexplicable. Even a franchise that called up its entire Triple-A team and fielded it all season likely would do this well. Excuse me, this badly.
Take a bow, prime mover Jerry Reinsdorf. You’re historic.
It’s a fact the Sox lose in ways that are mesmerizing, jaw-dropping, yet inevitable. Like a belch after a giant swig of soda, you might not feel anything at first, but you know it’s coming.
I watched poor Chris Flexen make his record 23rd consecutive winless start Saturday against the Padres. ‘‘Flex’’ is historic.
I watched the Guardians’ Lane Thomas come to the plate twice Sept. 11 against the Sox, with two outs each time, never hit the ball out of the infield and collect two RBI each time. Never saw that before.
I watched the Sox take a 2-1 lead through six innings Sunday against the Padres, with starting pitcher Sean Burke looking masterful, and waited for the loss. It came, like mold after a flood, 4-2.
I marveled during that game to see Sox infielder Miguel Vargas chase a high foul pop-up, spin almost in a circle and fall down. Stunning.
What is left to be said? Nothing.
Get your tickets now, folks!