Sometimes in life you get a Kodak moment. Paul Konerko provided one last night when he missed the second straight “hanging-oh-Lord-hit-me-kill-me-be-a-hero” slider, popped up to lose the game and then staggered around near home plate like he’d just been hit in the head with an anvil.
The Sox became the first team ever to have a 15 game lead cut under three. With 13 games left in the season, it will still take a choke of monumental proportions to blow it. But you know what?
I think they might just up to the challenge.
Before yesterday’s game, Kenny Williams sat in the Sox dugout, surrounded by reporters, and using his weird Stanford white man voice explained that the Sox are not losing it, the Indians just won’t lose.
You know who else tried to make things OK by saying they didn’t lose it, the other team just wouldn’t lose?
The 1969 edition of your Chicago Cubs.
The 1964 Phillies knew they’d lost it. They owned up to it.
So did the 1978 Red Sox.
Remember the scene at the end of “Anchorman” when Ron is sitting at the bar, all disheveled and furry and singing made up sad songs and annoying everyone in the bar? The bartender threatens to throw him out and asks him what his problem is?
Ron says that a she-beast ripped out his heart and stomped on it, but that, “The thing that hurts most is…she’s better than me! She’s better than me!”
The 1969 Mets were better than the 1969 Cubs. The 1978 Yankees were better than the 1978 Red Sox. The 1964 Cardinals were better than the 1964 Phillies (and apparently, the Reds were just as good).
There’s almost always a reason why a team “chokes.” It’s because they’re in the lead in the first place because they were over their skiis too long earlier in the season.
When the Sox got to 62-29 were they really that good? Did anybody really think so?
Hawk Harrelson said he did, but Hawk spent a decade wearing a hat with his name on it, so who’s going to listen?
The Sox almost got away with it. They almost did what few other teams have pulled off (the 2001 Bears, for example.) You build a big enough early lead so that even when you fall back to earth, you end up broken, disheveled and in first place. You’re easy fodder in the playoffs, but hey, you made it.
Since Sox fans like to accuse the Cubs of being chokers, we’ll give them some expert advice. We know how to spot one when we see it.
Not winning a game when you score three unearned runs is a symptom.
Coughing up a seventh inning lead is also on the list.
Asking a middle of the order hitter to sac bunt for like the fifth time in 4,000 career at bats is gagging, at the very least.
Bringing your top “slugger” to the plate with a chance to give you a dramatic, race ending, momentum halting victory and watching him pop up a ball that couldn’t have been put on a tee any more nicely?
The Sox haven’t had their “Victor Diaz” game yet. They haven’t even had a “Preston Wilson.” But the back-to-back losses last week in Kansas City looked an awful lot like ones the Cubs kicked away against the Reds last year.
You wanted to call the Cubs chokers, enjoy yourself, buy the cute little t-shirt with the Cubs C on it with ‘hoke’ printed inside, and pretend to be impervious to it yourself? You said we’re experts. We’re just sharing, is all.
See, the thing the Sox have going for them is that unlike the previously mentioned Cubs, Red Sox and Phillies, they have an extra playoff chance to fall back on.
Mathematics say the Sox can blow the division and still will likely win the Wild Card. In fact, they’ll probably clinch a playoff spot, with the Indians on October 1 or 2 while they’re in Cleveland. They’ll probably even lose the day they clinch it, just to make sure that their fans don’t get to really enjoy anything.
What an odd sight that would be. Two teams, playing each other and both clinching playoff spots at the same time.
What really has to piss the Sox off is that the Indians won’t even pretend they’re chasing them. All the Indians talk about is staying ahead of the Yankees in the Wild Card race. It’s almost as if Cleveland hasn’t figured out they’re on the verge of catching the Sox. Or maybe more to the point, they don’t care. It’s as though the Sox are folding and nobody but them or their fans has noticed. Talk about feeling inconsequential. It’s bad enough to play in a town where the Cubs’ quest for .500 is talked about almost as much as your hunt for a title. It’s bad enough to have the biggest home series since 2000 and have seven thousand empty seats. But how bad is it when the team that’s been making life hell for you for six weeks non-stop can’t even pretend that they’ve noticed?
The Sox are trying to run out the clock. They know it’s slipping away but they’re just hoping they can delay the inevitable enough so that it happens after the fact.
The way the Indians are chasing them, it’s like running a marathon and having a huge lead the whole way. You get to the last mile and all of a sudden there’s somebody right behind you. Only they’re looking over their shoulder and they run right on past you, never seeing you until they’re the ones in front.
Last night on Chicago Tribune Live, the great (cough, cough) Avani Patel regaled us with a tale of her past life in San Francisco when in 1990 the Reds were running away with the NL West. Avani was trying to convince Sox fans not to panic because the Reds led wire-to-wire that year and built up a huge lead, only to almost be caught by the Giants.
It was a fine story. It was bullshit, but it was a fine tale.
She’s right, in part.
The Reds went 13-3 in April, then 17-9 in May to build an eight game lead over the Dodgers. Then for the rest of the season they only played two games over .500, and still won the division. The Giants started off woefully, going 19-29 through June 1. They went 19 over the rest of the way. But the Reds never finished any single month with a lead of less than five games after May 1. As well as the Giants played, they still finished behind the Dodgers.
The Giants never “almost caught” the Reds, and even if they had it would not have been anything like what the Indians are trying to pull off. Why? Because on August 1, 1990 the Reds had a five and a half game division lead. On August 1, 2005 the White Sox had a FIFTEEN game lead.
Thanks for playing, Avani.
WHOOO Whooooo!! I love this new Teepee Talk segment. Goooo Tribe!!!
It’s the fucken Venezuelans mang, those bastards, I keel them all after I disembowel Fat Konerko and his 3,000 fat white trash fans, mang. This suck.
“When the Sox got to 62-29 were they really that good? Did anybody really think so?
Hawk Harrelson said he did, but Hawk spent a decade wearing a hat with his name on it, so who’s going to listen?”
Classic.
Grinder Baseball Rule #63:
When thinking about attending the baseball game with the former best record in baseball, remember, our food is good. We mention this because you sure as hell aren’t going there to see baseball. So come buy our food and watch some magic tricks as the ball disappears between the ‘Guch’s legs and our lead disappears into the history books.
Which would be more humiliating?
If the sox miss the playoffs completely;
or if they make it as a wild card and get swept in the first round?
Say what you want about Cub fans going to the “largest beer garden”, but we are often talked about as being the draw on the South Side.
Baseball? Not so much.
I don’t wonder why there wasn’t a sell out last night at US Comiscular. When your announcers sound like their broadcasting a state funeral, why would you be excited to go see them? The Sox should go get the Grandson.
I know a Sox fan who has 0162CUB on his license plate. I am sure he is having a cow about now.
The only thing sweeter would be if it were the Satanic Fowl blowing this lead.
“Hawk Harrelson said he did, but Hawk spent a decade wearing a hat with his name on it, so who’s going to listen?â€Â
I’d guess Ernie Banks and his hat.
Question–
What’s the date that Mark Girly decided to shake his fist at the gods and act like a punk-ass by calling out future HOF’er Greg Maddux? Methinks he has incurred the gods’ wrath by being such a satisfied prick, as I’m guessing he’s been under .500 since he opened his fat, inbred, hillbilly, Columbia River mouth.
woohooo LET’S GO TRIBE
oooh man, the sucks are not even going to win the wildcard
hahahahaha
Watching the sucks go caput: PRICELESS
I am Buehrle’s record since popping of about Maddux (June 18th, a day after I beat the Angels to go 8-1 on the year).
A loss tonight puts me under .500 since those comments. A loss tonight will also create near-pandemonium on the South Side.
Asphyxiation Fever. Catch it.
I am the date the Buherle accussed Maddux of doctoring the ball …
I was on one of the sox “boards?” a while back, and, of course the discussion was how everything Cub is bad. One genius chimed in that even the sox wives were hotter, and how they should have a day for Lisa Dergan at the joan. They all thought it was a great idea, and were saying things like she would” get naked and dance around for us”, or something like that. Than the talk changed to cell phone use at Wrigley. There was not one discussion of their 1st place team at all. Looks like Bob Howry sees what all of us have seen for years. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta take a shower, drink myself silly in the bullpen bar, maybe hit the stadium club, and grab a churro. Nothin says baseball like a churro.
Sadly, I am the only shower most sox fans will see.
Did someone say “Golden Shower”?
Geesh, with this White Sox choking and all, will anyone even notice when we cost the Asstros the wild card?
Remember when Hawk and a majority of White Sox nation turned their collective nose up at the idea of acquring me? Yeah, those were good times.
…is fung.
I’ve been a life-long Cubs fan and a resident of Cleveland for almost 10 yrs now. On local radio they had been concentrating on the wild-card race until about the last week or so. They’re now ready to watch the Sux fade into the distance behind them. They’re also pretty sure the Red Sux will blow their division lead and that will just firm up the Tribe’s chances at a playoff spot if somehow they don’t pass up the Palehose….
(in a sing-song voice)
….can’t get enough of that Coco Crisp…..
I’m not so sure the Sox wives are hotter.
As with all things Cub, once the season is over (mid-August), the majority of you fans go crawling all over the Cardinals and White Sox. I guess it’s enjoyable to associate with a +.500 team. It’s pretty lame to claim Cards and Sox fans are Cub-obsessive when you engage in the same behavior.
The Sox are likely going to choke this and back into the Wild Card, sure, but if the roles were reversed, wouldn’t you like the Cubs to make the playoffs by hook or by crook?
And, way to paint Sox fans as losers and meth addicts. It’s the same with Cardinal fans  you take a handful of idiots and paint the remaining fans with the same brush. I guess that’s to be expected from a bunch of drunken, cellphone-armed Volkswagen owners who are more concerned with their Birkenstocks than where their team is ranked in the standings in late-September.
Good to know that even NOW, as our team hangs on to the edge of the earth, that we can still find time to come over her and obsess about Cub fans obsessing about our impending historic choke job.
Bill, your yard time is over.
There are just as many cell phones at me, Bill. Now go drink your 6’er of Busch, beat your wife, shave your hairy arms, trim your mullet, smoke your crack, and use plaenty of racial slurs. Last I checked, Wrigley wasn’t the park with multiple bars, showers, kiddie events, and other distractions. Go watch your team choke into the wild card and go 3 and out like 2000 you fuckstick. To you and the other 21,000 sox fans around the world, the season is already a success-the Cubs are out of it. Enjoy, you trashball.
I’m no US Cellular……the team here chokes EVERY season and we’ve all gotten used to it. Plus the only showers here the golden ones started by Ass-Ramus and the rest of the “fans” here.
I’ve turned into the world’s biggest Gay bar. Shouldn’t we change the ivy to some sort of fern?
Fuckstick? Isn’t that the game the Cubs play in the culbhouse every day?
Dear Self-Loathing Homosexual:
Hate to let the facts get in the way if your ignorant–even for your South Side ass– post in #27, but this is the White Sox playoff record at HOME (old Comiskey/New Comiskey etc.) since 1959:
0 wins. 7 losses.
Since ’59. That’s Forty-five years for those of you who rely on your fingers and toes to count.
But the home team chokes at WRIGLEY? You’re a fucking moranic troll, but thanks for playing, retard.
What’s a “culbhouse”?
And since when is “Gay” capitalized? Moran.
To the “Best fans in basball” you fuckers can’t even give tickets away! Your team is nothing but a fluke! Cheers bitches!
I just said on ESPN News, that D. Lee is my NL MVP.
Did someone say fluke?
Is this the best you so called Cub fans can do?
Wern’t the Cubs supposed to be in the World Series this year?
Wasn’t the hex going to be lifted because Jimmy Buffett was having a concert at Wrigley?
It was all going to happen this year because the over rated Ryne Sandberg was going into the hall of fame?
And the best you can do is talk about how the White Sox will supposedly follow the 1969 Cubs and miss the playoffs?
Go have another beer while you wait for your unemployment check
33 Get back to work, your fries are burning.
Christ did someone say RYNE SANDBERG is overrated?
What the hell does that make me then?
Nice contraction, Ligue-breath…
Now go get your fucking shinebox and watch Travis Hafner get revenge on Bueherle for knocking him out for two weeks, troll.
Who said the Cubs were supposed to be in the World Series this year? SI had that on their cover in 2004 and they were largely ignored by the media in the 3005 pre-season picks.
#33. Unemployment checks are common on the Southside. I mean, who are you kidding man. You can’t go to the southside unless you have a bullet proof vest. The place is shit hole! So why do you go party at an abandoned burned down house, take down a 40oz of King Cobra suck on a glass dick with all of the classy people there!
Should a fan of a franchise that considers Harold Baines and Jack McDowell all time greats, really be able to rip on one of the best 2nd baseman of all time? When it comes to great position players and pitchers the sox don’t hold a candle to the northsiders.
Good to know that ? agrees with my statement:
Eighty-five percent of the fuckin’ world is working. The other fifteen percent come out to (Wrigley Field). A fuckin’ playground for the cocksuckers
No truer words have ever been spoken about Cub fans than what Mr Elia said.
3005? You mean we gotta wait 1000 years for a winner???
We would destroy Comiskey, but we like to hit high value targets, and kill people who will actually be missed.
The sox team charter crashing into a row of houses in bridgeport would be me.
Too bad most Sox fans–not the sterotypical Ligue-type, but the smug, college educated young Republicans– live in me.
The charter crashing into a Naperville sub-division would be funnier.
Actually, our loser brothers are the stereotype Ligue-type fans. We are cut out of the same cloth. Shit, I think I just started a political argument.
Check out my recent article on Foxsports.com! That say’s it all Sux fans.
Talk about a fluke!
On WJFK, which is a DC/VA/MD station, they were going crazy with comparisons to the great all time defenses, talking playoffs. For sheer idiocy, skins fans give packer fans a run for their money. They think there are 3 teams in the NFL, The Skins(who, along with Jesus Gibbs, are the best ever), the Giants, and the Cowboys. The turd on the air actually said that the TD the Bears scored last week doesn’t count, and the skins are clearly the best D in the league. Maybe they should wait until the real Phillip Daniels, Warrick Holdman, and Walt Harris show up. Anyway, I hate the fucking Redskins and their fans.
Should be 0-2, not 2-0. They slept through 55 minutes of last night’s game on offense and got lucky because the Dallas D was too busy laughing at Brunell’s sidearm lollipop throws downfield to cover properly. And I hate to tell their D, but it isn’t like they’ve just played the top two offenses in the league, either. I sense a rude awakening around the corner.
We blow! We always did!
I kill at will!
I used to love drawing thought bubbles and filling them with a bunch of nonsense.
But the scary thing is, 8-8 might get our Bears into the playoffs.
The south side is full of ignorant, meth-addled crackers. Like me. You be down wid dat??
John,
We are full of those brown people that you do not like either. You are better suited for the Urinal cake by the Mississippi
CHOKE SUX CHOKE
CHOKE SUX CHOKE
CHOKE SUX CHOKE
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Bigger choke job than last year’s Yankee 3-0 lead vs Boston
WHITE SUX: all the world is laughing at you, HAHAHAHA this is great!!!!
Mang
What happend to all that talk about me, mang? Am I not fung anymore?
Bow before me!
If the sox lose to both of us, then they don’t even deserve to exist.
Last night it was me, tonight it’s the ump. The white sox are getting plenty of help on these games.
Are we trying to give these games away? I mean, Jose Hernandez? How is he still alive, much less on a big league roster?
Fear me, assbags!!
Dear Mr. Bill Ligue,
What you fail to realize is the simple fact that not only are Cubs fans reveling in the collapse of the White Sox, but the entire baseball watching population is. It’s not just Cubs fans talking about how horrible the Sox have been since the break, it’s EVERYONE!
So, really, before you start going around and talking about how lame and hypocritical Cubs fans are for talking about the White Sux and how they are choking and how they suck, take a moment and think about what you are doing.
The Sox are choking. Not the Cubs. Everyone in baseball is watching the Sox choke. Not the Cubs. You complain because we are watching and discussing the Sox choke.
Yet here you are trashing the Cubs for no apparent reason, other than in a lame attempt to try and make us feel bad about our tea, by bringing up past horrors of the past. THE PAST.
The Sox are choking now, man. Maybe they’ll pull it out, but really, use more logic.
Do I need to spell it out in more abbreviated thoughts for you?
Thanks!
If I were a Sox fan, I’d be more pissed off that the only good Chicago sports Web site only writes about the Cubs, Bulls and Bears.
Maybe that’s why they come here with a chip on their sleeveless shoulders?
Not all Cubs fans are lame and hypocritical. Only the ones who bash Sox fans of being more interested in the Cubs, write solely about the White Sox, and then – despite all the time and words the just spent on the Sox – make the same tired claim that they don’t care anyway.
That’s what’s lame and hypocritical. Ignore your own team and have a good laugh at the expense of the Sox but why be so cowardly about it?
The Redskins should be 0-2? What? They dominated the Bears. 1-1 maybe. Certainly not 0-2.
The problem is… we’re not ignoring our own team. Considering we are struggling to achieve a .500 record, there isn’t a whole lot of interest from the fringe fans. Those of us who do actively follow the Cubs are left with the quest for .500, the case of Dusty Baker v. the Public Opinion (and sanity), Matt Murton’s quest to pommel the ball down Baker’s throat, and our own, vain trade requests for Adam Dunn or [insert high priced player name here] on behalf of Jim Hendry. Not very exciting.
On the other hand, like I said in the above post, EVERYONE is watching the Sox. It’s not just us! Alot of people are bashing them, not just us!
Besides, we have KPat to bash on, or Pixie Perez to scoff at. We’re just like any other baseball fans when we bash and scoff at the Sox. It just happens that a good majority of us live in the same city as you.
Why don’t you go troll an Indians blog and leave us to our 98-years of sorrow-laden musings. Or go to your own blog and write about your 89-years of sorrow-laden musings.