Oh we of little faith, and by "we of little faith," we of course mean "me of little faith." In our salute the Chicago White Stockings for extending their current losing streak to 19 games after Saturday's loss to Minnesota, we hastened to point this out to the readertariat without taking into account the greater prize: 20.
In reciting the latest of their collective failings Sunday morning, we lost sight of the greater goal and of the White Sox's ability to achieve it. We should have remembered that the Detroit Pistons lost 28 in a row not eight months ago, and held the Sox to the lowest possible standard since they are the ones adhering to it. I mean, what kind of a number is 19? It lost its magic when you could no longer buy liquor in Idaho at that age. Now it's just another number, like 4, or 397, or googolplex.
But 20? Twenty is hefty and curvy and round like those mustached burgermeisters on the label of that bottle of beer you're enjoying over breakfast, that ludicrous old couch cushion wearing the porkpie hat and the leather shorts and the lederhosen and looking like they're trying to smuggle Uruguay under their shirts. Twenty is what graphic artists would describe as a Number Of Substance. Twenty of anything is hard to do even when you're trying to win, but that's what you're supposed to achieve. Losing 20 in succession takes a special kind of popup to the catcher with runners at second and third level of devotion.
Thus, we should have waited to hail their collective lack of achievement until Sunday, when they indeed lost again. This time it was 13-7, a rare show of gumption by our inertia-powered heroes in that they spotted the Minnesota Twins a cool 8-0 lead after two innings, thanks to an error by Brooks Baldwin in the first and then allowing the Twins to hit for the cycle in the second.
After that mirth-making start, they spent the rest of the day trying to make the game close enough for agony, cutting that early lead to 8-2, 8-3, 8-5 and then 10-7. They also allowed the Twins runs on a passed ball and sacrifice fly later in the game to keep it not very close, bless their bumbling hearts. Our Proud Colorless Footwear gave us a fright by making a show of the game, but then their sense of higher calling prevailed and Steven Wilson loaded the bases in the eighth and then allowed a walk to Christian Vasquez and a two-run single to Willi Castro to make extra sure that victory would not creep up on them and overwhelm their sense of lack of duty.
And now it's 20, a number that matters. Since we are now clear of the gravity-mocking Simone Biles, the $100 million speed yacht of Katie Ledecky, and our nanosecond of flirtation with the pommel horse, there is a small but visible window for the White Sox to now catch the nation's attention. The last time a baseball team lost 20 or more, the 1988 Baltimore Orioles did it right at the start of the season when everyone else had hope of a good season, and doubled down on the attention by firing Cal Ripken's dad as manager after only six games, merging local outrage with non-achievement. That's the team you'll hear about now, because that mark is there to be matched tonight.
In Oakland.
Before 35,000 empty plastic seats yearning to be recycled.
Against the second-worst team in the American League. IT'S KISMET, I TELL YOU!
Except that it isn't. The A's have actually been good of late; they have the third-best record in MLB since the start of July and have done it by hitting a thousand homers and hoping for the best. The White Sox by contrast are 29th in homers and achieving the worst. Even after yesterday's offensive outburst, they are barely on pace to score 500 runs this year, which would still make them the worst offense in a full 162-game season since 1963.
In other words, we're still in this, kids. They can be swept by the A's before 3,177 fans, then go back home to lose two to the Cubs for added civic humiliation, and then the Yankees before sellout crowds wanting to see Aaron Judge and Juan Soto and the history of bullying in its most galling form. They can take this all the way to the start of the NFL regular season if they play their cards wrong.
They can be the 1875 Brooklyn Atlantics (31), or the 1889 Louisville Colonels (26), or our much beloved 1899 Cleveland Spiders (24). They can be the new Pistons. The vistas are limitless as long as your regard the earth's crust as a vista.
And because most of the cool stuff at the Olympics is over or at least becoming repetitive (I mean, how much Lester Holt fawning like a 9-year-old over the latest American gold medalist can you eat?), this can last forever. They can hook this around to next year and make a run at the Detroit Mechanix, who just won their first Ultimate Frisbee League game in seven years (after 81 losses in a row) on June 22. And how did we miss that?
So yes, there is hope. But better than that, there is the absence of hope. And we at Defector will be there for every revolting moment. Except this week in Oakland. We embrace losing and losers as well as the next 20 websites, but we're not masochists and the pay's not good enough to convince us otherwise.
