By Ricky O’Donnell
After starting out the season strong, the White Sox have now dropped eight of their last 11 games. This weekend was the low point of the young season, as the Sox lost three consecutive games in Toronto, and can be swept by the Blue Jays tonight.
So instead of focusing on the negatives, like the abysmal team batting or the abundance of solo home runs, let’s talk about something more enjoyable: my trip to Toronto a few years ago.
I went to see the Sox take on the Blue Jays in Toronto with a few friends in the Summer of 2006. The Sox ended up losing on a walk-off homer in extra innings by Shea Hillenbrand, but the beginning of the game was far more exciting than the end.
Four of us arrived at the Rogers Centre about an hour before game time. One of our friends, we’ll call him Anthony (since that’s his name), had to go back to our hotel room, so he was arriving at the game by himself.
Anthony shows up at the stadium about 15 minutes before the first pitch. He comes dressed in an American flag shirt, carrying a huge American flag on a staff, and holding two signs.
Now this wasn’t just a shirt with a picture of the American flag on it; the shirt was actually the American flag itself. You can only imagine the looks on the security guards’ faces when they saw an 18-year old kid dressed like this for a baseball game in Toronto.
“You can’t bring that in,” said the security guard to Anthony, pointing to the flag on the staff.
Anthony willfully obliged. He took the flag off the pole, handed it to the guard, and began to enter the stadium.
“Wait,” said the security guard again. “Let me see those signs.”
“No, it’s cool,” Anthony told him. “They say ‘Go Sox’.”
Now technically, this was true. But Anthony had hoped to sneak into the stadium without the guard seeing the back of his two signs.
Unfortunately, he was not successful in this endeavor. The guard glanced at the two signs and was completely appalled: the back of one read “Canada Sucks” and the back of the other said “Vernon Wells drinks his own pee.” Both were immediately confiscated.
Let’s recap: An unassuming kid shows up alone to a baseball game in Toronto dressed in an American flag shirt, carrying an American flag on a staff, and holding two signs. One sign claims the country he is currently in “sucks,” and the other one says the Blue Jays best player recreationally drinks his own urine.
More than anything, this is why the drinking age in America isn’t 18.
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Week in Review: Uh, do we have to? Let’s just say these White Sox have seen better days, and hope this little funk doesn’t last all season like it did in 2007. The Sox, strangely enough, finished the week 0-5-1.
Week in Preview: The Sox play three more games against Minnesota, only this time at The Cell. A series against an underwhelming Seattle team ends the week.
People Are Stupid: OK, so the offense is struggling right now. We get it. But bringing up Jerry Owens isn’t the answer. Where’s he going to play? There simply isn’t an available spot for a 28-year old rookie outfielder who couldn’t OPS over .700 in the majors if his life depended on it. Someone here actually suggested the Sox should insert Owens in the lineup over Carlos Quentin, which nearly made my head explode. Benching the league leader in home runs? Yeah, that’s probably not the best way to fix a limp offense.
Pick It Up, Paulie: The real cause of the Sox offensive woes: the two big boppers in the middle aren’t hitting. With Quentin and Joe Crede bashing at a record rate, the Sox should be scoring more. But when Jim Thome is hitting .212 and Paul Konerko is hitting .233, a lot of runners are being stranded on base. Maybe Ozzie will consider flipping the two pairs of hitters, but the Sox won’t be doing anything this year if Thome and Paulie don’t turn it around.
Off Base: Foul Balls is one of our most favorite Chicago sports blogs in the world, but Fornelli’s take on the Sox at AOL is a little premature. At 14-15, the season certainly isn’t over. And who’s to say that Danks and Floyd aren’t for real? The biggest question mark heading into the season was the starting pitching, and it’s been phenomenal so far. Once the hits start coming, this team can go on a run very easily.
Was OC On That Boat?: Orlando Cabrera may have lost a job because he partied too much, but at least he never got pepper sprayed.
Question of the Week: Which number will be higher at season’s end, the number of Carlos Quentin homers or the number of times Quentin gets beaned? Current standings: home runs 8, hit by pitch 7.
That’s Ozzie: “This is a long season, and you’re going to go through tough times. The thing is how we’re going to handle it. And I didn’t like the way we handled it the last couple days. I see a lot of guys with long faces and worries. We’re not going to win 162 games, and (Sunday) I saw a lot more enthusiasm.”
Beachwood Sabermetrics: A complex algorithm performed by the White Sox Report staff using all historical data made available by Major League Baseball has determined if the Sox keep losing, the White Sox Report will begin to heavily rely on making fun of the Cubs in order to fill space.
The White Sox Report: Read ’em all.
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RIcky O’Donnell is the proud proprietor of Tremendous Upside Potential.
Posted on May 5, 2008