By: Mike Carter
Being a baseball fan isn’t always fun.
I have been sharing my love of the Chicago White Sox with my friends and family for years. In the last three or four years, I have goaded my son Jack into being a Sox fan, too. The word fan comes from the word fanatic, and I have succeeded into turning him into a rabid follower of the best sport in the world, baseball. As I write these words, Jack is looking at You Tube videos of Eric Gagne throwing Vulcan changeups and he’s mumbling about wanting to learn to throw one. This after playing with his new whiffle ball pitching screen, given to him for his birthday by my dad and stepmom. I have created a baseball fan, and it took me years of patient posturing and brainwashing, but here we are.
When your team is good, it’s easier to be a fan. When your team is bad, it is anything but easy to watch.
As I write this, my favorite team, who I have followed since about 1978, is 25 games under .500 at 43-68. If you recall, the White Sox were supposed to be in their window to contend for a World Series championship, or at the very least, some deep playoff runs. Fans went through a long and painful rebuild, trading star pitcher Chris Sale for young prospects Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech. The Sox also traded OF Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals for pitching prospects Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning. With the development of shortstop Tim Anderson, Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez, the pieces were supposed to be in place for a 3–5-year contention window. They made the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, were .500 last year with Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, and completely moribund this year.
So, the big run never happened, as anyone who follows baseball readily knows. Injuries, a general lack of understanding of how to play winning baseball, and a seeming lack of cohesion of teammates have led to this current stage.
This summer, Jack had to experience what happens when your team stinks: the inevitable selling off of expiring contracts to contenders, and in return, prospects that could fuel the next incarnation of the team. It’s the nature of the business side of the game: players have a short shelf life, and teams will try to get useful pieces in return for players they either can’t or won’t sign again.
There were some great moments in our shared fandom these last four seasons. We watched Giolito throw a no-hitter, and saw Carlos Rodon come within one out of a perfect game. We went to several games together, navigating his horrific peanut allergy, and enjoyed seeing “our guys” up closer. Jack and I got to experience a playoff game together in 2021, when the White Sox played the Houston Astros. They lost the game, but what an experience for us together with my brother and his daughter as well.
Being a baseball fan is fun when your team is going well, and it’s not so much fun when the team is going poorly. Yet one thing real fans don’t do is turn their tail and run away from it. Too often in our society, if something is broken, we walk away from it. When it ceases being useful, we throw it away. We do this with material goods, like household appliances and tools. But we also do it with people, with our relationships, with our work. You don’t throw away your fandom because a team is bad. I was born and raised in Chicago, on the South Side, and I am fiercely proud of where I grew up. Anyone from the South Side knows the character of the people there: hard-working, blue collar, bring your lunch with you to work, love your family and friends, and never stray too far away from the places and the people you are from. I take pride in that, and we love our sports: the Bears, the Blackhawks, the Bulls and the White Sox. We don’t turn our backs on them when they have hard seasons, and God knows, Chicago fans have had some rough seasons lately. But the Bulls won six championships with this guy named Michael Jordan, and the Blackhawks won three Stanley Cups in the 2010s. So there have been plenty of good times too, despite the missed opportunities for the White Sox, the famed “Double Doink” of the Bears against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2019.
The White Sox have won three World Series ever. I was alive to see one, in 2005. I do not know if we will ever see another in my lifetime, but that was magic for me. It made all the years of losing worth it, to savor a team that played the game the right way, with no superstars, just win baseball games. It was wonderful. I hope I get to experience that with Jack one day. It’s easy to be a fan when you are on top of the world, watching your preferred team dominate and win. That’s why fans savor those big moments so much: they can be few and far between for most teams, and we inherently know this. Being a true fan can often result in pain. But here’s two things to remember:
- It’s only a game.
- Despite your fandom, you are not on the team. You have no bearing on whether the team wins or loses. While the losses might sting, and you might talk about it for days on end, you’re not part of the team. It is no referendum on you if your team wins or loses. Just enjoy the games.
In all things, there is ebb and flow. One of the lessons to learn here for Jack is that we love our team, no matter how bad they are, and we will not change our fandom because the team is bad. But we should always be open to watching other teams and other players and enjoying the game. I did purchase MLB TV for us so that we could watch other teams with exciting players: we have been watching the Arizona Diamondbacks, and their fun team led by Corbin Carroll. We are making plans to go and see the immensely talented Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds. Jack has also taken an interest in the Baltimore Orioles, specifically Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. I encourage him to watch good baseball, and to follow the young superstars of the game. I feel it’s always a good idea to expose our kids to the width and breadth of the game. This has been some solace as the Sox stumble to the finish line. We enjoy watching the late West Coast games together in the summer.
The trade deadline was interesting for the Sox in that they moved some major talent and got some prospects in return. But rebuilding a barren farm system does nothing a for a 12-year-old boy when his favorite players get traded. I found myself almost dreading telling him the news that Lucas Giolito and Jake Burger had been traded at the deadline. Jack loves those guys: they play hard, they play well, and they seem like good guys too.
Funny story: while on a quick Michigan trip, Jack and I had wandered into a card and memorabilia store, and I gave him $20 to buy cards. He bought a Luis Robert and some others, but the ones he liked the most were Giolito and Burger. Later that week, both were traded, and he stared at their cards for a long time back in our AirBNB. I was going to pester him for his thoughts, but I just let him be there and be pensive. Later he asked why these things happen, and I explained it to him the best that I could. He was heartbroken.
“Why don’t the White Sox want Lucas and Burgertron anymore?” I explained to him that it wasn’t that simple; that at the end of the day, this is a business for teams, and players become commodities.
Later on in the week, he said, “well did they at least get some good players? Maybe the new guys will be, ok?” The mantra of every fan of every bad sports team in America, right? Still, it was harder for me to watch him go through this process than I thought it would be. He really loved watching those two guys play. He recognizes at a young age people who do things the right way, and both Giolito and Burger qualify there.
There will be other guys that Jack loves on his baseball journey, and this was a great learning experience for him. While sad now (and he is still really in the dumps after losing Giolito and Burger), he knows better days will be coming. When? Maybe not for a while, ha. But like Robin Williams said in “Good Will Hunting,” the bad stuff always awakens you to the good stuff going on around you. I hope that Jack gets that now, because I know I have created a White Sox fan for life.
Being a fan isn’t always easy or fun, but it is always worth your time and love, especially if you share that with those around you. I hope your teams are doing well as we head into the dog days of summer.