⚾ Seeing What the Box Score Misses
A reflection on what it’s like to watch the Mets find new ways to lose, why situational baseball still matters, and how it feels to see the same patterns over and over while everyone else says it’s just variance.
Rooting for the Hopeless: A White Sox Reflection
A funny, heartfelt look at what it means to cheer for the White Sox when they’re historically awful. From a lifelong baseball bucket list to a superfan yelling her heart out, this is a tribute to showing up even when your team can’t seem to win.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Rooting for the Hopeless
—A White Sox Reflection
We went to a White Sox game.
Sure, because it’s baseball.
But really because I’ve got this lifelong quest to hit every Major League stadium before my kids get too cool to come with me.
Guaranteed Rate Field was next — so we showed up and checked it off.
From the first pitch, I noticed her.
A woman a few rows behind us, yelling at the top of her lungs like it was Game 7 of the World Series. And sure, she’d probably had a few beers, but that wasn’t the story. The story was how much she cared. She wasn’t heckling. She wasn’t giving up. She was doing her part — willing this team to be better.
And I found myself admiring her.
Because let’s be honest: the 2025 White Sox are... historically bad. Not in a fun “bad boys of baseball” kind of way. In a bleak, existential, burn it down and start over kind of way. And that’s after being awful last year, too — when they lost 121 games, the most in modern Major League Baseball history.
This year? As of mid-June, they’re 23–52, and somehow still in last place — again.
The losing isn’t new. It’s just a sequel nobody asked for.
My kids laughed at my special White Sox edition of the 7th inning stretch when I sang,
“Root, root, root for the home team…
if they don’t win, it’s a normal day.”
But this woman? She still showed up. Still cheered. Still believed, in some small way, that it mattered.
And honestly? That’s what being a fan is about.
Not just the banners. Not just the walk-offs. Not just the champagne-soaked locker rooms and parade routes.
It’s showing up when your team is garbage.
It’s caring when no one else does.
It’s yelling encouragement into the void and hoping something echoes back.
Because someday — maybe not this season, or next — but someday, the White Sox will be good again.
And when they are, that woman will be there, too.
Hoarse voice, beer in hand, saying, I was here before.
That’s fandom. That’s love. That’s baseball.
“Know what’s enough. Build what matters.”
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