The History of the Chicago White Sox

            Usually, there’s not much of a theme to be found in the founding of a sports team. Most of the time, they just file the paperwork and start playing. The White Sox are different. They’re one of the founding members of the American League (AL), and the story of their origin is the story of the founding of the AL. A story of pure spite.  In the early days of baseball, there was a fierce war to find out which baseball league would become the dominant one in the United States. The National League (NL) was the second attempt to create a unified league of baseball teams, doing so in 1876 following a failed attempt in 1871. The NL faced challenges from the American Association (1882), the Union Association (1884), the Western League (1885), and the Players’ League (1891). The National League defeated all of these rival businesses and by 1892 was mostly unchallenged. There were some other leagues operating, but all with the understanding that t...

  I can’t believe what I am seeing. It’s August 5th, 2023, and the Chicago White Sox have hit rock bottom.  What’s happening isn’t especially out of the ordinary. The Sox are getting made fun of on Twitter, which is nothing new. What makes this rock bottom for a team, what broke me as a fan, was the specifics of what happened.  José Ramírez, the third baseman for the rival Cleveland Guardians, just hit a ball down the right field line that should be extra bases, but the Sox did a good job fielding it and actually have a chance to catch Ramírez at second. Tim Anderson, the White Sox’s shortstop, is covering the bag when Ramírez comes sliding in. It’s possible that Ramírez didn’t expect the ball to come to second so soon, or maybe he just slid badly, but either way, he barrels into second base, nearly taking Anderson out along the way. Tim takes exception to this, which is pretty common. In the big list of things that start fights in baseball, hard slides into second are pr...