Frederick J Nachman
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
Two magnets hopefully will stay on the side of our refrigerator until the end of time: the Chicago White Sox schedules for the 2005 and 2024 seasons. For those who are not White Sox or baseball fans, the Sox won the World Series in a 4-game sweep in the former and set the record for the most losses in modern Major League Baseball history – 121 – in the latter. I’ve attended Sox games on the South Side every year since 1954 except for the 106-loss 1970 season (I saw them lose a game in Fenway Park in Boston that summer) and the pandemic 2020 no-fans season.
Magnet schedules are handed out either on Opening Day or one of the games of the first series of the season. I currently have 13 (possibly a few missing), dating back to 2003. Given the significance of the 2005 season, that magnet has graced two refrigerators since then. Each previous season’s magnet is replaced by the new season’s edition.
Through luck and foresight, I attended 24 Sox games in 2005, including both Division Championship Series wins, a loss in the League Championship Series and the win in Game 1 of the World Series. I also saw the Game 1 win in the 1959 World Series.
On the other hand, this past season was trying, to say the least. It started on Opening Day, even before entering the ballpark, when a security guard hassled me about taking in my small mirrorless camera, citing a rule that didn’t exist. Although the pitching was excellent in the 1-0 loss to the Detroit Tigers, an ominous portent surfaced: the Sox scratched out only 3 hits and didn’t advance a runner to 2nd base. It was all downhill from there, as I was winless in the next 7 games, including a 6-1 loss to the New York Yankees in Yankee Stadium, going into the last month of the season.
For the final 3-game home series vs. the Los Angeles Angels, the Sox needed only one more loss to set the MLB record. This time I took my trusty professional DSLR to the first game. No hassles that night; the Sox won after a lengthy rain delay. I took a chance and skipped the next night – another Sox victory – and figured to photograph history on a beautiful Thursday afternoon. It was not to be; the Sox waited until that last home game to score 7 runs in the 5th inning (the most all season) to win 7-0. They set the record the next night in Detroit.
The 2024 edition is going to stay up; I haven’t decided – if I can even get one given uncertainty about ticket sources – whether I will put up the 2025 magnet. Who knows; they could lose 122 in 2025.