Biggest Losers

Having deferred their destiny with an improbable three-game winning streak, the 2024 Chicago White Sox succumbed to the inevitable last night, falling  4-1 to the Detroit Tigers and becoming, officially, the worst team in modern baseball history. With their 121st loss, they have broken the record held by the 1962 New York Mets, of 120 losses. The 1962 Mets, though, had a good excuse for losing 120 games—they were an expansion team. The 2024 White Sox represent a storied franchise that has existed for more than a century. They are located in the third largest U.S. city, have a middle-of-the-pack payroll and were a playoff team full of young, supposedly rising talent as recently as 2021. There is no precedent for a franchise—in baseball, or in any major sport—that has fallen this far, this fast. Several times over the past three years it appeared that they had reached proverbial rock bottom, only to discover that the rocks were merely decoration on top of a sinkhole. In recent weeks, many national commentators have proclaimed that no season could be worse than this one, but this only proves that they are not White Sox fans. Only we truly know what it is like for that sempiternal sports nostrum, “There’s always next year,” to sound less like a promise than a threat.