There are a lot of problems stemming from the White Sox's postseason drought, but I've long been wary of draining all the fondness from the 2005 season by over-reliving it, especially as subsequent seasons failed to be worth revisiting.
Unfortunately, nostalgia is one of the few tools in our arsenal as we combat the pandemic stoppage. Fortunately, the 2005 White Sox haven't yet turned into the 1985 Bears, the team that loomed large an uncomfortably long time. They're also not the Michael Jordan Bulls, whose successes still allow the franchise to paper over deficiencies because of their global reach. The 2005 White Sox were just a good team that had a great run, and people seem content to appreciate it in a time-capsule sense. I don't think we're going to hear Aaron Rowand on a regular Score time slot talking about how Luis Robert wouldn't have been able to cut it a couple decades ago.
That theory will be put to the test, as NBC Sports Chicago is spending the stoppage doing a 2005 rewatch. It's not a bad use of time, even if some screws and bolts on that season have been stripped from overuse. I'd tune in to see Aaron Rowand's Yankee Stadium series, the whole Joe! Crede! Game, and a few others. I can't say I have a whole lot of natural interest in seeing the postseason unfold, because I've already watched it plenty of times.
I'm not nostalgia-averse. It just needs to be handled with care, and with the number of dysfunctional teams outnumbering the ones that kept it together over the last 15 years, the Sox have resorted to running back to 2005 a little too often for my comfort.
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In the P.O. Sox segment from Monday's show, asinwreck asked us which games we'd want the White Sox to reair for us. I found it difficult to summon choices from the last decade. It's not for a lack of games that were fun as hell -- I've written up the list of top games here and SSS over the last eight seasons -- but mostly because they're damned difficult to remove from the context without leaving remnants of friable asbestos.
Let's go back to 2012, the last time the White Sox posted a winning season. There's Philip Humber's perfect game (his career collapsed afterward). There's Jordan Danks' REDDICKDUDNMOOOOO homer (he's now selling real estate). There's Alex Rios' game-saving takeout slide in Detroit (which could've defined his Sox career, but didn't), and Adam Dunn's two-homer game that kept the Sox in first place (he'd've needed more than that).
In the wake of the that team's fizzling finish, I wrote that the professionalism and competence was underrated as it happened, even after accounting for the disappointment. Considering the seven losing seasons that followed, I feel the take holds up pretty well. It's the only season of the decade where the White Sox were both decently talented and all pulling in the same direction.
There were plenty of memorable and enjoyable games since, but it's not all that satisfying to watch a Chris Sale two-hitter knowing that the Sox couldn't build a winner around him, and he played a part in it. It's not until last season where you can watch baggage-free games, and while the White Sox are restreaming Lucas Giolito's triumphs, you could do that at any time with an MLB.tv account.
I ended up suggesting May 25, 2008, when John Lackey lost a game to the White Sox simply because he couldn't get Carlos Quentin, who went 3-for-3 with an HBP and two homers, including the walk-off. That checks off all the boxes of a game I'd sit down to rewatch:
- Reasons to watch throughout nine innings, including a dominant Jose Contreras.
- A Sunday Night Baseball broadcast with 36,000 fans in the stands.
- A White Sox team that succeeded enough to stand on its own merits.
But concerning games that I'm already familiar with, there aren't too many I feel a need to relive.
I'm more interested in games I couldn't see from start to finish. Josh suggested one such game, which was the White Sox's division-clinching victory from 1983. I've seen how it ended, but I'd want to know how the first eight innings unfolded in real time.
But even then, I'd still go into the game knowing why I was watching it. The whole point of watching a game is not knowing how any given nine innings are going to unfold. Sometimes Dylan Covey beats Chris Sale, and that's why you tune in even if you feel like there's no reward in doing so.
The closest we can get to simulating that effect is watching a game time has forgotten, especially in seasons that don't even matter. There have to be equivalents of the Carlos Quentin Game, or the Aug. 2, 2007 game whose line score may never be duplicated.
I wouldn't mind seeing the White Sox take it a step further, picking the brains of Jerry Reinsdorf, Kenny Williams, Hawk Harrelson, and all the former players they have hanging around the organization, selecting random games that stand out in their mind well after their teams were eliminated from contention. You can look up why these games were picked if you want to know how you're investing your time, or you can let it unfold and see if you can tell why it stands out to you.
Ron Kittle selects ... Tom Paciorek selects... Harold Baines selects ... Richard Dotson selects ... Ozzie Guillen selects ...
I'm guessing that's not as naturally marketable as footage of the 2005 White Sox and Mark Buehrle's perfect game, especially since NBC Sports Chicago already has the broadcast rights to most of those. Comfort food is an easy call when everybody's stress-eating. When it comes to flashbacks, though, White Sox fans have been served a limited menu of fond memories for the last 15 years, so maybe it's time to expand the offerings with what else is in the pantry, even if the recipe -- like this food metaphor -- is better on paper than in ratings.
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In the comments under the podcast, asinwreck had his own suggestions to answer his question, with a number of games standing out in the way I want to see:
"June 4, 1972 (both games of a double-header): The Sox sweep the Yankees in front of a packed house. Dick Allen wins the second game with a pinch-hit homer.
July 31, 1977 (game one): Maybe the most fun game of the 1977 season. With 50,000 in the stands (as with the 1972 game), Chet Lemon hits a couple homers to give the first-place Sox the victory over the Royals in the tenth inning. The park is rocking! Steve Stone started the game and could give his memories for a rebroadcast. (Do not air the second game of that day’s doubleheader, or any subsequent game versus the 1977 Royals.)
August 3, 1979: This is a road game in Toronto with both teams mired in the second division. It is also Tony La Russa’s debut as a major-league manager. (Trivia: The August 1 game was Don Kessinger’s last as manager, but it is more famous as Thurman Munson’s final game. I was at that one, and it was devoid of highlights.) Steve Trout wins it, and it gives a taste of what most games were like after the 77 Hit Men dispersed.
May 8, 1984: The Sox beat the Brewers 7-6 in 25 innings. The game took eight hours to play, and this time, the slow battery of Britt Burns and Carlton Fisk was only a minor factor. Fisk played the whole game at the tender age of 36.
August 4, 1985: The Sox beat the Yankees in the Bronx behind Tom Seaver’s complete game. It is Seaver’s 300th victory.
July 1, 1990: The Sox are no-hit by Andy Hawkins and win 4-0. The single most hilarious game of my lifetime.
August 2, 1990: But my favorite game of the 1990 season was this 4-3 win over the Brewers involving the debuts of a couple of Larry Himes draft picks named Frank Thomas and Alex Fernandez. I remember watching this one from a bar in Washington DC and having so much hope for the future,
August 11, 1991: The Sox call up a young pitcher picked up a couple years earlier in the Baines trade. In his first game with the club, Wilson Alvarez no-hits the Orioles.
June 18, 2000: The White Sox beat the living tar out of Orlando Hernandez and the Yankees on national TV. As you can tell by this list, I have a lot of time for watching the Sox beat the Yankees, and wathcing this 17-4 rout was when I thought that 2000 was going to be a special season. (It was if we forget about the post-season.)
April 21, 2012: Sure, Mark Buehrle’s perfect game gets all the attention, but on this day Philip Humber becomes the third pitcher in Sox history to achieve perfection. Watch the greatest day in the career of a guy who already had dealt with disappointment and injury, and who would immediately regress to unplayable afterwards."
So that's his selection. I particularly like the idea of the 2000 game, because that Shermanesque march through Cleveland and New York is one of those things that make the regular season matter.
I feel like this is a list worth building, especially if the YouTubers with home archives are so inspired. What are the games you would want to see? And, if you want to summon your inner hipster, what games do you remember well after everybody else has forgotten them?
(Photo: U.S. Navy photo by Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Dwayne Snader)
