Mike Vasil has sounded hoarse for weeks.
"I would love my voice back," said the injured right-hander. "I don't think that's gonna happen."
The death of Vasil's voice lines up surprisingly well with the White Sox winning 16 of their last 24 games, and vaulting themselves over .500 for the first time in over three years, despite three consecutive 100-loss seasons in between.
"It's the most fun and quality atmosphere I've been in a while," said Erick Fedde, who saw the worst of the in-between years. "Especially in this clubhouse."
Felled by Tommy John surgery in spring training, Vasil hasn't simply embraced the idea of completing his rehab with the team so he could spend the season as a screaming dugout cheerleader, he claims to have never really considered the alternative. Some private rehabilitation facility would take him away from his teammates, so it wasn't an option. Tanner Murray remains here too, even as his left shoulder remains in a sling. With Vasil's voicebox compromised, he might actually stand a chance to match his teammate in volume.
This dedication to maintaining the 2026 White Sox and their ebullient mania of a clubhouse vibe is such that you can't ask famed Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami a question about the Harry Potter wand (it's got a logo'd carrying case and everything) Vasil waves toward the field at crucial moments, without getting a surprisingly poignant answer.
"Mike has been injured, however he’s the one that is cheering the most on the bench," Murakami said via interpreter. "He should be depressed, but he’s pumping up the team. Having a player like that lifts the team up and it’s an honor to be with him and as a teammate. A teammate like that, I love it so much and want to give back."
Like many Sox player quotes about one another, the affection is both mutual, and intense enough to start wondering if you're intruding.
"Literally him as a person, not even as a player is one of the best guys I've played with, especially considering the language barrier," Vasil said of Murakami. "It'd be very, very easy for him to come in every day, be super quiet, do his thing, perform. He's not from here. But even times when he's 0-for-4, not getting hits, his attitude, his positivity every day is incredible. And every time we win, it's about us winning, it's not about if he hit a homer, or made a play. It's always about the team with him and it shows."
Listen to these two -- they're a regular Colson Montgomery and Chase Meidroth.
"He’s my brother, he’s my boy," Montgomery said of his double play partner. "He’s one of my good friends. In our heads, anything hit to either one of us, it’s an out, it’s a double play. That connection kind of started right when we started playing with each other in spring training when he came over here. Everyone knows me and him are really good buddies."
Inside of Montgomery bevy of affection for his second baseman is a demonstration of how camaraderie blends into confidence in one another. Pedro Grifol once said to me that the champagne-soaked end-of-season interviews of every championship team invoke similar concepts of teammates loving and playing for one another. More than once, Andrew Vaughn described the issues of an underperforming White Sox offense as hitters trying to do it all by themselves every at-bat, rather than trusting the next man up.
These aren't names people like seeing invoked for insight on future White Sox success, and at the time it could feel like they were talking around more specific team issues. But now the first Sox team in recent memory that's better than the sum of their parts, and an offense that's been averaging over 5.3 runs per game for the past month, are citing similar concepts, but gleefully inverted.
"We know what we’re playing for this year, and it’s a lot more than ourselves," Meidroth said in a postgame scrum Tuesday that was supposed to be about his cathartic go-ahead three-run homer. "It’s about each other, it’s about everyone in here and the city and the organization. We’re going to show up every day and fight like it’s our last."
"I think we trust each other," said Miguel Vargas. "The guys behind you, taking quality at-bats, I think it's going to help us maintain the offense. We know it's a long season, and we're going to have days where it's going to be hard to perform like that. But I think we've been doing a really good job being consistent with it."
The only issue that the players might take is with the notion that this is a surprise, or that they're greater than the sum of their parts.
"We all came in the spring expecting to win and expecting to compete and go for a playoff push, and play as long as we possibly can," said Grant Taylor, who has experience being in a place where the high expectations were external, not just internal. "At LSU, it's [the expectation of] win a College World Series every year. Here, it's we're going to win a World Series; maybe this year, maybe next year, maybe the year after that. But we're going to work toward it every day."
Derek Hill had the rare entry point to the White Sox of being claimed off waivers before the last series of the 2025 season, right as he was up for salary arbitration. His path from that point to his regular bench role with irregular usage -- and occasional star turns -- has been as surprising to him as anyone else. But his current routine, working to stay hot all game and facing potential lefty reliever matchups on the Trajekt with assistant coach Tony Medina until his name is called, Hill claims he was all-in from the moment it was pitched to him back in Arizona.
"We knew what we had in spring training," Hill said. "We went out there and we showed it throughout spring, and just to see that come full circle, and everybody else finally see it, or make their own opinions on it, I'll leave that up to them. But I know what we've got in this clubhouse. We don't care about anything outside this clubhouse."
"Every good team is built off of selflessness," said Davis Martin, diverting another conversation away from the best individual results of his life. "Coming up through the minor leagues, you're obviously trying to make it for yourself. But to basically strip that away and do whatever you can for the team to win, and even if it's not any benefit to yourself, that's how great teams are built.
"You look at how it is right now. I mean, you have [Tuesday] night, you had Chase coming in the clutch. It's not always going to be the big name guys. It's not always going to be the same guy every time. Like everybody has to show up, everybody has to compete. We have that sacrifice."
But like, why though?
Why does a team that, in some ways started to build out a core through the second half of last season, but has still churned through 43 different players this year alone, talk about each other this way?
"It’s a group effort of being their true selves and confidence," said Montgomery. "There’s a lot of different kind of characters in here. Everyone is being their true selves. When we can do that, I think we’re the most confident. Once that confidence comes out, everyone kind of feeds off the confidence. It’s like anything, if you’re around negativity all the time, that can kind of wear and tear on you. We’re putting so much positive energy into the team, into each other."
It'll probably be easiest to just give Will Venable the credit. Ultimately the responsibility of maintaining the clubhouse atmosphere falls on him, and the last good White Sox team publicly struck a similar note of acceptance of their eclectic personalities under Tony La Russa. But where the 2021 Sox seemed to bond most when they had something to be defiant against--baseball orthodoxy, Josh Donaldson, maybe La Russa himself at times--this team has Vargas and Sam Antonacci barking like dogs after home runs, Vasil zapping Murakami with a magic wand, and probably more silliness in store.
"Especially for the level we're at, this it the craziest--I actually think this is the craziest dugout I've ever been in, in my life," said Vasil. "It's hard to know what's even crossing the line now in that dugout. It's a lot of fun."
With how long since it's been fun for the White Sox, that's all that matters.
