35thstreetswarm

I'm not sure I understand this oft-stated (or implied) assumption that, because all the teams in the Central are bunched up around .500 in mid-May, somebody is clearly going to win the Central with around a .500 record in September. It's really early. I suspect some team in the Central is going to make a run and wind up with a decent record in the 90s, and I don't think the Sox are the most likely candidate to be that team.

Stay the course, don't do anything rash, try to build a healthy organization set up for sustained winning for a change. Just enjoy the surprisingly compelling baseball while keeping an eye on the minors. We may be ahead of schedule - that's way more excitement than I expected out of this season.

I'm as excited as anyone that we're playing better than expected in mid-May...but we're playing better than expected in mid-May. There's a long way to go. It's certainly not time to be trading away prospects. Let's just keep hoping our major league club remains watchable and that our prospects continue to develop. That's exactly what I hoped for out of this season.

Remember when some in the sports media and talk radiosphere started talking up Michael Beasley as the Derrick Rose pick got closer and closer?

No surprise--there's no way you get that jacked naturally

Really happy to see Schultz doing well. If Schultz has a good rookie campaign and Smith gets called up and has success I'll feel a lot better about "the plan."

There are two phases of being a White Sox fan for me. There's the phase where you hold out hope an objectively bad hire somehow turns into a good hire despite the terrible process and decisionmaking behind it (because hey, what else can you do?) Then there's the phase where you accept that, unsurprisingly, the bad hire was just a bad hire and you resign yourself to watching things deteriorate until the next bad hire restarts the process. I think I'm right between phase 1 and phase 2 right now.

I think it just gets back to the wildly varying definitions of "optimistic" that exist among fans. Optimistic that the team will make the playoffs? Laughable. Can't imagine that number is more than 1-2%. Optimistic that the team is "moving in the right direction?" Or that the team is becoming more watchable? Or that there's some semblance of a plan? That's something different, and where I think most informed optimists are living.

Yep. Illinois will continue losing that battle (thank god). And may still get the Bears.

Yeah - but still not a winning PR message to be the publicly desperate party that still failed (if that ends up happening).

I guess. I'm not sure "look at us, we scraped and begged and threw taxpayer money at them...and they still rejected us!" is something I'd send to the tourism board marketing guy. Indiana is to the Bears as the White Sox were to Manny Machado.

Bring on the Chicago Jaguars.

Wow. The point was that it was a joke, application of a frequently recycled internet meme like "TLDR" or "I ain't readin' all that". It was intended as a light jab since, you know, you posted like 10 times in a row. But based on this response it appears it impacted you in a pretty profound way, so while I think you're thin-skinned (and have misdiagnosed "why our country is so fucked up right now") I now I confess that I feel a little guilty. So don't let me stop you, list away.

Sir, this is a Wendy's

It sounds like your mindset is nearly identical to the other posters here, really.

It seems, at least, that we bounced off rock bottom and are trending upward. I'm looking forward to seeing the progression of some of the youngsters on the MLB roster and following the promotions of some key prospects throughout the year. The beginning of the season doesn't give me the same feeling of dread I've felt since '23.

"incite?"

Yes - I am as sentimental as they come, I've been going to games in Bridgeport for decades, and it would pain me a bit to see the site of so many memories lay vacant. I would have loved if the ownership had more vision and created 35th/Shields as an entertainment destination; maybe that's still in the cards, and if it is I'd be open to listening. But I think it's a huge stretch to suggest the current location or ballpark are drawing fans on their own. The attendance figures reinforce that story. A new ballpark that's still South of the Loop but more connected to downtown and other entertainment options could be a huge boon to the team and would get even this nostalgic curmudgeon excited.

Disgusting

It's very hard for me to believe omitting arguably the best player in White Sox history from a graphic was a mere oversight. The administration is acting like the group of vindictive, unprofessional bitches that they are, and that makes them repellent to the baseball universe.

Yep. Not really news that Indiana will bend over backwards to make itself attractive enough to lure a team there. Undesirable places tend to have to do that.

Oh yeah, I know - I'm one of them. But I'm trying to be better. But I won't be. They'll suck me back in much sooner than the franchise deserves.

The only "bad thing" is that the White Sox are such a garbage franchise that we as fans are forced to set bars for "success" that are totally divorced from the only thing we should care about (the on-field success of the team), and so low that they're underground. I understand the barriers placed in the way of Getz and others in the org by our dysfunctional ownership, and the structural limitations that make it impossible for the White Sox to truly succeed. If some of those barriers are a little lower than they were two years ago...my reaction is: "whatever." I don't blame any fan for trying to find silver linings in dark clouds. But at the end we shouldn't have to care about any of this stuff.