Two Years After Losing 121 Games, the White Sox Are One Win From the ALCS

In 2024, the Chicago White Sox went 41-121. That's the most losses by any team in modern Major League history. It was the kind of season where the fans stopped booing, not out of forgiveness, but out of fatigue. Booing takes energy, and that team had taken it all.

Two years later, the White Sox are in the playoffs, and they've won the first two games of the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Guardians. Game 1, on October 3, was a 3-0 shutout: Munetaka Murakami hit a two-run homer, and five Chicago pitchers held Cleveland to three hits. Game 2, on October 5, was a 4-3 win. One more and they're in the American League Championship Series.

Now, I've seen a lot of comebacks in my time. I once saw a man win back his car in the same card game where he'd lost it. But I've never seen anything quite like a ballclub that was the worst in a century and then, a couple of springs later, became the one nobody wanted to play in October. That's not a comeback. That's a witness protection program.

Guardians vs. White Sox shot to the top of Google's trending searches this week, ahead of every celebrity and every scandal, which tells you how many people in Chicago are refreshing their phones and how many people in Cleveland are refreshing them harder. Cleveland, for its part, has been here many times. They know the playoffs are long, and a series isn't over until somebody's mother has stopped crying.

My advice to White Sox fans is the same advice my grandfather gave about lottery tickets: enjoy the feeling, but don't quit your job. Baseball is a cruel game. It gives you hope with one hand and takes your evening with the other. But for one week in October, a team that lost 121 games two years ago is the team everybody's talking about. That's the whole sport, right there. The bad years make the good ones taste like something.