Chicago White Sox meme their way through baseball's worst season ever
The White Sox are stumbling and bumbling their way toward the most abysmal record in baseball's modern history.
A home loss Tuesday against the Los Angeles Angels would clinch that embarrassing title, surpassing the New York Mets’ 120 losses in 1962.
Even the Sox’ social media team is struggling to spin the squad’s sad performance.
After falling to the San Diego Padres on Sunday, tying the record for most losses, the Sox’ official account on the social media platform X refused to report the score — a running joke in the season’s waning days.
Instead, the Sox posted a meme showing a car swerving off the Dan Ryan Expressway toward 35th Street, where the team plays. An edited overhead sign had directed the car — labeled “Admin,” referring to the administrator of the account — to either stay straight and “Post [the] final score” or turn and post “Literally anything else.”
The meme has since garnered millions of views and nearly 150,000 likes on X. By then, similarly evasive tweets had already gone viral.
FINAL: the number of runs we scored was not greater than the number of runs they scored
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) September 21, 2024
“Final: the number of runs we scored was not greater than the number of runs they scored,” the team posted after another loss to the Padres on Friday.
The Sox sought to use the team’s dismal performance to build its social media following. Four X posts alone have been viewed nearly 25 million times.
FINAL: the other team scored more runs than us
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) September 18, 2024
“As we planned for this unfortunate milestone,” a Sox spokesperson said, “we were looking to come up with creative ways to acknowledge the reality of the situation, engage with our fans and with a wink, maybe disarm the negativity just a little bit.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a Sox season ticket holder, took a similar approach to a far more serious crisis when COVID-19 hit, embracing a meme of herself enforcing a statewide stay-at-home order and dressing as a “Rona Destroyer” for Halloween.
Lightfoot didn't respond to a request for comment. She's among the most well known Sox fans, along with former President Barack Obama, former Mayor Richard M. Daley and musicians Chance the Rapper and G Herbo.
Amid the Sox’ embarrassing season, lawmakers across the state have bristled at owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s push for about $1 billion in public funding for a new stadium at the undeveloped parcel known as the 78, near Roosevelt Road and Clark Street.
Earlier this month, the team and the property’s developer Related Midwest put on a fantasy camp in their latest pitch to lawmakers. Longtime Sox groundskeeper Roger “The Sodfather” Bossard has manicured a pop-up field on the South Loop site with striking views of the city’s skyline.