Sometimes the eye test is all you need. The Chicago White Sox pass the eye test. They are about as bad at baseball as professional baseball players can ever be.
This would be self-evident even if you didn’t have access to their season record, which includes one 14-game losing streak and one 21-game losing streak, a record that as of Saturday morning, sat at 28-90, which is a winning percentage of .237. That puts them solidly in the mix to challenge the 1962 Mets, whose 40-120 record yielded a winning percentage of a straight .250 and had long been the gold standard — maybe make that a zinc standard — for baseball futility.
You kind of have to hunt for White Sox games because it’s not like they’re the featured games on ESPN and Fox, although Yankees fans will have the pleasure of enjoying their slapstick this week when the Yankees go to Guaranteed Rate Field for three games against the ChiSox that should come with an NC-17 rating on YES telecasts.
NC as in “non-competitive.”
How bad is it?
It’s this bad: This week, the good people at Strat-O-Matic did a simulated best-of-seven series between the ’24 White Sox and the ’62 Mets — sort of an “Appall Classic,” instead of a Fall Classic.
It came down to a Game 7, of course, because you really can’t lose ’em all, even two teams as efficient at losing as the ’24 Sox and the ’62 Mets. And in Game 7, Jay Hook went the distance and Sammy Taylor hit a fourth-inning grand slam and the Mets pulled out a 7-5 win. That tracks because the simulated season the Strat-O-Matic team also ran for the ’24 White Sox had them at 41-121 — which would give the Sox the most losses ever but still give the Original Mets the, um, honor of retaining the worst losing percentage since baseball expanded in 1961, .250-.253.
A word here: I’d still be stunned if the White Sox didn’t scratch their way to, say, 45 wins. It’s hard to lose that many games. It just is. There have been few teams as insulting to the eyes as the 2003 Tigers, the last team to mount a legit season-long assault on the ’62 Mets. And they were right there, too.
baseman Frank Thomas, allowing St. Louis Pitcher Dob Gibson to reach first safely in fourth inning, at
the Polo grounds in New York on July 8, 1962. ASSOCIATED PRESS
After 156 games they were 38-118 and then they got hot. Still, after 160 they were at 41-119, well within reach. In Game 161, the Twins — a mere 49 games ahead of them in the AL Central — seized an 8-0 lead in the fifth inning. Casey and Marvelous Marv were about to have company at 120! Except the Tigers made a comeback, they scored four in the eighth, then they won it in the ninth on a walk-off wild pitch by … (wait for it) … 46-year-old Jesse Orosco, the final pitch of a 24-year big league career. The next day, they won 7-4 and settled for 43-119.
Ol’ Jesse had made one last save for his old team, the Mets, preserving their solo place in baseball infamy.
“It’s funny, the weird dynamic of being that bad is that sometimes you win games you shouldn’t because other teams who are still playing meaningful games tense up because if they lose a game to you it’s almost like losing twice,” Hook told me years ago. And it’s true: The Giants and Dodgers wound up tied for the pennant that year, and the Giants won a playoff that wouldn’t have been necessary if, instead of going 16-2 against the Mets, the Dodgers had gone 17-1.
“And that bothered them,” Hook said. “I know because they told me.”
The ’62 Mets have been good sports about this the last 62 years, truth be told, but it’s probably time to pass the torch — or, in this case, the matchstick — to a new generation of awful. The ’73 Sixers probably won’t pop any corks if any team ever loses a 74th game (we didn’t hear a peep out of any of them when the 2012 Bobcats “beat” their winning percentage in a lockout-shortened 7-59 season). And I don’t recall any celebrations out of the ’76 Buccaneers when they saw their 0-14 surpassed by circumstance by the ’08 Lions and ’17 Browns of 0-16 infamy.
Some records aren’t meant to be broken. But some, out of mercy, should.
Vac’s whacks
I think if Jazz Chisholm plays his cards right, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between him and Yankees fans.
The Globetrotters start a 10-day residency at American Dream on Friday. Amid the games and clinics, they’ll have their first-ever store with memorabilia and other unique items such as this, unearthed in their archives this week: a signed Curly Neal jersey. The Globies are always worth the trip, this time to East Rutherford.
She couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see her dad’s team play so close to their Washington state home, so Sarah Seaver Zaske and her family will be seated next to the Mets’ dugout in Seattle on Sunday as the Amazin’s face the M’s. “The Mets don’t get out to this part of the country much, and we just had to be there,” she said. “It’s going to be great to yell, ‘Let’s go Mets,’ again.”
Speaking of The Franchise … I was convinced in April that if the Mets ever let Pete Alonso go, there would be a torch-and-pitchfork revolt at Citi Field akin to when the Mets traded Seaver to the Reds in ’77. Now … well, now I’m not so sure. What say you, Mets fans?
Whack back at Vac
Peter Colford: Here’s a question for you: Who will win more games this year, the Giants or the Nets?
Vac: I know the Nets are readying for a major tankapalooza. But there’s a reason the ’73 Sixers have had the record at 9-73 as long as they have: It’s hard to lose that many games in the modern NBA. So … Nets.
Rich LePetri: You surprised me with your omission of Mark Messier from today’s column on captains. Did you have a reason for that? Just curious.
Vac: While Messier is the best example ever of a true captain’s captain, all NHL teams have captains. It’s less common in the NBA and MLB. It does merit explanation.
@drschnip: Pedro Grifol, fired by the White Sox with a .319 winning percentage and both a 21- and 14-game losing streak this season, still has a higher winning percentage than three Jets head coaches with more than five games coached: Lou Holtz, Rich Kotite and Adam Gase.
@MikeVacc: Just in case you thought it might’ve all been a dream, these last 56 years.
Alex Burton: I read a piece this week on why Aaron Judge honors Brett Gardner with a certain gesture to the crowd before every game. Isn’t it time the Yanks had a day in honor of Brett, an accomplished and career-long Yankee — and, at the time of his retirement, the last link to the 2009 champs?
Vac: I heard from so many Yankees fans for years who couldn’t wait for Gardner to be gone (not Alex) who I suspect would very much like his effort and energy level on the team now.
