Anyone who knows me, even a little bit, knows I’m completely obsessed with my past. I’m not talking about my relationships or my friendships. I’m talking about my experiences. From school to my toys to shows and movies I watched to stores my family shopped at. I had the happiest childhood of anyone I’ve ever met. I still enjoy the shows I enjoyed as a child, including He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe, The Lone Ranger and Looney Tunes.
The happiest period of my life was from whatever point I can originally remember (probably the age of four) through the spring of 2005. At that point, things went downhill and, being honest, they continued in a downward spiral for the next 18 years. The negative points of my life were definitely a result of unhappy relationships but that’s a story for another time.
A couple of times I tried to recreate happy times during my not-happy period and it was an absolute disaster. For example, one of my happy times was a dinner and shopping trip with my parents on December 29, 1995. I attempted to recreate the experience in 2008, with a cretin I was dating at the time. Some of the stores I had been to in 1995 were closed, as was the restaurant I ate at with my mom and dad. Everything about the 2008 trip was bad. So bad, in fact, that it almost ruined the original experience for me, which was the exact opposite of what I had been trying to accomplish. And I’m worried I’m going to do it again.
I have plans this year to do a project I did in 1995-96, as well as 2001. My project is to create myself on NCAA Football 07, NCAA March Madness 07 and MVP NCAA Baseball 07, playing my way all the way through. I’ve went in depth on my project in previous blog entries so I don’t want to belabor the issue, but I’ve been wanting to do this again for over 20 years. And I figured with better equipment (I can play the PS2 games on my backward compatible PS3 instead of the NES I had in 1995). But I’m concerned I’m going to be disappointed because it’s not a carbon copy of my original project. Even though it’s more a matter of mindset than anything else. But I’m hopeful that I can see my way clear and enjoy it.
Which brings me to the whole purpose of this entry.
My obsession with my history is a double-edged sword. While I loved my childhood, my teenage years and my early 20s, that time is gone and nothing I can do will bring it back. And I’m trying as hard as I can to let those days dissolve into the past and not base my whole life on how happy I am NOW in comparison to how happy I was THEN. The fact is, I should be happier now than I’ve been at any point in my life but I just can’t feel it. I can’t find it. I am hoping that finally getting on with my project will bring back the happy I felt in 1995 and 2001. But I can’t let that be the singular deciding factor in what I’m dealing with.
The past 18 years haven’t been so bad that I couldn’t get through them but they have been horrible. Relationships I wouldn’t wish on anyone. One with a fat piece of garbage in the late 2000s that nauseates me even to think about, and she was the one I attempted to recreate my 1995 trip with. The whore of Preston County in the 2010s who nearly ruined my life. A girl in Chicago who was 35 going on 15. These situations made the past 18 years absolutely dreadful. And I’m past all of that now. I’m in a situation that is perfect now. I should be happier than I’ve ever been. But I’m letting those miserable 18 years pull down my happy past as well as my current and my future. Even women I wasn’t romantically attached to, like a girl I knew from 1999 until 2023 just decided to make my life a little more miserable than it needed to be. And I considered her to be my closest confidant in a complete and total friendship situation. After re-assessing the situation, I realize she needed to go as much as the women I had dated in the past. And that needs to be something I never look back on.
I have to let the good and the bad go and stop thinking about how happy I was from 1982 to 2004 and how miserable I was from 2005 to 2023. Those times are both over, and while I’m not as happy as I was in my younger days, I am MUCH happier than I was at any point since 2005. And rather than focusing on either of those things, I am trying so hard to focus forward. And I just don’t know if I can pull it off. If my project doesn’t work out, I don’t know what I’m going to do from there. I’ve put all of my eggs in one basket and I’m afraid I’m going to drop it. And then I’ll know that things are far worse now than I’m willing to accept.
So, for the next 2 months I’m focused on updating baseball rosters on MLB The Show 23 and making an attempt at running franchise mode this season. And if that falls short by any length, it’s time to start on my project and I have everything leaning on that decision. We’ll see what happens but right now I don’t have the highest of hopes and I’m still obsessed with the past. And I have to get past that to move forward regardless of what I’m going to do.
I know this is all kind of a mess, I just felt like it would do me good to get all these feelings out and see how things go in the future. Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.
It’s been a long and difficult journey to get to this point, and I’ve taken many side trips along the way. Back in May, I started thinking about what I would do after the baseball season ended, knowing the White Sox had no chance of making the playoffs. I took a number of options into consideration, even starting a few and then bailing out.
So, now I have decided the route I want to take.
I considered following college sports again, specifically UCLA or WVU. I was willing to completely walk away from the White Sox for a couple years while they got their ducks in a row. I figured the break would do me good and I could start attending WVU games again if I started following the Mountaineers. But I did a double take after reading about the hazing situation at Northwestern University, that has also been taking place at a number of high schools throughout the United States. I’m not sure what sodomizing teammates has to do with football, and I have a hard time believing there are that many faggots playing football just for the opportunity to fuck their teammates in the ass, but whatever the reason, I completely lost any interest in anything to do with the sport of football.
Yes, I’m throwing the baby out with the bathwater by lumping all of the football programs together, but I found I couldn’t watch a football game without feeling sick to my stomach. This is not an anti-gay statement, this is me being disgusted at football players, who present themselves as “manly,” literally sexually assaulting their teammates. When did football players go from assaulting their wives/girlfriends (which isn’t any better and I’m not saying that’s what they should be doing) to sticking their dicks, broomsticks and other items up each other’s asses? What kind of moron thought that was a good idea?
Regardless of how it started, the fact is it happened and it’s beyond pathetic.
Next, I really considered going all in with the Chicago Blackhawks and I started a full-on transition. I have nearly as much Blackhawks memorabilia as I do White Sox, and I was ready to start replacing my Sox decor with Blackhawks. But then I took a look at the big picture and I decided I wanted to take one final run at my White Sox franchise on MLB The Show. And that brought me to what I’m going to do this offseason.
Today I downloaded the most recent rosters on MLB The Show 23. I’m going to update them over the course of the winter to be ready for the first Spring Training game. I’m going to listen to the White Sox podcasts every week and watch a couple or three episodes of Chicago Fire/PD/Med and watching my science shows and lectures on YouTube. I still plan to catch a Blackhawks game when its on a channel I can get (I don’t get NHL Network since I traded Dish Network for YouTube TV).
Last year, I was halfway through my roster updates when they magically disappeared, even though I had them saved on my PS5 and in the cloud. Both, gone. This year, I’m saving the rosters on the PS5, the cloud and a USB Drive in hopes of that not happening again.
Some have asked why I don’t just wait for MLB The Show 24 to come out and just go from there, but (1) the game won’t release until Spring Training is almost over and (2) if The Show doesn’t feature year-to-year saves, I’m not going to buy the new edition. I’ve done that for years and haven’t gotten my rosters updated correctly since 2021. I see no reason to continue buying a game that I’m not going to play. So, if this works, I’ll either play MLB The Show 23 next season or, if next year’s edition features year-to-year saves, I will update and move my rosters and Spring Training files to MLB The Show 24.
Either way, this is the final year I’ll be updating the rosters. If it all works out, I won’t need to do a full update next season. If it doesn’t, next offseason will be completely focused on the Blackhawks. I can’t really see a situation at this point where I would ever be able to go back and watch college or NFL football, at this point I’m too disgusted with the whole thing, but I’m not going to make any definitive statements, because every time I do make a definitive statement about something, I end up having to walk it back.
So, I’ll be spending the next four months as White Sox GM on MLB The Show 23 and updating all 30 team rosters and adding free agents as they are signed and making trades as they are made in real time. I’ll post the rosters to the vault when they are finished, in mid-February.
And if anything happens this year to ruin my work, I’ll consider that a clear sign that I need to stop, and I will just walk away from it. But one way or the other, this is the last time I’ll be undertaking this project. I’ve enjoyed it over the past several years but it has to come to an end at some point. This year is the point at which it ends.
Several days ago, my frustration with the Chicago White Sox lead me to a decision I had been contemplating for several years, walking away from the Sox and rekindling my love of college football and basketball.
In 2004, I stopped watching everything other than baseball. I gave up on college football, basketball and baseball and the NFL, NBA, NHL, PGA and NASCAR. MLB and MiLB because my entire life and I didn’t care about anything else. A few times I considered getting back into college sports, but I just couldn’t do it.
So I was ready to finally take the plunge now. I was ready to close my social media accounts and give myself a crash course in football, both college and the NFL. I started watching my old college football DVDs (Rites of Autumn, ESPN Honor Roll) as well as a number of NFL Films on YouTube. I also watched ESPN College GameDay today, the first time since probably 2012, the last time I tried to force myself back into college sports.
The fact of the matter is, I can’t do this. I sold my soul to the White Sox in 2004. As annoyed as I am with the organization, at least I can watch it without wanting to jump out a window. I remember back in the day when ESPN College GameDay was a studio show, and it was nothing like it is now. The last time I saw anything as obnoxious as that was political arguing on Fox News, with everyone talking over each other. How is that entertaining?
In 2005 I wrote a blog on Yahoo about losing interest in the “thug sports,” and quoted a list of arrests in college football and basketball, the NFL and the NBA that had been announced over the previous week. I have done the same on Facebook a couple of times over the past 15 years. MLB or MiLB arrests? Few and far between.
Thug sports are just not for me. It’s taken me a long time to finally accept the fact that there’s no going back to my youth and the sports that I watched back then. But today, I’ve finally come to that conclusion. The White Sox are my life. Nothing is going to change that. They could have hired Kenny Williams Jr. as the new general manager and it wouldn’t have soured me on the White Sox as much as existing has soured me on other sports.
I’m certainly not ripping on anyone who still enjoys the NFL, the NBA and NCAA sports. I love the fact that there are so many options for people to find enjoyment watching. But my life is baseball. Period.
Therefore, I will be sticking to the status quo. I’ll remain on Facebook, X, Instagram and Threads posting White Sox news and scores. And I’ll never be stupid enough again to think anything is going to change. I’m 46 years old, my college sports and NFL fandom ended when I was 27 years old. That’s a long time ago.
And to those reading this from a social media link, if you don’t agree with or like this decision, I ask that you please remove yourself from my friends list or followers. There’s nothing for you here.
I have tried to convince myself that I could follow West Virginia University sports and go back to my roots, listening to my local radio pregame and enjoy myself, as well as attending games again. While that may be possible, I’m not sure I even want to try to find out. I’m in my zone with the White Sox and given how attempting to follow college sports on a national platform has gone, I don’t think following the Mountaineers again would work out any better.
So, that’s how it is. I look forward to continuing to follow the White Sox through the end of the season, the off-season and spring training, as well as the 2024 season and all future seasons as long as I’m alive to see them.
This is a time that I never imagined coming, while at the same time not being at all surprised that it’s here.
Today is the day I’m walking away from the Chicago White Sox as a fan, and walking away from social media.
To say the White Sox have been my entire life for the past 19 years would not be even a small exaggeration. In and around 2004 I stopped watching the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, NHL and all college sports and focused exclusively on baseball and specifically, the White Sox. I gave up watching UCLA, West Virginia University, the Cleveland Browns, the Chicago Bulls and the Pittsburgh Penguins. I even stopped watching PGA Tour events at that time. I was strictly a White Sox guy.
I was rewarded for that the following year when the White Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1917.
Since then, not so much. Constant losing with the organization consistently being the laughingstock of professional sports. But things have gotten so much worse since the 2016 offseason. And I think I knew it was coming.
In late 2016 the White Sox began a rebuilding process that was going to make the team contenders from 2020 through at least 2025 with a consistency of contending yearly being the goal, according to general manager Rick Hahn at the time.
So, three losing seasons in a row (completely non-competitive, as compared to the slightly-more competitive years that proceeded the rebuild which generally lead to third or fourth-place finishes) lead to what was going to be the “contention window.” That “window” lasted two years, as the White Sox earned a Wild Card birth (2020) and a division title (2021).
The wheels started falling off LONG before that, however.
The first piece to fall off was the failed attempt at signing free agent shortstop Manny Machado in late 2018 and early 2019. It was deemed “too early” by the inept front office and they went on to sign aging catcher Yasmani Grandal the following offseason, who promptly fell flat on his ass, to a $73 million contract, a record at the time. Also signing was pitcher Dallas Keuchel, who was solid during the COVID shortened 2020 season and so bad after that he was designated for assignment.
Prior to the 2021 season the White Sox made a managerial move. After firing Rick Renteria, we all waited for the announcement that the White Sox were going to hire A.J. Hinch, the World Series winning manager who was available after being fired by the Houston Astros due to their sign-stealing scandal. But, alas, the White Sox managed to screw that up and instead hired retirement-home refugee Tony La Russa, who hadn’t managed in a decade and was completely out of touch.
So, everyone laughed at the White Sox. They managed to win 93 games and the AL Central title in 2021, La Russa’s first season back, they proceeded to go .500 (81-81) in his second season and he was relived of his duties for health reasons before the season ended. The front office told us that was just a blip on the radar and we’d be contending again in 2023.
Major changes were expected, and most of the staff was replaced by lifelong loser Pedro Grifol from the Kansas City Royals organization, a franchise with the worst winning percentage in baseball overall since the year 2000. The bottom then fell out of everything and the team (28 games under .500 as this is written) has not chance to contend now or in the next couple of years, despite playing in the worst division in baseball. And the front office that built this turd sandwich has been fired. With the rumor being that another “yes man,” minor league director Chris Getz, will be taking over as GM.
Nothing ever changes and being a White Sox fan has taken on a feeling of embarrassment and humiliation among the fan base, of which I strongly consider myself a member. But that is fading quickly and if Getz is, in fact, announced as the GM in the near future, I’ve made a decision that will drastically alter my life going forward and how I plan to spend my time.
The day that Getz is announced as GM, I will begin by closing my social media accounts, which are used for nothing but posting White Sox news and memes. I’ll be boxing up all of my White Sox memorabilia and may consider selling it. I’ll then move on to something else, most probably following college sports again, either with WVU or UCLA. That decision will come later, it’s not pressing at the moment. Thinking about it makes me happier than what I face as a White Sox fan.
I have enjoyed the past 33 years at times. I used to pitch outside in a White Sox jersey I made out of a plain black and white Nike jersey and a Sharpie and my Sox hat when I was in my early teens. Playing Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball on the PlayStation. The 2005 World Series and 2008 Blackout game. I took in two games at Sox Park in 2001, which will always be a lifetime highlight. But at this point, I just can’t justify continuing to follow an organization that keeps me awake at night. My dad and my girlfriend have both said I take it too seriously, and I’m definitely not going to argue that point.
Once I’ve closed my social media accounts and removed all the White Sox memorabilia and things from my sight, I’ll replace them, probably not all with sports but with other things I enjoy because I don’t ever want to get so deep into a sports team again that I’m losing sleep and not being able to eat with anxiety. It would be nice to watch college sports again, football once a week and basketball a couple of times a week and, if I start following WVU, actually attending games again.
One of my biggest issues with the White Sox over the past couple of years is just how unlikable this team is. Not just the front office goons who are finally gone, but the players. After Jose Abreu left, I realized there isn’t a single player on this team that I like, and that’s never happened before. The closest I can come to with this group is Andrew Benentendi. I’m not a big fan of his but the rest of these guys are just insufferable, lazy slobs. There’s nothing here to like. No reason to follow.
So, now I’m playing the waiting game. I’m continuing to watch this dumpster fire until a decision is made. I try to just forget it, because in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter at all, but this has been my life for so long it’s hard to just walk away, it’s literally a thousand times worse than any break up I’ve ever been through. But I know there’s something better on the other side, whether it be a competent general manager, or, if it’s Chris Getz, a whole new world of college sports opening up to me. So I’ll be fine either way. I just hope a decision is made at some point in the near future.
This is going to be one of my shorter blog entries, because I don’t want to spend a lot of time dwelling on 2022 (or 2021 or 2020 or any of the past 18 years) or over-hyping what may be another year in a long line of really bad years.
If you roll back in my blog to December 2019 you’ll see how much I looked forward to the 2020s beginning and the miserable 2010s finally coming to an end. Not much in my life has gone well or been pleasant since around 2004, and I know most of this is due to the fact that I got home internet service in 2005, and life has gone downhill ever since.
While the first six weeks of 2020 were amazing, the second week of February brought about a lot of things I don’t like to even think about (COVID, people I had discarded returning to my life) and 2021 and 2022 would prove to be even worse.
I’m not saying they were 2010s worse, because I really don’t know how life could have been any worse than it was during the 2010s. I wouldn’t wish that decade on my worst enemy, and I’m hopeful things will never be that bad again.
The main difference between standing in 2019 and looking toward 2020 and standing in 2022 and looking into 2023 is at least I had a plan for 2020. It may have crashed spectacularly in a mere month and a half, but I still had a plan in place.
I have no plan for 2023. I have some contingencies in place, in case whatever I do decide to do doesn’t work out. For example, my baseball burnout is so extreme I’ve been trying to decide what to do when it finally engulfs me. I am 99% sure at that point I’ll begin following either UCLA or West Virginia University sports.
As everyone knows, I love my White Sox and I’m trying as hard as I can to focus myself on it but things that have happened this offseason have hampered that, not the least of which was my loss of my MLB The Show 22 roster files I had been working on for seven weeks. I have since restarted my work using my previous year’s files from MLB The Show 21, which I preferred far more than the 2022 version anyway.
I want to do all the things I wanted to do in 2020. And 2021 and 2022. And while I did a few of them (specifically my two trips to Chicago in 2021 to see the White Sox in person) I have yet to “turn the corner” with my life. All I’ve done is waste it. And feeling the way I do (lack of sleep, lack of eating right, lack of exercise, etc) has done nothing but cause me more issues than I had before. Things have got to change.
And while I know there’s nothing special about another trip around the sun I do still want to improve my situation. I’m 45 years old and have a number of contemporaries who have passed away due to heart attacks and other issues I could be just as susceptible to at my age. If that happens, so be it. But I want to be better than that.
It’s time to leave all the trash in the past. Not just the trash of 2022, but all the trash since 2005. And there has been a landfill full of it. I just want to be happy. For the first time in almost 20 years, I just want to have an extended period of happy
Normally, I would hold my yearly retrospective until closer to the end of the year, like I did in 2020 (which was published on December 18, 2020).
However, it wouldn’t matter if I won the lottery every week for the rest of the year and if Paige Spiranac showed up at my door and asked me to marry her, I don’t think this trainwreck of a year could be saved. It’s been that bad.
It’s amazing to think that three short years ago I sat here and penned a blog about how good I thought the 2020’s would be. I suffered through a miserable decade in the 2010’s, I wouldn’t wish a decade like that on my worst enemy.
The 2020’s have been worse, so far.
The year 2020 brought us COVID and the subsequent illegal lockdown. As bad as that year seemed at the time, it would pale in comparison to what was ahead for me. In 2021, I nearly lost one of my closest friends over personal nonsense, and she and I barely spoke the entire year. I got into a relationship I had no business getting into (the “personal nonsense”) and in September I lost my mother after a battle with dementia.
Which brings us to 2022. And the downhill slide continued.
The nonsensical relationship I was in dominated the first nine months of the year. Even though it was of the long-distance variety, I felt like a prisoner. How to explain what it was like? I cringed when my phone went off, whether it was a text or a call. I cried myself to sleep many nights, which in itself is completely pathetic. I could have walked away at any time, but I didn’t. It’s the same story I’ve lived 15 times before, I’m in a situation that makes me want to die but I don’t have the good sense to walk away.
Mercifully, she walked away in late September, and a weight was lifted off me. But a new one quickly emerged. While I was happy that miserable experience was over, it reinforced something that had been bothering me for some time; I have a 100% failure rate when it comes to relationships. I’ve mentioned this in a previous blog, and it’s something I just have a hard time coming to grips with it. A success rate of 0% over 35 years. I don’t know how anything could be more pathetic. And it will never improve.
Having that black cloud of misery hanging over my head for almost 10 months, I also got to experience what may well be the worst baseball season for the Chicago White Sox I have ever seen, and possibly the worst ever for the organization.
While an 81-81 record doesn’t sound as bad as, say, the Pittsburgh Pirates season (62-100), the Pirates went into their season knowing they were likely going to finish in last place. The White Sox were expected to make a run at the World Series. Instead, they finished 11 games out of first place and failed to make the playoffs.
I preached the entire season that this team wasn’t good enough to contend, but I was met at every turn by fan boys who insisted they’d be just fine and just to wait. I waited, and it went just about like I had predicted it would.
Speaking of fan boys, I have begun to wonder lately if every sports team has fan boys, who refuse to criticize the team no matter what happens. I just don’t understand how anyone could support every move a team makes even when they know it’s the wrong one. A real fan wants to see his team succeed, not just kiss their collective asses every time something happens, good or bad. Do all teams have fans like that?
The stress of that stupid relationship and this stupid ball club got me back into stress eating, something I hadn’t done in over a decade. Now I’m even more overweight and even more miserable, and I’m sitting here again placing all my hopes and dreams on the turning over of the calendar to make everything right again.
I’ve started laying out plans for 2023. I’m once again updating the MLB The Show rosters for next season because I hope to start a franchise next spring with the White Sox. If that fails (again, for what would probably be the 23rd straight year), I have made the decision that it may be time to cut ties with the White Sox, and Chicago in general and bring my world closer to home. I may start following the WVU Mountaineers.
So much time has been spent thinking on this situation. I would be walking away from a lot, friends, important connections, an excellent network of fans and a social media presence. I’d be giving all that up to start again at the bottom, going from Major League Baseball back to the college ranks and a university I’ve barely followed at all since the mid 1990s. But if baseball fails me again, I am truly ready to make the move.
I have also made the decision that, if this happens, I will be ready to completely start over with new social media accounts, email accounts and maybe even a new phone number. This is a move I should have made before 2020 began, but I decided to just push forward with where I am now. I won’t make the same mistake twice.
It’s also time to get back into physical fitness. I bought a new weight bench which I plan to put together over the next several weeks, and starting in January I plan on putting my broken, swollen and disgusting body back together again.
The thing that has made this year so much worse than the previous few is that I have completely lost my desire to do anything. I’ve had to force myself to work on the baseball rosters even though I have wanted to do a franchise on MLB The Show for as long as that has been an option. I want to get back into watching The “Chicago” shows (Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D. and Chicago Med). Can’t seem to do that either.
But I’m finally at what feels like rock bottom and I’m ready to start making the climb back up. And I hope that finally, when that calendar turns from 2022 to 2023, things start looking better than they have lately because I can’t deal with much more of this. I’d rather have another 2020 than another 2022. This year can absolutely fuck off. If I could, I’d wipe it from my mind. While admittedly it wasn’t as bad as 2017, it was still bad enough that I’d rank it in the bottom three years of my life (2017, 2022 and 1996).
So, we’ll see where things go from here. One thing is for certain, there’s nowhere to go but up. But I’ve also said that in the past and was wrong. I just want to be happy.
I knew this day was coming, I’ve known it for years.
Technically, it had come once before, in 1996.
But in 2005 I made some stupid decisions that have haunted me since then.
At the age of 19, I knew my dating life was over and that I wasn’t someone who should ever be in a relationship. I wasn’t built for relationships. I’m too independent and I don’t know what love is. It’s not fair of me to waste anyone’s time or to have my time wasted.
At that point, I embarked on the happiest period of my life, by far. I didn’t date or talk to girls in any way, and it lasted for nine glorious years. It just went to prove the point I had known all along. The only way I could be happy is to be single, and anyone I get involved with I’m going to make miserable, and no one deserves that in either direction.
In 2005, I stepped out of the shadows and let the internet start introducing me to women.
To call that a mistake doesn’t even begin to cover just how much of a mistake it was.
I would spend the following 16 years in one bad relationship after another, one in the mid to late 2000s with the most horrible human being I’ve ever known. One that lasted seven years with a piece of garbage I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. One that lasted 10 months with a girl 600 miles away who changed personalities so overwhelmingly that it felt like the girl she was at first had passed away and I was left with a mean, hateful, loveless replacement I didn’t love or want. One that lasted six weeks before she left me for her ex-husband. Who didn’t want her back. One that chased me for four years and I couldn’t get away from fast enough.
Now, before anyone says it (or thinks it), yes, I take responsibility for my part in this whole situation. I should never have been in any of those relationships. I should never have been in one at any time in my life. My failure rate is 100%, and the law of averages says that should be impossible. In 35 years of having one girlfriend or another, one of them should have worked out instead of every one of them being failures of ultimate dimension.
But they have all been ultimate failures. Some were at least 75% my fault. But I’m not putting “fault” on anyone because I never should have been in those situations in the first place. They were doomed to fail so putting “blame” on anyone doesn’t make sense.
I can’t believe that as recently as a year ago I still had this idea that maybe someday something would work out. Despite one failure after another, all my life, I still had the idea that I could love and be loved, too. That somehow I “deserved” it. Even though everything pointed in the same direction. And I knew that eventually the day would come where I would finally give up and accept things as they are. And that day is today.
Making this perfectly clear so anyone who ever finds this has no questions or qualms about what I’m saying: Never again. NEVER. I will never get involved with another woman again as long as I live, whether I die tomorrow or 50 years from now. I know, without a doubt, I was never intended to be with anyone. I can say without hesitation that any female I’ve been involved with in the past was a mistake and I’d take every one back if I could, there’s nothing in the past that’s even worth the memories I have left of them.
That 100% failure rate will stick with me forever. Guys who couldn’t tie their own shoes in high school managed to get married, guys who never had a girlfriend back then. But I didn’t know then that I would be the one guy who would never find a soulmate to spend my life with, maybe because I have no soul, I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I know it and I accept it and I’m ready to go forward with no expectations and a “no” ready for any female who ever approaches me again.
I’ve been a single man again for 10 months and I’m not speaking out of anger or any need to get my rocks off, I just know this is how it’s supposed to be and I’m finally accepting of it. I’m glad I didn’t have to suffer any further before I finally figured this out.
As I enter the final quarter of 2022, my life hasn’t been this confusing in years.
This has been one of the worst years I’ve had to put it, between my personal life, my spiritual life, my health and my life as a sports fan. In fact, when you put it all together, 2022 may well rank as the worst year of my life. And I can’t wait for 2023 to get here and put an end to this.
To be fair, I need to put the blame where it belongs, right on top of my head. I’m the reason, my poor decisions have lead to everything that today makes my life very confusing and unhappy. But I’ll tackle all of that in my end-of-the-year blog entry. Right now, lets look at the road signs.
This Chicago White Sox season was miserable. A team that was supposed to contend for a World Series championship finished 81-81 and couldn’t even make the playoffs, let alone make an extended playoff run. And I watched all but maybe 5 of those games this season.
In the post season, since 2015, one of my favorite projects has been doing updates to the MLB The Show rosters to upload to the servers for others to use, then I can use it to build my own White Sox roster to play franchise mode on the game, putting myself in the general manager position and making the trades and signings I would make if I had the opportunity to do so.
But I don’t feel the excitement about that this offseason, due to the poor season overall as well as the potential loss of free agent first baseman Jose Abreu, who has been my favorite player on the team since he signed prior to the 2014 season. If he leaves, I am not even sure I want to continue following the White Sox, let alone putting months of work into updating rosters.
So, I look to what I used to do immediately after the season during the White Sox rebuild, I would completely immerse myself in the DC Universe, playing the Batman Arkham video game series, watching Justice League cartoons and The Dark Knight trilogy until the MLB postseason was over, also listening to old Superman radio shows and watching shows like Gotham and the old 1950s The Adventures Of Superman and the 1960s Batman series.
While I’ve started out by playing my way through Batman Arkham Asylum and I’m currently working on Batman Arkham City I don’t have the same excitement I used to have in the past.
Finally, a little project I’ve covered previously in my blog, is my NCAA project, which is basically me running through franchise mode on NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball and MVP NCAA Baseball on the PlayStation, and ultimately moving on to either Madden NFL or MLB The Show after finishing my “college eligibility.” I’ve done the project twice in the past (in 1995 using John Elway’s Quarterback and Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES and again in 2001 with NCAA GameBreaker and NFL GameDay on the PlayStation. At this point, I have everything I need to do the best job I’ve ever done but like everything else, I lack the motivation and desire to do it.
I should say I don’t lack the desire or motivation, because that’s not entirely accurate. I think I’m in the middle of a deep depression based on everything that has happened in 2022 and I’m just waiting for the next “bad thing” to happen. Basically, I’m dealing with a form of mental block.
I have decided, after talking to a number of people, that I’m going to basically take the month of October off before making a decision. I’ll continue playing Arkham City and follow it up with Arkham Origins and at the end of the month, I will make a decision. We’ll see how that works.
In a perfect world, I’d take this month off and focus 100% on the DC Universe and in November, when free agency begins, I’ll start updating my rosters on MLB The Show with a renewed vigor. And there’s every chance that may happen. But the stress of this year has beaten me down physically and spiritually and I need to make improvements there as well. I need to get back into a routine, including a workout program, eating right and finally sleeping again, which is something that I’ve been neglecting for close to 18 months due to my personal life.
On the flip side, I can see me having no desire to do anything when this month-long sabbatical ends. If that’s the case, I’ll know I’m in a deeper depression than I realize. And I’ll have to deal with that when, and if, the time comes. But for now, I want to focus on the potential positives.
So, we’ll see what happens in about a month, and I’ll go from there. Thank you for taking the time to read, I really am not one for posting publicly about my issues, but sometimes just laying it out there is the best way to get it out of my head. Whether anyone sees it or not.
This is a blog I’ve been thinking of doing for a long time, and something I’ve touched on in previous blog entries stretching back to 2018. This may draw the ire of the Chicago White Sox fan boys, who think this team can do no wrong regardless of what they do, but the fact of the matter is, this rebuild has not gone to plan in spite of the back to back playoff appearances in 2020 and 2021. While the original trades that set off the rebuild were universally praised, I think they need to be revisited, as well as the free agent signings and pursuits that have taken place since the rebuild was instituted following the 2016 season.
I want to take a look at the rebuild in a season-by-season view:
2016
This is where it all began. In December 2016, the White Sox made three moves that would have a profound effect on the organization, two trades and one Rule 5 Draft pick.
– On December 6, the White Sox traded LHP Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox for IF Yoan Moncada (at the time the #1 prospect in baseball), RHP Michael Kopech, OF Luis Alexander Basabe and RHP Victor Diaz.
– On December 7, the White Sox traded OF Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals for RHP’s Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning.
– And on December 8, the White Sox selected RHP Dylan Covey in the Rule 5 Draft from the Oakland A’s.
This was also the year the White Sox hired career loser Rick Renteria to be their manager, once again sniffing fumes from the Chicago Cubs, who had hired Renteria four years earlier to handle their rebuild on-field.
2017
Now fully into the rebuild, not much was expected in terms of free agent signings or trades, as the Sox had little left with which to deal (though they still made a major deal before the trade deadline).
– On May 27, the White Sox signed OF Luis Robert as an international free agent from Cuba.
– On July 13, the White Sox traded LHP Jose Quintana to the Chicago Cubs for RHP Dylan Cease, OF Eloy Jimenez, 1B Matt Rose and IF Bryant Flete.
– On July 19, the White Sox traded 3B Todd Frazier, RHP David Robertson and RHP Tommy Kahnle to the New York Yankees for RHP Tyler Clippard, OF Blake Rutherford, OF Tito Polo and LHP Ian Clarkin.
In the first season of the rebuild, the Sox finished the 2017 season with a 67-95 record.
2018
The worst season of the rebuild, by far. The Sox finished with a record of 62-100.
– On November 23, 2017, the White Sox signed OF Daniel Palka off waivers from the Minnesota Twins.
– On December 1, 2017, the White Sox signed C Wellington Castillo to a two-year deal with an option to lock down the catcher position that had been in flux since A.J. Pierzynski was let go.
– On December 22, 2017, the White Sox signed RHP Jose Ruiz off waivers from the San Diego Padres.
The Wellington Castillo deal was one of the first ones to implode on this team, as Castillo was suspended 80 games for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy on May 24, 2018. Unaware of it at the time, this was going to be an omen of things to come, not in terms of drug policy violations but in terms of poor free agent signings and a poor performance in free agency, in general.
2019
This is where the rebuild really started to go south. Prior to the season, the White Sox were considered one of the front runners to sign free agents Manny Machado or Bryce Harper. In fact, some media outlets said there was a chance the White Sox could sign both. Instead, their offseason acquisitions amounted to:
– On December 15, 2018, the White Sox traded minor league OF Alex Call to the Cleveland Indians for 1B/DH Yonder Alonso.
– On December 19, 2018, the White Sox signed C James McCann as a free agent from the Detroit Tigers.
– On January 10, the White Sox signed OF Jon Jay as a free agent from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
– On March 22, the White Sox signed OF Eloy Jimenez to a six-year, $43 million extension.
The Chicago press pointed out that Alonso and Jay were offseason workout buddies of Machado, while the Sox front office did everything they could to downplay the connection publicly.
While the Chicago media circled the wagons around the franchise, the rest of the country was laughing at the White Sox over the attempt to sign Machado. After announcing they had made an eight-year, $250 million offer, and Machado had signed a 10-year, $300 million offer, White Sox team president Kenny Williams was left to try to justify that the offer could have reached 10 years and $350 million if all options were exercised and all criteria were met in on-field performance. In the same breath, he said the White Sox just couldn’t afford to go to $300 million guaranteed. I feel like this was lost on most people, saying “we can’t afford to pay you $300 million, but we can afford to pay you $350 million.” The White Sox were the laughingstock of baseball outside of the city of Chicago (and were publicly laughed at during Machado’s press conference announcing his signing with the Padres) and the Sox finished the season with a 72-89 record, a 10-game improvement from hitting rock bottom the previous year with a 100-loss season.
2020
The window of contention begins to open. And the White Sox struck hard and fast.
– On November 21, 2019, the White Sox signed C Yasmani Grandal to the largest contract in team history, four years and $73 million.
– On December 10, 2019, in an attempt to shore up right field for the contention window, they traded OF Steele Walker to the Texas Rangers for OF Nomar Mazara.
– On December 30, 2019, in an attempt to shore up the rotation, they signed free agent LHP Dallas Keuchel.
– On January 2, the White Sox signed minor league OF Luis Robert to a six-year contract worth $50 million with options that could push the deal to $88 million.
– On January 9, the White Sox signed Edwin Encarnacion as a free agent to plug a hole at DH.
The White Sox were rumored for months to be in the market for RHP Zack Wheeler, who signed with the Phillies for less money than the White Sox offered (no monetary information was ever released but the significant facts were never disputed by the White Sox or Wheeler) and for the second straight offseason the Sox were left with egg on their faces, and as I’ll address later, I think this was the end of the big market free agent pursuits by the White Sox. Whether they were scared or just figured it wasn’t worth it, I don’t know.
In the season shortened to 60 games due to COVID-19, the White Sox finished with a 35-25 record.
2021
The White Sox entered 2021 as legitimate World Series contenders, according to the press. They fortified the roster with the following moves:
– On October 29, 2020, the White Sox hired Tony La Russa as manager, replacing Renteria.
– On December 7, 2020, the White Sox traded Dane Dunning to the Texas Rangers for Lance Lynn.
– On December 10, 2020, after failing to acquire Joc Pederson for the third consecutive offseason and releasing Nomar Mazara after he fell flat on his face as the everyday right fielder, the White Sox signed Adam Eaton as a free agent from the Washington Nationals.
And while I can’t find the exact date, at some point during this period, the White Sox signed 3B Yoan Moncada to a five-year, $70 million extension.
– On January 15, the White Sox had a big day. They signed Liam Hendriks and signed international free agents Yoelqui Cespedes and Norge Vera.
The White Sox let C James McCann go, and he signed a $40 million deal with the New York Mets, a little more than half what Yasmani Grandal would make in the same four years.
The Chicago media was all in, thinking the White Sox would acquire everyone from Trevor Bauer to Michael Brantley to George Springer to Kris Bryant. The Chicago fan boys were picturing a $400 million payroll. What the White Sox got was a 93-69 record, an AL Central Division title, and a first-round loss in the playoffs.
2022
Again, the idea that the White Sox were going to break the bank hung over the team as free agency started in November, 2021. Such arrogant statements as “we’re going to sign Marcus Semien but in case we don’t, Eduardo Escobar is our backup plan.” (Escobar signed with the New York Mets before Semien signed with the Texas Rangers and the White Sox were clearly never in on either of them). Another embarrassing situation revolved around OF Michael Conforto, whose name was bandied about for months until it was revealed he wouldn’t be playing in 2022 due to shoulder surgery. (Prior to this announcement, a White Sox “news” site had posted a column saying that the Sox had a massive offer on the table for Conforto, but because he wasn’t vaccinated the team wouldn’t sign the deal. Every bit of that was subsequently proven to be completely fabricated in someone’s brain).
The 2022 MLB lockout lasted from December to March, and the White Sox made two moves prior to the beginning of the lockout (during which MLB transactions were not allowed):
– On November 30, 2021, the White Sox signed RHP Kendall Graveman as a free agent.
– On December 1, 2021, the White Sox resigned IF/OF Leury Garcia.
Following the lockout, and with most of the top-flight talent off the board, the White Sox made the following transactions:
– On March 14, the White Sox signed RHP Joe Kelly as a free agent.
– On March 15, the White Sox signed IF Josh Harrison as a free agent.
– On April 1, the White Sox traded RHP Craig Kimbrel to the Los Angeles Dodgers for OF A.J. Pollock.
– On April 3, the White Sox traded C Zack Collins to the Toronto Blue Jays for C Reese McGuire.
– On April 5, the White Sox signed RHP Johnny Cueto as a free agent.
At the trade deadline, the White Sox sent McGuire to the Boston Red Sox for LHP Jake Diekman.
Not mentioned in the transactions (as I made those strictly important acquisitions) was LHP Dallas Keuchel was designated for assignment on May 28.
Now, I went through all of those transactions so we can look on a case-by-case basis how the rebuilt roster looks and how the players who were acquired for and during the rebuild have fared. I’m going to list the most relevant statistics to each player listed above in bold and these numbers are the stats the player accumulated as a member of the White Sox ONLY. And I’ll start at the beginning:
Yoan Moncada: In six seasons with the White Sox, Moncada has compiled a 13.2 WAR and a .254/.337/.425 stat line. His 2019 season is an outlier, with a 5.2 WAR and .315/.367/.548 line and 25 home runs. A consistent stolen base threat in the minor leagues, he’s stolen 3 bases in 5 attempts since the beginning of the 2020 season.
Michael Kopech: Kopech missed the 2019 season with Tommy John surgery and the 2020 season with “personal problems” as best as I can describe them. He seems to finally be putting it together in 2022, but has compiled a 9-12 career record and a 4.1 WAR (four of those victories and 2.6 WAR coming in 2022). Hopefully his best years are ahead of him because he seems to really be perfecting his craft.
Lucas Giolito: This was the guy I thought would be the centerpiece of the rebuild. Like Moncada, he’s had one very good season and a lot of average-to-below-average seasons around that. In 2019, Gio made the All Star team and finished with 14 wins, a 3.41 ERA, a 134 ERA+ and a 5.5 WAR, all career highs. His 2022 season has been poor, with eight wins, a 4.91 ERA, an 81 ERA+ and a 0.1 WAR.
Reynaldo Lopez: Like Kopech, Lopez has really hit his stride this season, but not as a starter, as a high-leverage reliever. A failed starter (in 2019, Lopez compiled a 10-15 record with a 5.38 ERA in 33 starts, with an 85 ERA+ and 0.3 WAR). In 2022, after corrective eye surgery and a move to the bullpen, Lopez is 5-2 with a 2.84 ERA, 141 ERA+ and 1.0 WAR.
Dylan Covey: My choice for the worst player acquisition during the rebuild (and everyone knows my feelings about Adam Eaton). In three seasons with the White Sox, Dylan Covey compiled a 6-29 record, a 6.54 ERA, a 66 ERA+ and a -3.0 WAR. I don’t know who saw what in this guy, he is literally one of the worst pitchers I have ever seen in 30+ years of watching baseball. Absolutely pathetic. Thankfully he was let go in 2019.
Luis Robert: This is a guy that I can honestly say, the numbers don’t tell the story. Robert has a career .297/.342/.488 line with an OPS+ of 128 and an 8.0 WAR in three seasons. The problem is, he’s played in 206 of 335 games (as of the time of this writing), which means he has missed roughly 40% of the Sox games he’s been eligible to play up to this point. The talent is definitely there. But if you can’t play the game, those “five tools” are completely worthless.
Dylan Cease: The real gem of the rebuild, Dylan has compiled a 34-23 record with a 3.66 ERA, 118 ERA+ and 7.3 WAR since 2019. His 2021 season was excellent, featuring 13 wins and leading the league in starts with 32, to go along with 226 strikeouts in 165.2 innings. His 2022 season has been transcendent, with 12 wins, a 1.96 ERA, 204 ERA+, a 4.4 WAR and 174 strikeouts in 128.2 innings. There is either a Cy Young award or a massive free agent deal with a better team in his future. Or maybe both.
Eloy Jimenez: Being honest, Eloy is my second favorite player on the White Sox after Jose Abreu. But he suffers from the same issue as Luis Robert: An inability to stay healthy. Eloy has played 271 games for the White Sox over the past four seasons, out of 497 possible. That’s roughly 55%. Just a little more than half of the games he could have played in. While his stat line is certainly solid (.273/.319/.498 with an .817 OPS and 118 OPS+), it doesn’t really matter if you can’t stay in the lineup.
Blake Rutherford: Blake was going to be the third outfielder with Robert and Eloy. He was highly-touted coming from the Yankees. However, in his six-year minor league career, he has compiled a .250/.286/.404 stat line with an OPS of .731. Those numbers wouldn’t cut it at the MLB level, let alone the MiLB level, and he was designated for assignment before being brought back off the 40 man roster.
Jose Ruiz: It’s amazing to think this guy is in his fifth season on the south side. Ruiz looked like he had turned a corner in 2021 (3.05 ERA, 144 ERA+, 1.1 WAR) but he has quickly fallen back to earth in 2022 (4.03 ERA, 99 ERA+, 0.5 WAR). Good stuff but nothing more than a spare arm that should never see a high-leverage situation.
James McCann: Even though he’s no longer on the team, I just wanted to point out that McCann signed a four-year, $40 million deal with the Mets the year after Yasmani Grandal signed a four-year, $73 million deal with the White Sox. Considering both of their numbers with those teams, I can’t imagine anyone would want four years of Grandal at $33 million more than McCann. Neither can hit a beach ball but McCann is certainly more mobile behind the plate. For the record, McCann’s stat line with the Mets (.223/.285/.335) compared with Grandal’s line with the Sox (.225/.368/.408 and Grandal’s OBP is out of whack due to his insane 2021 season and .420 OBP). Nothing will ever convince me that Grandal is $33 million better than McCann.
Yasmani Grandal: See above. I don’t know if the Sox thought they were getting Carlton Fisk 2.0 but they didn’t. Grandal was on the wrong side of 30 and was coming off a 2019 season with the Milwaukee Brewers in which he hit a career-high 28 home runs and drove in a career-high 77. He’s come nowhere near those numbers since while making $18 million a year. His 2022 batting line (.203/.307/.264) will be the worst of his career by far and he still has another season to go at $18 million. I know it’s unpopular to say, especially among the fan boys, but that was a truly poor signing.
Nomar Mazara: This deal made me angry because I really started to notice the Sox had decided to take the cheap way out in their future acquisitions. The Chicago press presented him as untapped potential, even though he had over 2,000 plate appearances at the MLB level. I heard numbers thrown about like “35 home runs and 100 RBI” from a guy who had never hit more than 20. I told everyone who would listen it was a bad signing. Come to find out, it was a bad signing. Mazara hit .228/.295/.294 with 3 home runs in 42 games and was not brought back after the season.
Dallas Keuchel: Another deal I didn’t like. Not that I didn’t like the signing at the time but the contract was insane from my perspective. Clearly on the downside of his career, Keuchel got a three-year deal from the White Sox for $55.5 million. This was nothing more than a way for the White Sox to save face after Zack Wheeler signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for less money, embarrassing the White Sox organization in the process. So what did the White Sox get for that $55.5 million? A 17-16 record, a 4.79 ERA, a 91 ERA+ and a 0.9 WAR. Also $18 million wasted that they have to pay him after he was DFA’d.
Edwin Encarnacion: Not much to say here, his contract wasn’t that outlandish (one year for $12 million) but in typical form, he was a free agent signing that woefully under performed. In 44 games, Encarnacion put up a .157/.250/.377 stat line with a 70 OPS+ with 10 home runs and 19 RBI. He topped off what is, in retrospect, and absolutely horrible offseason that was celebrated at the time.
Lance Lynn: I like Lance Lynn, and he’s been relatively successful in his White Sox tenure, but I would have stopped short of giving him the two-year, $38 million extension he received. While his first year was certainly acceptable (2.69 ERA, 163 ERA+, 5.3 WAR), he’s not looking like he’s worth the money in 2022 (5.88 ERA, 68 ERA+, -0.7 WAR). A starting pitcher could be found somewhere to put up better numbers than that at half the price.
Adam Eaton: This is just covering his second round with the White Sox. Eaton was signed to a $7 million deal after perennial target Joc Pederson refused to sign and instead took less money to play across town for the Cubs. Eaton’s return engagement was not quite as productive as his first, as he compiled a .201/.298/.344 stat line with a 75 OPS+ and 0 WAR. The hole in right field that Mazara was supposed to fill ate up Eaton as well. He was designated for assignment after 58 games.
Liam Hendriks: Another sore spot with me. The numbers didn’t tell the story with this guy, either. A failed starter who then became a failed middle reliever somehow caught lightning in a bottle and became a very good closer for a year and a half before the White Sox dumped a three-year, $54 million deal in his lap. Hendriks is a low-leverage closer who does his best work starting a clean inning with a three-run lead. Anything less than that and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for him to blow it.
Kendall Graveman: A good signing (though a bit expensive for a set-up man at three years and $24 million) who has pitched very well and looks like a good investment so far, with a 2.59 ERA, 155 ERA+ and 1.1 WAR so far in 2022.
Leury Garcia: Longest-tenured White Sox player, been with the team for a full decade. And in that full decade, he has put up a .253/.294/.353 stat line with an OPS+ of 77 (remember, 100 is average and this is over the entire 10 years he’s played for the White Sox) and a WAR, over 10 years, of 4.5. And signed a three-year, $16.5 million contract prior to the 2022 season. I don’t care if he can play every position on the field, pop the corn and clean the toilets, you can pick up utility players every day that would make half that amount and put up superior statistics. No one will ever be able to explain this to me to my satisfaction.
Joe Kelly: “Let’s throw money at the bullpen” seemed to be the mantra of the White Sox front office during the 2021-22 offseason. Joe Kelly was not really a needed asset, and his multiple injuries in 2022 to go along with his 5.84 ERA and -0.4 WAR show this wasn’t a great investment. Yes, his numbers are skewed by his poor start to the season, but this is supposed to be a team that’s contending for a World Series, not nursing guys back to health that shouldn’t have been signed in the first place.
Josh Harrison: I like Josh Harrison, but I didn’t like this signing other than it would have been perfect as a replacement for Leury Garcia. Harrison’s days of being an everyday second baseman should have ended around 2017 in Pittsburgh, and he should be a full time utility player, a role I believe he would excel in. He started extremely poorly in 2022 but has since ramped up his stats to an acceptable level (.245/.312/.381 with a 96 OPS+ and 1.7 WAR) for a utility player, far better than Garcia is producing.
A.J. Pollock: I wanted to see the Sox acquire Pollock in 2019, when he left the Arizona Diamondbacks for the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent. That version of Pollock was coming off a 21 home run season, a .257/.316/.484 stat line with an OPS+ of 108 and a 2.2 WAR. The A.J. Pollock the White Sox got is hitting .236/.287/.351 with five home runs and a -0.1 WAR.
Johnny Cueto: After all those acquisitions that failed to pan out or even come close to what was expected, Johnny Cueto was a Godsend. A 2.91 ERA, 137 ERA+ and 2.9 WAR in 15 starts is outstanding, and I’d have to think there’s nothing less than a 100% chance he’ll get a free agent deal this offseason that prices him right out of the White Sox plans. In fact, to put it into perspective, Cueto is making roughly half what Lucas Giolito is making and about about ¼ what Lance Lynn is making.
If we look at this rebuild academically, with our minds instead of our hearts or fandom, it’s clear it’s been a massive failure pretty much across the board. This team, as it is built now, has no chance whatsoever of getting to the World Series. The offense is worse than any I’ve ever seen, regardless of how poor the opposing pitcher is. Pitchers with ERA’s above 5.00 routinely shut down the White Sox offense.
I’m worried about where we go from here. The concept of just saying “well, let’s just take the same group into next season and hope it’s better” isn’t going to do anything for anyone, and I’m sure Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t want to spend another $200 million on a .500 team. But those long-term contracts that Eloy Jimenez and Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert signed, along with the overpays for Liam Hendriks and Leury Garcia and Kendall Graveman and Lance Lynn have the Sox in a precarious position, there isn’t going to be a lot of roster turnover (Cueto and Jose Abreu and Josh Harrison are the only pending free agents) unless the White Sox can somehow convince another team to take one of those overstuffed contracts off the books.
That’s not gonna be easy because I can’t picture anyone saying “sure, I’ll take two years of Yoan Moncada at $41 million and I’ll give you a nice prospect package or a serviceable veteran at a lower pay rate in return.” The long-term deals didn’t quite work out the way the deals for Chris Sale, Adam Eaton and Jose Quintana did. Those were the building blocks of the rebuild. This team is in a purgatory where they can’t really move those contracts to rebuild because the players attached to them are not worth the money they’re being paid, pretty much across the board (with the exception being Johnny Cueto). This is basically what happened to the Chicago Cubs, who priced their players right out of their payroll. But at least they got a World Series ring out of the deal. The only White Sox players with rings in their future will be getting wedding rings.
If I were running this organization, this offseason I would trade Tim Anderson and Lucas Giolito (both of whom I don’t expect to be around long term and both of whom are at the height of their value as trade pieces), I would see if Jake Burger is a legitimate full-season third base option and if I can’t trade Moncada, I’d DFA him after next season (it would be easier to accept blowing $20 million than $40 million for absolutely nothing). I’d also DFA Leury Garcia. The Sox were willing to do so with Dallas Keuchel and the money would be less if Garcia were DFA’d next season. The problem is I just don’t see the Sox being willing to either eat that much money in DFA’s or be willing to admit that chances that extreme need to be made. But the Sox managed to get rid of Chris Sale, who had far more success than Lucas Giolito (who is guaranteed gone as a free agent after the 2023 season anyway). The bottom line is, changes need to be made.
If you took the time to read this entire presentation, I thank you. I’ve worked on this for the better part of three days because I’m tired of arguing with people about the state of this franchise. It’s in a bad way right now. The Sox aren’t suddenly going to “get hot” and just mow through the rest of the season and the playoffs and win the World Series. Those things just don’t happen. Or don’t happen often. Everyone uses the 2021 Atlanta Braves as an example but what are the chances of that happening two years in a row?
I sincerely believe the Cleveland Guardians will win the AL Central in 2022, with the White Sox finishing second and the Minnesota Twins finishing third. The Sox will also fall short of the Wild Card. At that point, hopefully changes will be made. Or they’ll stand pat and say “if it wasn’t for all the injuries…”
This is my 11th trip to Facebook Jail, and I consider it to be just about as legitimate as the rest of my trips.
A friend of mine had posted a video on my wall, taken at the MLB All Star Game in Los Angeles. A group of kids were standing behind a fence waiting for a player to sign baseballs for them. At one point, a man with gray hair and a gray beard, forced his way into the line, shoving children in the process, to get a ball autographed. I commented that this man “should be taken behind a building and have a few of his bones broken.” Shortly thereafter, I was told that I would be going to Facebook Jail for 5 days.
My crime? “Inciting violence.”
To be fair, I had 2 prior warnings. In December 2021 I posted a meme featuring a scene from the film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. In the scene, Clark and Rusty Griswold are hanging Christmas lights on the roof and the caption read “Rusty, like Jeffrey Epstein, these lights aren’t going to hang themselves.” This was a violation for “promoting suicide,” even though Epstein memes are strewn about Facebook like party favors on New Year’s Eve.
In November 2021, I committed the ultimate sin, which I’m surprised didn’t land me in Facebook Jail permanently, or maybe even in “real” jail: I posted that there are two genders and everything else is mental illness. That was removed for “hate speech.”
So, before I jump into where I go from here, I just want to put a few things out there because I’m not ashamed of my beliefs and I will continue to hold them whether or not I’m able to mention them. There’s a fine line between free speech and a complete shutdown on same, so if this also gets me into trouble, well, I’ll talk about that later in this dissertation.
I hate Joe Biden with the fury of 1000 suns. If I woke up tomorrow and he had died from COVID, I’d consider it a national holiday. I think he’s a miserable, lying, good for nothing, worthless piece of garbage and he has been for as long as I can remember. I first became aware of him in 1987, during the 1988 Presidential race, which we covered in my 6th grade social studies class. This was my introduction to politics. Ol’ Joe was running for the Democrat nomination but had to drop out after it was discovered he was falsifying (i.e. lying about) his academic history.
Along with Joe, I hate his entire party, especially the far left liberals. The ones that Malcolm X very eloquently outed in the 1960s who have only become worse over time. The “woke” folks. The “trans community.” You people are all sick. Like mentally ill.
I’ve made no attempt to hide my feelings about these “people” on social media, and to be fair to the Facebook cocksuckers, er, “fact checkers,” it wasn’t my posts on this garbage that landed me in Facebook Jail. To be honest, I’ve had very few problems posting my thoughts on these subjects on social media, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
The issue at hand is that I was at a tipping point anyway. I’m not in a good place in my life. I’m burned out on baseball (I think), but I’m not sure if I’m actually burned out or if its being pushed at me by certain people in my life that I’m burned out. There is a person in my day to day life that is doing everything possible to change everything about me. I don’t like it, and I wouldn’t do that to anyone. I keep hoping it will subside, but if it doesn’t, I will need to extricate this person from my life. However, there’s also a possibility that she’s being honest, I may well BE burned out.
I’ve been trying to roll my life back as much as I can to the last time I was happy, which was anytime between 1995 and 2005. Actually, to be completely fair, I was happy from the day I was born until around May 2005. Since then, it’s been one disaster after another, more misery piled upon more unhappiness, so I’ve been trying to find a way to go back to happier times.
What has been at the center of my unhappiness for 17 years? Social media and the internet. I don’t beat around the bush about this, it’s been women on social media that have made me miserable for 17 years. Every unhappy moment and every aggravation can be traced to some female I never should have been dealing with in the first place. This is not hyperbole in any sense of the word. These are facts. Those who have been around me can verify that this is a fact.
So, part of what I have been looking at doing to try to turn back the clock is getting rid of social media. Beyond that, I have fantasized of getting rid of my smart phone. I recently got my dad a 4G flip phone (which I had no idea still existed) and this has made me yearn for one. I can’t get rid of the internet completely, as I have 2 internet businesses I run so getting completely off the grid is impossible. But it’s possible to remove myself from 90% of it.
However, I’m not positive that’s going to make me any happier, and a large number of friends have agreed that leaving social media isn’t going to make me any happier. One person, though, thinks its a great idea because, as mentioned, she would like to change everything about me. My theory up until now has been if I changed social media to fit me, I might be OK with it.
I’ve been active on Twitter for a decade, and I’ve had less trouble on there with my posts than I have had on Facebook, which seems to be the polar opposite of the problems most people have. I’ve had an Instagram account since around 2016, and my problems on there are pretty much equal to my problems on Facebook (which makes sense because they’re under the same corporate umbrella and are likely policed by the same “keystone cops” who fact check on Facebook.
Ultimately, I don’t think turning back time (or making a half-assed attempt to) is going to be the answer, it might seem novel at first but I think it would get boring very quickly. Yes, I was very happy in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but I’m also not the same person I was back then. Everything has changed, including my mentality. I was naturally happy back then. Now I would be taking an angry and bitter version of myself who is 20 to 25 years older and trying to stick myself into a situation that is devoid of the few things that make me happy NOW but trying to recreate the things that made me happy THEN. Considering how much has changed, I just don’t think it’s possible.
When I look back 25 to 27 years ago, I was in college. I had a girlfriend across the county. I had one video game console, an original Nintendo. I watched Three’s Company and Perry Mason on a daily basis, taping them off television and watching the VHS tapes over and over and over. I had my cat, Bubbles. My mom was still living then, obviously. I didn’t have a lot, but I was so happy.
Fast forward to now. I have everything. PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 5 consoles which play games for every generation, as well as a Retron 5 to play everything else. A 55-inch 4K TV. Those shows I enjoyed? I have the entire series on DVD, not just the ones I mentioned but several others that were a huge part of the 2000s for me. I have more “stuff” than I have room to put it.
And it really doesn’t do anything for me. Back in those days I had a word processor that looked just like a computer from the early 1990s, complete with a full size CRT monitor. I was so happy. Now I have a $1000 gaming computer with a 25” monitor and it’s just kind of “meh.” The 55” TV instead of the 25” TV. A Blu-ray player instead of the old VCR I build out of parts from 3 broken ones. Multiple streaming services instead of cable. But I also have DISH Network. I have everything.
And I have nothing, because none of it is making me happy.
I know a lot of this, and by extension, my unhappiness on social media, is mostly in my head. I do things that annoy me. For example, if I would just completely ignore the news, be it on the radio, the TV or the internet, and I never saw Joe Biden’s face again, that would go a long way toward making me less angry. I need to stop listening to people who want me to change for their benefit. My life is my own, it belongs to no one else and no one else should have any say in it.
So at this moment, what I’m looking at doing is, when I return to Facebook on Tuesday, changing my entire presentation. Instead of anti-Biden memes and “woke is a joke” posts, I need to stick strictly to baseball, maybe a cat meme here and there, and not let politics so much as be a blip on my radar. All the news does is make me angry, and it needs to be cleansed from my life.
I also need to eliminate the people who cause me these problems as well. And there are several of them. Whether or not that means unfriending, unfollowing or just blocking, they need to be where I can’t see them and don’t have to deal with them. I am just at a point in my life where I can’t deal with such flagrant stupidity and mental insanity. Especially when it accomplishes nothing for them and nothing for me. I’m also going to go on Twitter and do the same thing.
Hopefully, this will work. If it doesn’t, I’ll admit I was wrong and consider my other options, including complete disconnection from the world and an attempt to go back to 1999 in 2022. Even though I know it won’t work, at least I will make the attempt. I hope I won’t have to, because it will likely hurt more than just knowing how much unhappier I am today than I thought I was.
In closing, I apologize for the fact that you just spent 15 minutes reading the ramblings of a guy who just let his mind vomit out everything that was going through it and you won’t get those 15 minutes back. But if you happen to see this and you know of a way I can try to close my life off to things I don’t want to see or hear about in the digital age, and how to keep from voicing my displeasure on social media with everything that aggravates me, please fill me in.
The Jason J. Connor Experience 