What Stage Are You In Today?

[Lip Man 1]

5187:

Very well said. It's always easy to blame the fan base but the fact remains the White Sox are still the ONLY original major league franchise to have never made the postseason in consecutive seasons and MLB has had expanded playoffs since 1969.

Never...not in over 100 years.

I understand why fans are skeptical when a particular team comes out of nowhere for a season (or less than a season as has usually been the case since 2003.)

Again it's about ticket prices, it's about the economy, it's about on-field performance, it's about recent history on the field, it's about advertising and marketing, it's about walk-up sales, and yes to a small extent it's even about the fan base.

There's no one single factor. That shouldn't be hard to understand.

Trying to place blame or zero in on "the reason" is foolish and counter productive. It's a combination of things...some outside of the Sox control, some in their control and some because they have shot themselves in the foot on more than one occasion.

Lip

[SoxandtheCityTee]

I'm calm now, Hubble.

Thank God these two weeks are over.

[voodoochile]

I kind of went through all of these phases on Saturday during the game. Anger didn't last that long and it's hard to be that upset. I think this team just hit the wall. The final 6 weeks of the season were brutal with one day where they didn't have to come to the park. When you are on a roll, young and driving that's okay, when you are scuffling, old and banged up it's a lot harder on your mental energy.

Grind is over now. Too bad they couldn't have had some of these timely hits over the last few weeks. It wouldn't have taken that much to be still in this fight.

Ah well...

[Soxman219]

Angry. Now the Sox want to score 11 runs. Where was this last week?

[samurai_sox]

I'm still angry, you don't give up the division lead in the second to last week of the season when you lead it for 4 months. I'm not going to be over this until they say "Play ball!" next April.

[white sox bill]

Maybe MLB will allow us to retro some of the 11 runs we scored last night to last week....

[October26]

Originally Posted by white sox bill

Maybe MLB will allow us to retro some of the 11 runs we scored last night to last week....

I like that plan, Bill.

Seriously, as the Sox faced elimination last night, it finally hit me. Yes, after spending much time in denial, I finally had no choice but to accept the reality of the situation. This morning, I kept thinking: I've been here before; I've felt this pain and disappointment before. Yes, losing sucks and it will take me some time to get over the heartbreaking way that the 2012 Sox season ended. I kept rooting and hoping things would turn out differently for our Sox but they did not. All the bargaining in the world did not help; the Sox play over the last two weeks was beyond awful.

Having said all that, this 2012 Sox season was not a complete and total waste for me. Much to the contrary, actually, I had a wonderful summer and enjoyed watching White Sox baseball. And it was great to have Robin back in a Sox uniform. Thanks to WSI, I met some terrific Sox fans this year; we attended games together and had fun. I watched games with my dad, who is a huge Sox fan, and we even spent some time in a game thread together (something he was curious about). I had meaningful conversation about the Sox here on WSI and elsewhere.

Of course, I wish the outcome had been different and the Sox had made it to the playoffs, but I am one that enjoys the journey. It was a fun season minus the ending. I'll be keeping a close eye on the Sox and their dealings over the long winter that lies ahead and I'll be counting down the days until the Sox Opening Day in April 2013.

[mahagga73]

Originally Posted by Lip Man 1

5187:

Very well said. It's always easy to blame the fan base but the fact remains the White Sox are still the ONLY original major league franchise to have never made the postseason in consecutive seasons and MLB has had expanded playoffs since 1969.

Never...not in over 100 years.

I understand why fans are skeptical when a particular team comes out of nowhere for a season (or less than a season as has usually been the case since 2003.)

Again it's about ticket prices, it's about the economy, it's about on-field performance, it's about recent history on the field, it's about advertising and marketing, it's about walk-up sales, and yes to a small extent it's even about the fan base.

There's no one single factor. That shouldn't be hard to understand.

Trying to place blame or zero in on "the reason" is foolish and counter productive. It's a combination of things...some outside of the Sox control, some in their control and some because they have shot themselves in the foot on more than one occasion.

Lip

Is there any doubt if they had expanded playoff in the 50's and 60's the Sox would have made it about 8 , 9 times and won a series? Just thinking out loud. The Yankees were a huge roadblock for them more than anybody. But that is an interesting tidbit about never making the playoffs back to back, I will probably use that one trow . They have been, at least in most of Reinsdorf's reign, consistently mediocre, which I suppose is better than consistently awful but still frustrating.

[Irishsox1]

After 1990 I was ticked at the system. We won 94 games and didn't make the playoffs and we went 8-5 against big bad Oakland.

In 1994, that was more shock like I can't believe the players union is actually striking in August. I wished they locked them out rather than play and see the team quit playing.

This year, expectations were so low, the team never pulled away and I hate to point fingers at 1 guy but when we needed Peavy late in the year to dominate for whatever reason, it usually resulted in a loss.

[Tragg]

I'm taking these steps in the wrong order.
Two days I ago I was at acceptance.
Now I'm pissed.