The White Sox and the End of Lovable Losers

Well, it finally happened: The 1962 Mets’ record for the most losses in the modern baseball era has finally fallen, with the Chicago White Sox losing their 121st game last night (after an ill-timed three-game win streak that frustrated the fans who wanted to see history — the 2024 White Sox can’t even lose right). It was a sad day, not just because it’s an ignominious record to break, but because of who broke it and how it got broken.

Over the years, the ‘62 Mets have become a symbol of futility, a shorthand applied even beyond baseball, any time something sucks. There are a slew of fun facts people love to cite about that team: They started the season on a nine-game losing streak, and had a 17-game losing streak that began in May; their home opener was on Friday the 13th; their best starting pitcher, Roger Craig, lost 24 games; they committed 210 errors in 160 games; they finished 60.5 games behind the first place Giants; etc. 

The haplessness of the Mets took on a kind of charm, one that shaped the identity of the franchise all the way to today, in the days of “lol mets.” They were lovable losers, and their existence represented possibility. In 1962, the Mets were an expansion team, a symbol of hope for a league that was growing in new ways. 

With integration adding a bunch of new talent to baseball, and westward expansion adding a slate of new cities, Major League Baseball finally started adding teams in the 1960s, after six decades of staying fixed at 16 teams — eight in the American League, eight in the National League. In 1961, two teams were added; in 1962, two more; four more in 1969, and then ANOTHER two more in 1977. 

So in less than two decades, the league had added ten teams, growing by 62.5% — and each team they added had to go through growing pains. For example:

• The second Washington Senators, added in 1961, started with four straight 100-loss seasons and eight straight losing seasons. They moved to Texas and became the Rangers in 1972 and didn’t make the postseason until the 1990s.

• The Houston Colt .45s, added in 1962, had seven straight seasons with at least 90 losses, and didn’t make the postseason until 1980.

• The San Diego Padres, added in 1969, lost 110 games in their first season, and finished in last place for six straight seasons.

• The Seattle Mariners, added in 1977, started with 14 consecutive losing seasons.

The Mets were simply the most extreme example of this, losing 452 games in their first four seasons. But they also had the most inspiring turnaround, becoming the first of the new teams to win the World Series in 1969 just seven years after their historically dreadful first season. In other words, the Mets were lovable losers because their losing represented growth and potential. Their failures were a necessary rite of passage for a budding future.

By contrast, the failures of this White Sox team represent nothing but failure. They are not a new franchise — they have been around since 1901. And their losing doesn’t represent growth or development — it’s just how baseball works now.

This year’s White Sox team isn’t even that aberrational. Practically every year now, some team gives the ‘62 Mets a run for their money. Last year it was the Athletics, who lost 112 games — the most losses for that franchise in over a century. The year before that it was the Nationals, who had the most losses since their inaugural season in 1969. In 2021, the Diamondbacks AND the Orioles both lost 110 games — which was a lot for both teams, but hardly even notable, really, because the Orioles had lost 107 and 115 in 2019 and 2018 respectively. You have to go all the way back to 2017 to find a full season where no team lost 107 games.

This has now become a deliberate strategy, where teams intentionally field non-competitive teams for years on end in order to “rebuild” through the draft. And the White Sox are a perfectly depressing example of this because they just tried this strategy and it didn’t work at all! In the mid-2010s, the White Sox traded basically all their good players — Chris Sale and Adam Eaton and Jose Quintana — and had seven straight losing seasons, including a 100-loss year in 2018 in the hopes of developing a young, exciting core. And they did have a crop of cool young players, like Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert.

But the payoff for all that was exactly two winning seasons — one of which was the shortened Covid year — not a single postseason series win. In other words, these losing seasons are not a good team-building strategy; they’re just a good cost-saving measure for owners. Teams have realized they can sell their fans on futility with the promise of a “competitive window” that is always just on the horizon. And if that window slams shut before you’ve even worn in your Tim Anderson jersey? Well, just lose 100+ games for a few more seasons and try again!

In other words, the charm of a losing season is completely gone now. You are no longer watching the growing pains of a team with possibility — you are watching a car being stripped for parts. It might pay off down the line, but it’s really ugly to watch. And the only person who really comes out ahead is the guy who owns the scraps…