Do not tell them these words were written.
Let them continue doing the unfathomable in the plastic bubble that is Comiskey Park. Let their confidence snowball all summer long before unpacked houses. Let them have only two All-Stars, instead of the five they deserve, so they remain driven to prove their unknown selves.
Let their egos remain compact and every little cog content. Please, no pitching ace, no home-run-race monster. Let them remain the Gray Sox to much of the world and the Fright Sox to frazzled foes who cannot plug all the leaks they cause.
Let them continue to ignore the newspaper columns, the standings and the scoreboard and just keep on keeping on, all for one, all out, one nifty pitch and one relentless base at a time. Let the Little Train just keep thinking it can.
Whatever you do, do not tell these White Sox they basically clinched the American League Central on July 1.
After Saturday afternoon’s 7-2 steamroll of Boston–and Saturday night’s Cleveland loss–the White Sox had a 10 1/2-game lead. Double digits! Absurd. Preposterous. During spring training, the only way these White Sox were going to have a double-digit lead three months in was if they were competing against the Black Sox.
Ten and a half! This is 1985 Bears altitude, ’95-’96 Bulls country. It might as well be raining diamonds at Comiskey, yet only 28,006 showed up in Saturday’s sunshine. Could anyone out there still suspect this is a tin-game lead, as in fluke or fraud, as in, “Wake me when they wake up and fold?”
No. This team is as real and pervasive as rust. It will not go away. Now only the injury gods can catch these Sox. Heaven knows the gods caught and dropped just about everyone else, from the white-flagging Indians to the battered Yankees to the decimated Red Sox.
Let these out-of-the-blue Sox ride this meant-to-be cycle. Let them arrive a year ahead of schedule, wearing blinders, and make a blissfully ignorant run at the AL-record 20-game margin by which the 99-63 Sox won in ’83. It’s now within reach. The only outrageous aspect of a 2000 team without controversy or a lightning-rod personality is its best-in-baseball record of 51-29.
Just ask the character with character who provided the backbone of the ’98 Cubs’ wild-card winners. Ask Rod Beck, now with the Red Sox.
“Like baking a cake,” Beck said, “you have to have the right ingredients and the White Sox do. Pitching, defense and contact [hitters]. They play the game the right way. They have the two veterans, Frank [Thomas] and [Ray] Durham, but everyone else is young enough not to have egos. It’s not, `I want to do this or that.’ [Jerry] Manuel can use his knowledge of the game to mix and match guys in a variety of ways.”
Do not tell these Sox that the ’69 Cubs, Chicago’s most famous losers, never had more than a 9 1/2-game lead. That came on Aug. 13. That team finished second by eight games.
But these Sox have nothing to do with those Cubs. These Sox are managed by a man who is as low-key and spiritually grounded as Leo Durocher was overbearing and volatile. These Sox stay fresh with many interchangeable parts–shortstop Jose Valentin played right field Saturday–while Durocher wore down stars Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Randy Hundley, who slumped in September. These Sox aren’t being pursued by a Mets staff featuring Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Nolan Ryan.
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These Sox have the equivalent of four No. 2 starters and a flexible fifth. Kip Wells was sent down Saturday to “get his confidence back,” as Manuel said. But the organization has so much pitching depth that a young arm could easily be traded for an experienced one. How about five No. 2s? How can this team slump for long when it has so many contributors?
This team is becoming almost too multicogged good for its own good. At this race-is-over rate the only way the Sox will consistently sell out in September is if they begin doing a ’69 Cubs. Won’t happen. No more suspense. Too many dull interviews in the Sox clubhouse repeating their robotic mantra: “One game at a time.”
Let them keep their heads down and their humility up. Most of them say they don’t read the papers. Do not tell them what I said. It’s over.
“They probably should win [the division],” Beck said, “but they should not think that way.”