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Impossibly Bleak Chicago White Sox Postgame Show Arguably the Highlight of the Season

Kyle Koster

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The Chicago White Sox stink. There's no way around it. And there's nothing worse for a sports fan than supporting a lousy baseball team because there are 162 reminders of their futility packed into 180 days. They have to select from three natural responses. Cry about the losses, stop caring about them entirely, or lean into the absurdity while finding some humor.

Chuck Garfien and Ozzie Guillen, tasked with bringing NBC Sports Chicago's White Sox Talk to disappointed viewers most nights, cannot have them lose interest. So they've veered into the comedic route. Which is both entertaining and smart.

Here's how they opened Monday night's program, which followed another disaster as the White Sox blew a 4-0 eighth-inning lead against the Seattle Mariners, capped by Cal Raleigh blasting a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth. This is what rock bottom looks like.

Garfien barely able to muster the strength to make it on set, crawling around on all fours. Guillen assessing the situation and deciding sitting on actual pins and needles would be preferable to watching his former team limp to a 17-50 start.

Honestly, it's a savvy move to find some way to connect with fans willing to consume more content about a club with a .254 winning percentage. Most of whom have moved past the anger stage of the process outside an occasional flare-up. At a certain point in a lost season there's no point in stating the obvious over and over again and the best thing for broadcasters to do is jump on whatever the opposite of a bandwagon is along with viewers who sure wish things weren't going so poorly.

The good news for Garfien and Guillen is they'll have plenty more opportunities to do bits like this over the Sox's next 95 games. The bas news is they'll have plenty more opportunities to do bits like this over the Sox's next 95 games.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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