It was the bottom of the second inning on Sunday afternoon before Lauren Eavesgoldbet, the bartender at BallPark Pub in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, remembered to turn one of the bar’s six flat-screen TVs to the White Sox game.
“Nobody’s asking for it,” she said.
In the dwindling days of a spectacularly dreadful season, many White Sox fans are averting their eyes. On Sunday, the team lost for the 120th time this year, tying the major league record for most losses by a modern-day team in a single season.
The loss happened nearly 2,000 miles away in San Diego, where the Padres beat the Sox, 4-2.
But it landed like one more gut punch on the South Side of Chicago in Bridgeport, the neighborhood where the White Sox have played for more than a century, and home to many families who have loyally cheered for the team for generations.
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SKIP ADVERTISEMENTAll Sunday afternoon, customers drifted in and out of BallPark, about as Sox-centric as a bar can be. The walls are covered with Sox memorabilia: a mural depicting the notorious Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979 that ended in a riot, a black-and-white portrait of the former maverick team owner Bill Veeck, a yellow vintage sign advertising $3 grandstand seats.
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“Welcome Sox Fans!” a large sign by the door beckons.
These days, few fans who walk through the door of BallPark are here to watch the Sox.
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