It was all smiles on the South Side of Chicago yesterday as the Chicago White Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels by a score of 8-1. It was a very impressive start for the White Sox, with good pitching (especially by starting pitcher Sean Burke, who pitched 6 scoreless innings), good fielding, and good hitting. The Sox were leading by a score of 3-0 in the bottom of the 8th when they added 5 insurance runs to seal the win. This is something they did not do last year, when they had a nasty habit of giving up the lead late in the game on their way to losing a major league record 121 games. The name of the stadium, by the way, has been changed from Guaranteed Rate Field to Rate Field, no doubt because nothing can be guaranteed now that Donald Trump is president again. Makes sense to me.
One positive aspect of losing a record number of games last year was that management knew they were not going to go anywhere in 2024, and brought up a lot of young players to see what they could do, including this year's starting pitcher, Sean Burke. The White Sox have a lot of new young players this season. In fact, I only recognized three position players from last year: Luis Roberts Jr., Andrew Vaughn, and Andrew Benintendi, who hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the 8th inning. This is basically a whole new team with a new manager, Will Venable, and they look really good. And I am happy to report the fans turned out in droves Opening Day. One bad season is not going to keep dedicated White Sox fans from showing up, proof of which is the crowd seen on the concourse in the photograph on the right.
As you can imagine, White Sox announcers Steve Stone, seen in the photograph on the left, and John Schriffen, on the right, were beside themselves with joy with the result, and are predicting great things for the team this year. And happily, Stone has signed a multi-year contract that guarantees he will be the White Sox for years to come, although working a more limited game schedule, I assume because he is now 77 years old, although a youngish 77. I am definitely looking forward to watching more White Sox games on MLB.com this year, especially since it is now costing a fortune to subscribe, but what is money when you can watch your South Side heroes all season long? But check with me later in season regarding that opinion. For now, let's play two!
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