Being a White Sox Fan Won’t Be Fun This Year

White Sox fans remember the waiting.

For most teams, a rebuild begins with the hopes of a traditional "Four or five-year plan", which always turns into a six or seven-year plan. That's just how baseball works, you fall prey to unforeseen circumstances that can derail plans, development, etc.

But the Chicago White Sox waited 12 years to make it back to the playoffs. Their fan base suffered through multiple seasons of Gordon Beckham at second base. They watched Fernando Tatis Jr., a prospect thought to be a key element in this class of White Sox, get traded to San Diego for a broken-down version of veteran pitcher James Shields.

But the patience paid off. During General Manager Rick Hahn's tenure, the White Sox signed their best homegrown players to long term contracts, acquired one of the top international free agents of the last decade, and built up enough quality pitching depth to withstand major injuries while still pulling off a solid starting rotation.

The conversation around the White Sox was focused squarely on 2020 for years. The 2020 class of White Sox, they would be leaders, All-Stars, and contenders. That was the goal. At the end of 2019, no one knew how this 2020 season would shake out, but it was still the year the contention window was set to open.

The 2020 White Sox persevered through the situation around them together and continued to thrive, to simmer together, beginning to assume the roles that they had been waiting for. They finished the season in second place, securing a Wild Card spot in the playoffs.

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Fans would always ask if former White Sox manager Rick Renteria was "the guy" to manage this team when the time came to take them to the playoffs. The Cubs didn't seem to think it was a fit and let Renteria go a year before the Cubs landed a playoff spot with the core Renteria had managed.

But with the White Sox, that question never felt like it had an answer other than "We'll see." The years passed, and Renteria's management of the White Sox began to stagnate. Renteria was good at fine-tuning cores of young players and creating a strong, healthy, and honest clubhouse culture. That's what Renteria did best.

And the 2020 White Sox exploded onto the scene, that question's answer became more apparent. Renteria was more of the man for the task behind the White Sox than he was the man for the task that lay ahead of them.

As the Renteria-class of Cubs has shown us, these homegrown teams have around six or seven years together, and the window for contention within that span is usually even shorter. Baseball may move slowly, but it changes quickly.

When the organization announced it had let go of Renteria and veteran pitching coach Don Cooper in early October, a wave of performance anxiety washed over the White Sox fan base. It signaled that the men in suits also saw what baseball fans were seeing every night.

It meant the proverbial window had been opened. Fresh blood was on its way. The possibilities for a new future seemed to expand. There would be an opportunity for new ways of thinking, new levels of respect, and most importantly, the ability to win and adapt in a quickly changing era of the game.

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The Tony La Russa hiring was a nightmare from the beginning. The whispers of his name were enough to induce high levels of now justified panic within the fan base.

But at the time, the mindset was that "He wasn't AJ Hinch", because that was simply too fresh of a wound, one that would tarnish the integrity of the game being played on the field. No team wanted the ghost of the Astros scandal on their heels for the next several years, especially not this one.

But LaRussa? Fans of Reinsdorf-owned sports franchises know what the consequences of Reinsdorf's decisions can be, but this particular decision was a sheer display of the power that these fan bases are subject to under the rule of Reinsdorf.

La Russa, who spent most of his tenure in baseball with the Cardinals, and was the last franchise he wore a uniform for, has shown that despite nine years off the job, he's still been well steeped in the ideals of 'The Cardinal Way'.

The time for that 'way' of baseball has gone, and much of that culture shift has been influenced by this young and vivacious White Sox team over the last several years.

The clubhouse culture that Renteria has cultivated is on the precipice of achieving its most important cause -- helping this core of players get farther than simply the doorstep of the playoffs.

The early and abrupt removal of Renteria and Cooper may have made fans wince at an uprooting of the status quo during such a fragile juncture for this team -- even for the greater good of the future. But what Reindorf did was take a role within such a crucial part of the organization that once inspired growth and change within the clubhouse and installed the most opposite candidate he could find in La Russa, a staunch, White, out-of-touch 76-year-old former manager -- and friend.

With the hiring of La Russa, tensions began to brew within the fan base and team itself (Tim Anderson was the first to mention that La Russa had not yet reached out to him to touch base despite LaRussa's comments of eagerness to get to work). The future of this class of White Sox feels like it's managerial style is about to take an ill-advised turn. The clubhouse is already seeing signs of early rifts within it, and fans are already feeling the side effects of one of Reinsdorf's sharpest reminders that he's the man in charge.

And that was all before the news of La Russa's latest DUI charge from earlier this year broke.

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Questions lingered immediately after word got out that the White Sox's new manager La Russa had been charged with a DUI in Arizona earlier this year. The shock lasted for days, this had to be news to them, right? There was no way that the White Sox would turn such a blind eye.

While the wedge that La Russa had begun to drive between the front office and the fans grew deeper as the days passed without comment on the charges from the organization, the story got even worse.

The White Sox had been informed of the charges against La Russa the day before they went through with hiring and announcing him to the public.

They knew about the charges, saw a repeat offender, were met with widespread disapproval by vocal fans -- and still hired La Russa.

La Russa brings a litany of problematic ideology that has yet to be redeemed by actions -- just words that he has changed. He brings a set of soon-to-be exposed outdated managerial skills, and he's now the oldest manager in the game and is at risk of destroying this team's well-crafted eco-system. But none of that compares to the betrayal of giving a pass to a now repeat drunk driving offender.

Excusing drunk driving or any form of harmful illegal activity is never acceptable, especially not on such a large stage that is trying to usher in a younger generation of spectators. But the willing dismissal of these issues to protect one of the worst candidates available for this job leaves behind a special kind of sour taste.

It used to be easy to be a White Sox fan when cursing Reinsdorf over being "cheap" or "loyal" became more of a sad trope to poke fun at than a harsh and consequential reality. Right now this team is poised better than most to take a run at a championship title with a homegrown core. That's something to appreciate on its own. But for White Sox fans, it's a time for long-awaited redemption that some never thought the franchise would be afforded under Reinsdorf's ownership.

The hiring of La Russa could be seen as a strong hand against the changing culture of baseball and the vocality of the game now, perhaps Reinsdorf used La Russa as a discipline hire -- to infuse a little bit of "The Cardinal Way" into this championship-caliber team, after all the Cardinals did win two championships on his watch.

But we know none of that is true, or at least it isn't the root cause in hiring La Russa. The truth is sadly much simpler. Reinsdorf was just the man with the checkbook whose buddy and way-back-when man La Russa needed a job, and in the tradition of nepotism and the spirit of old boys clubs, he gave him one.

And now we all have to suffer. Again.