September’s pastime: Hate-watching

On August 31, when White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf held a press conference to announce the promotion of Chris Getz to general manager, he stated the following: “The 2023 season was my 43rd in baseball. It was absolutely the worst season I’ve ever been through. It was a nightmare. It’s still a nightmare.”

Jerry, I have not agreed with much of what you’ve said over the years, mostly because you’re not one to say much of anything, but I don’t know if you’ve ever said something I’ve agreed with more.

As someone that writes for this wonderful site, I’ve had the “pleasure” of watching a lot of White Sox baseball over the past two seasons. I watched Dylan Cease take a no-hitter into the ninth. I’ve also watched Michael Kopech struggle to make it through four innings. Through the ups and downs, I’ve always watched whenever I could. If I couldn’t watch, I was checking my phone to see the score.

But that has stopped recently.

Over the last few months, the number of games I watch has gone down drastically. The White Sox do not bring me the same joy that they used to. Almost every time I turn a game on, I can barely sit through it. If I’m not covering a game, chances are it will not be on my TV.

Hate-watching is a dangerous thing. You start looking for reasons to complain instead of just being able to turn a game on and lose yourself in the fun. It creates unneeded stress, and you start to dislike something that is meant to bring joy.

It just becomes a cycle of sending off tweets about firing Pedro Grifol or trading/releasing whatever player everyone has decided to hate any given week. It’s not healthy to reach that point in fandom. The team also has not given fans the same level of commitment.

I said it during our live podcast after the loss to the Cubs on the same night that Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López were traded: Don’t watch this team. They do not deserve you stressing yourself out to the point that what they do on the field dictates the way your day is going to go. Let us, the ones whose job it is to watch them, suffer for you.