If you’re missing White Sox games, you’re missing out on history. 

The White Sox are 2-14, which puts them on a pace to win 20 games, half as many as the 1962 New York Mets, the losingest team in modern history. But it’s not just losing that makes these White Sox a historically terrible team, it’s how they’re losing. The White Sox have been shut out six times, once in every series they’ve played. Before this year, only the 1907 Brooklyn Superbas — yes, that was a real team — were shut out in six of their first 16 games.

“Runs are few and far between,” the Sox’s understated announcer, Len Kasper, said in the understatement of the season. When your team is batting .196, that’s usually the case.

I went to the White Sox game on Sunday. Beforehand, I asked my church congregation to pray for “the worst team in baseball.” But on the train ride to the ballpark, I succumbed to worldly considerations, opening my FanDuel account to bet $10 on the Cincinnati Reds to win by at least 1½ runs. In the first two games of the series, the Reds had outscored the Sox 16-1, so it seemed like a sure thing.

The stands were a quarter or so full, a good showing for a summer Sunday afternoon at Sox Park, but there were large swaths of red in the crowd, indicating that half of the fans were Ohio transplants here to root for the enemy. 

“If it wasn’t 80 degrees, I wouldn’t be here ’til fucking May,” declared a fair weather Sox fan sitting in front of me.

The White Sox lost, 11-4. I won my bet. The Reds hit two home runs off starter Michael Soroka, and stole six bases on the stiff arm of catcher Korey Lee. To paraphrase John Updike’s paean to Ted Williams, the White Sox are the perfect team for a cool April day, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done ill and a thing done even worse.

The White Sox are 26th in home attendance (maybe they’re fudging the figures) and dead last in road attendance, which means opposing fans don’t want to see them play, even though victory is guaranteed. The Sox are so desperate for an audience, they held a Tax Day Sale, offering tickets for $4.15 – half what the Schaumburg Boomers charge to sit on the lawn. This is nothing new. The White Sox are the least successful franchise in baseball history, having made the playoffs in 8.9 percent of their seasons, less than any of the other 29 teams.

There’s an idea kicking around among baseball mavens that may help bring bigger crowds to the South Side — even more than a new stadium. Eliminate the American and National leagues, and realign the teams geographically. Now that the National League has adopted the designated hitter, there’s no difference between the leagues. That could result in four divisions, one for each cardinal direction. It might look like this, after Major League Baseball adds the two teams Commissioner Rob Manfred keeps promising:

The White Sox would be in a division with three regional opponents currently in the National League: the Cubs, Brewers, and Cardinals. They would play each of those teams far more often than they do now, giving them a chance to develop something they don’t currently have: rivalries. Think about it: the Cubs hate the Cardinals, the Brewers hate the Cubs, the Mets hate the Phillies, the Red Sox hate the Yankees, the Giants hate the Dodgers, but nobody hates the White Sox. Not even Cubs fans hate the White Sox, even though Sox fans hate the Cubs. “You go to Wrigley Field, you have a beer, beautiful people up there,” Sox fan Barack Obama once told ESPN. “People aren’t watching the game. It’s not serious. White Sox, that’s baseball. South Side.”

(Obama might have added, if there were people at Sox Park, they would be watching the game.)

The Sox’s lack of success is one reason. Winners are hated, mediocrities pitied. But so is their geographic isolation. In the old American League, the closest team was the Detroit Tigers, 250 miles away. Once divisional play started, the Sox were assigned to the American League West, where they could hardly get something going with the A’s, Angels or Mariners. The Brewers are only 90 miles away. Even if their fans don’t learn to hate the White Sox, they’ll travel to games in Chicago. And then someone will watch the White Sox, even if it’s not a fair-weather Sox fan. Although, as I said, anyone who’s missing out on the Sox this season is missing out on something we may never see again.