Legends Of The Turnaround

June 10, 2026

The White Sox Are In First Place For The First Time In 4,000 Years


With their 2-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves on the South Side of Chicago on Wednesday night, and following an 8-4 afternoon loss by the Cleveland Guardians to the New York Yankees, the Chicago White Sox are in first place for the first time since Abner Doubleday was experiencing puberty.

It really does feel that long.

The Sox, who are now 36-31, are actually atop the American League Central Division for the first time since 2022. That’s four years, friends and fungo bat swingers. Four long, sweaty, smelly, pukey, icky (and occasionally sexy) years.

Four years in baseball is like 4,000 years in the Bible. If there were a Gospel According to The White Sox it would contain a lot of “Damn Thee,” “Woe Be To Thee,” “Thou Art Awful,” and “A Curse Upon Your Every Bunt, Dickhead.”

The White Sox were in first place briefly in 2022 after winning the division in 2021 when they then got damned in the playoffs by the Houston Astros and have been baseball’s equivalent of a plague ever since. But now, thanks to a gutsy manager, crafty players and, let’s be honest, a stumbling year in the American League, the Sox are having visions of postseason Cracker-Jack dancing in their cute, cap-wearing little South Side heads.

Will they keep it up? Can the White Sox keep this magic captured in their cleats for four more months and return us to the playoffs and the tenth inning of summer?

Of course they can.

Blessed are the believers. (in a bad division.)