If you are a sports fan and live in Chicago, the story unfolding on the South Side of the city where grown men in silly looking clothes and serious looks on their faces play a game that civil war soldiers called “Rounders” but that Chicagoans are currently referring to as “Hangman, is all too familiar. Outside of a magical, glorious run of 8 6 World Championships in 10 8 years by the Bulls, Chicagoans are inured to failure by their sports teams. It’s become a source of embarrassment for the city that the record of futility enjoyed by its baseball, football, and hockey teams has surpassed any other city’s sports franchises.

A large part of the feeling is tied up in the Chicago’s former nickname “The Second City.’ Chicago is not the “Second City anymore.” Los Angeles surpassed Chicago in population back in the 1970’s. And “The Third City” just doesn’t seem to have that snap, crackle, and pizazz as other nicknames that cities have attached to them either by default or design. “The Big Apple,” The Big D,” “Music City,” and “The Big Easy” are complimentary monikers that bring tourists who drop millions of dollars into the civic coffers, attracted by the reputations of those towns for fun and frolic. Hell, even Detroit is “The Motor City, despite the fact that few if any automobiles are built within the city limits today.

But Chicago? Chicago used to be “Hog Butcher to the World” until the hogs got all huffy and decided that the slaughterhouses of Kansas City were preferable to the cramped, dusky environs found in “The Jungle” of Upton Sinclair. And “The City of Big Shoulders” that poet Carl Sandburg saw has shrunk to “The City of Slim Hips” found in the gentrified neighborhoods on the city’s North side.

Not to worry. There would always be the Bears and the Cubs. What of the White Sox, you ask?

The White Sox have been an afterthought in the minds of Chicagoans for more than 100 years. This situation was exacerbated by the ownership of the franchise by the Comiskey family whose tight fisted policies toward both the players and fans were legendary in the sports world. Charles Comiskey, owner of the team during the infamous “Black Sox” betting scandal of 1919 reportedly made the players pay for washing their own uniforms. And while more competitive as a baseball team since the end of World War II than the hated Cubs, the team always seemed to come up short during crunch time.

On more than one occasion during the last few weeks I’ve had some troll send me an email gloating about the fall of my White Sox from invincibility. Invariably, the correspondent is some rube from the sticks, at which point I politely inquire as to the status of their major league franchise. This has proved itself to be an effective riposte because, of course, there is no major league sports franchise in Iowa, or South Dakota, or some such place where the people are dependent on minor league teams for sports enjoyment. Our teams may suck, but at least we’ve got major league sports franchises – or at least teams that call themselves such. I wouldn’t necessarily call the Blackhawks “Major League” anything given that their current owners, the Wirtz family, are more interested in their lucrative liquor distribution businesses than they are in putting a professional hockey team on the ice.

But with the national media finally turning their gaze to the White Sox, it’s become something of an embarrassment to realize that the “collapse” of the team is making more national sports news than the bitter division battle between the Red Sox and Yankees. What has happened is not a collapse as much as it has been evidence that there is in fact a God. For only God could make a team like the Cleveland Indians to scorch the American League as the Tribe has done in the last two months.

The Sox had a lead of 15 games on August 1st over the Indians. Since that time, the Sox have coasted home with a .500 record – 25-26. The Indians however, have been unconscious. Playing at nearly a .750 clip – including winning an unholy 17 out of their last 19 ballgames – the Indians have surged to a 37-12 mark during the same period. Not coincidentally, this is virtually the same record the White Sox had for the first two months of the season.

Alas, when tallying up wins and losses, it matters much more how you finish as season than how you start it. Thus, my Sox find themselves fighting for their playoff lives this week. And the prospect of a three game series to end the season in Cleveland that could decide everything has most of us who root for the South Siders having feelings somewhat akin to those of the hogs many years ago who were led into the pens of the stockyards to await their fate; an overwhelming desire to have it over with already.

There is still a good chance the Sox will make the playoffs if not win their Division outright. The Yankees and Red Sox also have a date with history and destiny next weekend. One of those teams will take two out of three games which means the Sox will still probably sneak in as the American League Wild Card entry in the playoffs as long as they don’t have a major swooning experience against the lowly Detroit Tigers who they play for four games in the lead up to the weekend war with Cleveland. And Cleveland may falter a bit when they play Tampa Bay’s youngsters who are led by the most intense man in baseball, manager Lou Pinella.

So the outlook, while grim, is not beyond hope. But after such a fine season during most of which the White Sox had the best record in baseball, it would be a shame if they were denied playoff entry at the last moment by some angry god who we Chicagoans offended many years ago and who has caused us untold amount of suffering when it comes to our lame, but loved sports franchises.