Hey, Sox fans, 'Don't count the time lost'

My mother is 88. She faithfully reads the Sun-Times (hi mom!), flips through the books I bring and sits in her chair next to my dad, who's 92.

She does not own the Chicago White Sox — that would be another 88-year-old, Jerry Reinsdorf. Now that the historically awful 2024 season mercifully ended Sunday, it's time to assess the twisted, smoking wreckage. To ask: Why was the team so lousy?

I bring up my mom as evidence that I am not biased against the sainted old. Ricky Gervais observes how hypocritical it is to sneer at old people, in their diminished state, given how desperate we all are to join them. I know I'm dancing as fast as I can.

So I am reluctant to say the White Sox were unprecedentedly lousy because their owner was born in 1936. That's ageism. It is entirely possible to be old and on the ball. There must be other 88-year-old seniors who rock their jobs. There is ... um ... looking for anyone ... Wall Street investor Carl Icahn, also 88.

Though his company has lost $20 billion since 2022, 75% of its value. Maybe not the best example.

And my mother, God bless her, well, — sharp as a tack, of course — though I think she'd agree, not up to stewarding a professional baseball team.

In his defense, Reinsdorf must have managers and staffers, coaches and assistants. Whom he hired.

So who's at fault?

No need to guess. There is the crack Sun-Times sports section. Let's see ... Rick Morrissey puts the blame squarely on Reinsdorf.

"I've said in the past that Reinsdorf doesn’t care anymore," he writes. "That was wrong. He cares about sticking it to people. It’s really the only explanation for his behavior."

I don't have a dog in this race. I don't follow the Sox. If you put a gun to my head and demanded I name a single player on Sunday's roster, I'd be a dead man.

Here's better proof. My pal, former Washington Post columnist (and, ahem, two-time Pulitzer winner) Gene Weingarten, offered to fly me to Detroit for the final Sox game Sunday, as thanks for contributing to his excellent Gene Pool blog. He'd pay for airfare, put me and my wife up in a hotel, buy us tickets to the game, to accompany him and a contest winner.

"I'd be delighted if you joined us," Gene wrote.

I never considered going, not for a second, explaining to Gene that the night the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 my wife and I attended a lecture at the Field Museum on tattooing in Polynesia. Nor were we alone. Not everyone is a sports fan.

You could say I don't know anything so shouldn't comment. Or, maybe, that I bring an outsider's perspective. If any Sox players are reading this — and none are — I'd tell them:

You got to play, right? And they paid you? You got a few hits. There were balls you didn't bobble. Do you know how many guys spend years struggling to do that and never made it? That's what I tell myself.

Never downplay the participation trophy, not when you're doing something you love. I'm at a point in my career where, well, I might not be the worst columnist in history, but I'm no Gene Weingarten — no Pulitzer Prize for me. I can't even point to a column that set the city abuzz. Not one.

But I did get to do my job. And it was really fun, and I loved it. And got paid and put my boys through college. There is a beautiful, though long, poem, “Andrea del Sarto,” by Robert Browning about a real Renaissance painter. Quite good. But no Rafael. He's OK with that.

"Don't count the time lost," del Sarto tells his wife, keen to run off with her young friends. "I do what many dream of, all their lives — Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do, And fail in doing."

We all fall short. That's good. As Browning writes in the poem's famous line, "a man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for? "

Is that enough? It'll have to be. Sure, the team sucked. The White Sox lost more games this year than any team in the history of baseball.

Which itself is a form of greatness. And you were here when it happened. For a few billion years you weren't here. And before you know it we won't be here again, for the rest of eternity. Enjoy it, whatever it is, while it lasts.

That said, c'mon Jerry, do better. Sell the team. You're killing us here.