Before the start of the 1980 season, a baseball writer from the East Coast suggested the Chicago White Sox were “so bad they offer the same camp pleasures as an Andy Warhol epic.”
“I want people to take us for granted,” La Russa said before opening day in 1980. “I want them to think we don’t have the talent to be a competitive team. It’s going to make it a whole lot easier to sneak up on some of the so-called powers in our division.”
The Sox didn’t sneak up on anyone then, finishing 70-90 and in fifth place in the American League West, 26 games behind the pennant-winning Kansas City Royals.