Baseball can strain one’s sense of empathy, sometimes. I believe in empathy as the cheapest and best antidote to a world that sometimes seemed designed for, and therefore too often rewards, unchecked greed and narcissism, and at the same time, I don’t often overly concern myself with the feelings of opposing fanbases. The Mariners have been so bad for so long, it’s easy to check empathy at the gates of the ballpark like a bulky backpack. But it is hard not to feel a little sorry for the White Sox, mired in an interminable rebuild, a directionless franchise with no potential finish line to the misery in sight; it’s hard not to empathize with that fanbase, because Mariners fans know what that feels like, and it’s hard not to feel pain on behalf of the players tasked with giving their best effort with the hope they might, if not win the game, at least play well enough to land somewhere else.
White Sox play one of their best games of the season, lose to the Mariners anyway, 5-1
