White Sox Cyber Monday!
By James Fegan
Nothing takes the veil off the true nature of consumer culture like when the retail industry zaps us out of our comfortable existence of buying things at a measured pace determined by need and affordability, and tosses out brief windows of extreme price cuts like hand grenades into crowded city square. People are toppled, servers are mutilated, expensive gifts are purchased without a particular person in mind.
It is in that spirit that we address the White Sox promotions for Cyber Monday, a ritual which seems even more curious than its brick and mortar predecessor. Isn’t everything on the internet on sale all the time?
For me, my favorite item that I like to purchase from Chicago White Sox: Professional Baseball Team, is professional baseball. So it’s nice that today–Monday–is the day of the season-ticket holder pre-sale for the 14-game plan. Once again, the announced price cuts come in as advertised.
Using the calculator function on my sister’s Mac, it looks to me that if someone wanted to opt for going to Opening Day over being forced to buy two Crosstown games, and went only on Sundays for their other 12 dates, they could buy a 14-game plan of bleacher seats for $304 per seat.
But that’s not really a Cyber Monday-specific item, per se. And that’s not what anyone writes a Cyber Monday blog post for; they write it to peruse through the White Sox online shop and see what goofy nonsense they can find. The entire site has a “Buy one item, get an equal or lesser value item for 50% off” deal going on until midnight, so there’s no need to highlight anything on sale in some actual pursuit to find good deals.
It’s all on sale, but not really. Things go on sale once you buy something that’s not on sale. If this still seems exploitative and overpriced, remember that the Bristol Sox (Rookie League Affiliate) have their Cyber Monday prices active ALL THE WAY UP TILL CHRISTMAS EVE. Literally nothing on that site costs more than $18*.
*There are like, 12 things in that store, and most of them are outdated decks of Top Prospects cards
I’ve come to accept the fact that there’s no limit to what professional sports teams can brand, and what people will buy at increased rates because professional sports teams have branded it, but something manages to catch my eye every year.
For example…
I understand that making a small portion of uniquely printed White Sox M&M’s is going to induce some increased prices, and I understand that five pounds of M&M’s is a lot of damn M&M’s, but I’m still not sure how we got to $140 with over $9 in shipping as the price for this. Some well-intentioned “Don’t Allow Citizens to Give Themselves Sports/Regionalism-Inspired Diabetes” tax has gone way the hell too far.
Another thing that caught my eye, are the 8 x 10 framed photos the White Sox are selling for $50. For example, here’s one of Billy Pierce
Pretty sweet, right?
Here’s another one of Dewayne Wise making The Catch.
Gorgeous.
Get the idea? Alright, good, because now it’s about to get random.
Chris Widger! Taking a walk! In the World Series! Did you even remember Widger having two walks and an .667 OBP in the ’05 Series? Now you’ll never forget!
Brian Anderson! Had you been trying to forget Brian Anderson?! All your work has been undone!
Oh. Oh my, do I dare even–IS THAT MIKE SQUIRES OF 1980’s BACKUP CATCHER FAME?!?! AND HE’S SPORTING A BLACK EYE!!!! Don’t mind me, I’m just going to squeal myself horse over here.
But that’s not all! I was relieved to see that they’re still selling the Let’s Go Sox! traffic light.
No jokes here, fellas. I want the hell out of this thing, and will flick it on every time Dayan Viciedo gets to a three-ball count.
Hopefully my fiancee is too busy with her hospital rotations to read this blog, because she’s getting this and the matching pants for Christmas. She’s a very lucky woman.
Because she was born in a country with easy access to clean water and immaculate sanitation, not because of this.
Speaking of feeling lucky, are you already nervous about Chris Sale becoming a free agent after the 2016 season? God knows I am.
Well, make use of that anxiety and start stuffing all the loose bills, change, gold rings, and copper pipe shavings into one of these babies, then chuck them onto the field as Sale leaves the mound during his last start before he hits the market. That’s the type of behavior that keeps people around.
But really, the Holidays are about making time with family. We never know how long we truly have with them, and even in cases where there’s estrangement and hurt feelings, there’s a White Sox-themed gift that reminds us that mending those fences could be a lot worse.
Follow James Fegan on Twitter @JRFegan