The Chicago White Sox is a team loaded with some pretty nice history. They are one of the American League’s oldest teams. With that, there have been some really down years and even decades that most fans don’t want to talk about.
They made the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time in team history in 2021. That is a bit sad but it also makes some sense when you consider a few things. For a lot of the league’s history, the American League and National League’s top team in the regular season just played each other in the World Series.
That means that for a long time, the White Sox not making the World Series over the New York Yankees counted as them not making the playoffs. It is still sad that they didn’t do it since the rules changed but the facts are the facts.
One thing that is embarrassing is the fact that the White Sox have gone through a lot of long stretches where they don’t make the playoffs at all. Before they turned the corner of this current rebuild in 2020, there were decades going by between playoff appearances.
The Chicago White Sox are certainly hoping to make the playoffs a lot more.
The teams that they have played in the postseason are the Chicago Cubs (1906), New York Giants (1917), Cincinnati Reds (1919), Los Angeles Dodgers (1959), Baltimore Orioles (1983), Toronto Blue Jays (1993), Seattle Mariners (2000), Boston Red Sox (2005), Los Angeles Angels (2005), Houston Astros (2005) Tampa Bay Rays (2008), Oakland Athletics (2020) and the Astros again (2021).
2021 became the year when the White Sox played an opponent for the second time in team history. They had the Houston Astros in the American League Division Series and had played them in the 2005 World Series. Not seeing the same opponent twice in 100+ years of existence is a little sad, even with the old rules of the playoffs.
At least that is no longer a thing and they can move forward. They are a great team now loaded with talent and everyone should believe that this is going to be sustainable. They are very young and a lot of the most important players are under control for a long time.
There is a great chance that they will play one of those teams in the playoffs again as soon as this year. The most notable team missing is the New York Yankees. The fact that these two have never met in the playoffs is amazing and needs to change soon. Hopefully, the White Sox continue to qualify for the playoffs and start defeating some of these great teams.