Sox Populi - A Chicago White Sox podcast

After a dramatic weekend and an embarrassing week, the White Sox are hopefully looking ahead to this weekend's series after taking two straight sets. Ideally, the dirty secrets are over and maybe the news will break that there are several coaching and front office jobs opening up. (It won’t happen, but a girl can dream.) Jordan White joins the show to talk about the first-place Brewers. You might...

South Side Sox duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and west coast correspondent, Will, manage to take a moment off from this week’s White Sox weirdness to agree wholeheartedly with an article in The Athletic bemoaning the fact official scorers are terrified of ruling errors any more, to the point any routine booting of a grounder or drop of a fly is deemed a hit, and only throws into at least row...

In this episode, two bitter baseball fans chat about their below-average teams. That’s right, we’re talking about the White Sox and Yankees! I also had a headache while recording, so things get a little loosey-goosey. That being said, Asher Dratel from Pitcher List joins to chat about the Yankees, and why everything is so bad right now. Twitter brought a lot of good questions, and as a content war...

In an unprecedented burst of activity, the often elusive Dugout Metrics podcast goes back-to-back episodes, this time tapping Luke Smailes and his article series on the 2023 collegiate picks for the White Sox. Luke, fresh off of Lumen Field in Seattle, where he was so close to the draft he could smell Harold Reynolds’ aftershave, sat down with Brett Ballantini to share his many insights:  First of...

After almost two years away, Dugout Metrics is back, and bolstered by a new teammate, pitcher/analyst Malachi Hayes, who sits down with Trevor Lines and Brett Ballantini to review Rick Hahn’s Big Trade Deadline Adventure.  Dugout Metrics left field Luke Smailes has been traded! We needed pitching, badly Up top, did Hahn execute at this deadline about as well as expected, better, worse? Breaking do...

South Side Sox duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and west coast correspondent, Will, took time out from warming up in case the White Sox need them to fill out the bullpen to talk about the heavy activity and non-activity on trade deadline day. The final Sox tally, pending judicial review, was six pitchers gone, along with Jake Burger, who is headed to Miami. Incoming are a whole bunch of prospec...

Not all of our DISH Deluxe history podcasts will be about a single date in White Sox history — in fact, quite often they won’t be. This episode is our first such podcast. The 1977 club was selected now, because at 22-6, it remains the best July club in White Sox history. And the South Side Hit Men spent the entire month in first place, stretching nearly into mid-August. Mark Liptak and Brett Balla...

With PECOTA now giving the White Sox just a 1% chance of winning the hapless AAAL Central, with a predicted 72.6 wins (that last six-tenths of a win is always the hardest), SSS duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and west coast correspondent, Will, indulge in the Sox fan merriment of the moment and try to guess who might go where by the trade deadline, and in exchange for what. Much of the discuss...

Where were you 13 years ago today? Almost undoubtedly, you were either glued in front of the television from the first inning forward, or at least got to a screen after Hawk implored all White Sox fans to call their mothers, daughters, sons and fathers. If you were really lucky, and some of you may have been, you were in the park. Malachi Hayes and Brett Ballantini were, unwittingly sitting just a...

Little did we know when we began our latest “livestream” (to @SouthSideSox on Twitter, Sox Populi on YouTube and South Side Sox on Facebook) that we’d be mourning more than just another lost White Sox season. Midway through, Dante Jones broke the news to Brett Ballantini, Sam Sherman, Chrystal O’Keefe, Malachi Hayes, Kristina Airdo and Ryiin that Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López had been traded to...

This episode is a little different this week — it’s all Chicago-centric! It’s also a merger of SB Nation and Fans First Sports Network misfits. That’s right, I’m talking about a Crosstown Classic Crossover episode! Sara Sanchez of Bleed Cubbie Blue joins the show to talk about what’s going on north of Sox Park and preview the upcoming Crosstown series. The White Sox are fresh off getting swept in...

Past Crosstown podcasts have mostly just consisted of getting together and trashing the Cubs. Not that there isn’t plenty of garbage to talk about on the north side, but buried almost 20 games south of .500 is not a circumstance for healthy trash talk. So it’s part humility, part curiosity that drove Brett Ballantini to invite the first of several (OK, at least two) “mixed marriages” on the podcas...

With less than half of the season left, the American League Central could be up for grabs at this point, if any team gets hot. (Except for you, Kansas City. Sorry.) The Twins and Guardians have stayed close to one another, constantly hovering at the top while the Tigers stand by, ready to pounce. The White Sox, well, they are somewhere. Teams are usually a dreaded injury or a hot streak away from...

Before I make the trip to watch my National League team host my American League team, I talked to Tim Ryder of The Apple and Simply Amazin’ about the lukewarm Mets. There isn’t a whole lot to be impressed with, and these teams seem to be eerily similar. Between bullpen woes, injuries, and leaving runners in scoring position, watching the Mets feels like looking in the mirror. Will this be the matc...

While our plans for daily history podcasts are pushed back to the offseason, we are still set to unveil a new podcast at Sox Populi, the DISH Deluxe. Every couple of weeks, we’ll sit down and address events from the rich, 120+ years of Chicago White Sox history. Upcoming podcasts will take a look back at Mark Buehrle’s perfect game, the Field of Dreams game, and the 1977 White Sox. We’ll have a ro...

Our latest “livestream” (to @SouthSideSox on Twitter, Sox Populi on YouTube and South Side Sox on Facebook and, natch, here on the “home page”) featured a review of the 2023 draft and look ahead to the second half of the regular season. Adrian Serrano and Dante Jones joined Brett Ballantini to talk about the best and worst picks and trends of the draft, and what in the world the White Sox are goin...

The All-Star Break is over and we’re back to the unfortunate reality — the White Sox still have the second half of the season to play. The trade deadline is looming, no one seems to know who is pitching each day, and everyone is likely playing through some kind of injury. This first series should be fine though. Right? Oh, never mind.  Tommy Barbee, SSS’ Southeast correspondent, is back on the sho...

SSS duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and west coast correspondent, Will, consider first how incredibly dysfunctional an organization has to be to send an entrant to the Home Run Derby without realizing he has no family to be with him and no teammates who are All-Stars and therefore needs to have someone from the club there cheer him on or commiserate, as the case may be. Unlike every other cont...

For the first round of the 2023 MLB draft, we opted for another “livestream” (to @SouthSideSox on Twitter, Sox Populi on YouTube and South Side Sox on Facebook and, natch, here on the “home page”). Malachi Hayes and Tommy Barbee joined Brett Ballantini to talk about the early draft overall, and speculate on the White Sox pick. Watch, in real time, as our hopes our crushed and the bounty of a rich...

There is something about those Central teams, both National and American League, that are just not good. Maybe because most teams sit in the Midwest that makes them “mid” as the kids say, but among the 10 teams, only three sit at .500 or better. The Cincinnati Reds actually hold the best record between the divisions at .547 at the time of this recording. Yes, the Reds. The St. Louis Cardinals, sit...

Yes, it’s our debut “livestream” (to @SouthSideSox on Twitter, Sox Populi on YouTube and South Side Sox on Facebook), featuring Malachi Hayes, Tommy Barbee, Joe Resis and Brett Ballantini. In addition to brusquely navigating the live feeds, the quartet found time to talk current Sox and bigger-picture items: Vibe check: Is there anything encouraging about this team, beyond the fact that the divisi...

Coming off of an embarrassing series loss that was nearly a sweep by the worst team in the league, the White Sox return home to start fresh. The Blue Jays have a winning percentage of .529 in the hardest division — yes, they sit in fourth place with a winning record. Heading into Monday’s action, every team in the AL Central is worse than the worst team in the AL East. Justin Havelock joins the sh...

The power trio of Malachi Hayes, Melissa Sage-Bollenbach and Brian O’Neil weather smoke, technical difficulties and the encroaching sunset with Brett Ballantini to talk about where the White Sox stand, possible paths to the playoffs, and the pleasant surprises/bitter disappointments of 2023’s first half. Vibe check: Can this team play into October? Nuts and bolts vibe check: What combination-click...

SSS duty geezer Leigh Allan and his son and west coast correspondent, Will, get to rejoice this week in the fact the White Sox are only 11 games worse than .500 and heading to Oakland. Then they take a look at the underlying statistics, which show the team is feeble in every aspect of the game, whether hitting, fielding or pitching, and get on with the business of deciding who should be sold at th...

The White Sox sit in 24th place out of 30. And what team do they play next? The team in last place, coming in at No. 30, the Oakland Athletics. The novelty of the Moneyball tactic is long gone, departing shortly after the movie adaptation was released in 2011. With the team on the cusp of moving to Las Vegas to follow the Raiders, and fans flocking to the Coliseum for a reverse boycott, things are...