Black Sox Beat Writer
Chicago Sports Online
The Chicago Black Sox on Saturday punched its ticket to the post-season, even though they lost a game to the hated Des Moines Kernels.
Chicago clinched a Wild Card spot by pulling 10.5 games ahead of the Twin Cities River Monsters with just 9 games remaining on their schedule. Although Twin Cities is still alive for one of the lower Frick League Wild Card positions, they cannot oust the Sox.
As of Sept. 21, Chicago had a record of 92-61, 9 games behind Heartland Division-leading Yellow Springs but safely in possession of a Wild Card. The Sox are just the third team in the BBA to secure a playoff berth so far, behind Yellow Springs (101-52) and Frontier Division leader Edmonton (98-55).
“Color me surprised,” said analyst Gayle Combs of Chin Music Quarterly, an irreverent publication that follows the BBA and the UMEBA. “I didn’t expect Chicago to secure a playoff spot at all this year, much less clinch this early. They’ve been playing surprisingly well since picking up Pedro Gomez from Portland back in May.”
Pedro Gomez
Now, the questions are: can Chicago hang onto 2nd place in the Heartland (Omaha currently trails them by just a game) and advance past the first round of the playoffs? Last season, the Sox were swept out by Omaha in a particularly listless performance.
“That’s the real issue for them now,” Combs said. “Chicago’s made the playoffs four seasons in a row, but it needs to show it can do more than that or it will just be another year of frustration.”
Team Tops 3.8 Million in Attendance
The Black Sox blew past last year’s regular season attendance mark of 3.4 million, as league officials announced Chicago had drawn 3,874,919 fans to their Calumet City ballpark in 2045.
That is the best attendance for the franchise in more than 30 years. Chicago drew 4.5 million fans in 2014 when it was playing in its old, larger stadium in downtown Chicago.
Chicago added 5,000 seats to Black Sox Park last offseason, bringing its seating capacity to 50,000 – a move that some local critics questioned as an overreach.
“Hey – we got a good club, people wanna see ‘em, and we like to please the people,” said Sox Owner Vinnie Vitale. “Anybody sez otherwise, they can take it up with me and my security detail. Capiche?”