White Sox break futility record, but their TV postgame show thrives | Sports

CHICAGO — It’s near midnight and Ozzie Guillen continues to be locked in.

“He’s going to catch up,” Guillen is saying to his co-host, Chuck Garfien.

We’re on the set of his White Sox postgame show and Ozzie shouldn't be in a joking temper.

It’s the highest of the ninth inning Friday evening in San Diego and Padres nearer Robert Suárez is pitching to Lenyn Sosa with a person on, two outs and a two-run lead. Guillen, the one White Sox supervisor to win a World Series since Pants Rowland in 1917, is sitting on a sofa on a stage within the downtown studios of NBC Sports Chicago. It’s secure to say he’s prepared for an additional White Sox loss, in a season awful with them, to be over.

But he’s additionally a baseball man who roots for the fitting strikes, so he’s advocating for Suárez to throw a slider, a changeup, something but one other 100 mph fastball to Sosa, who shouldn't be a harmful hitter.

“He’s going to catch up.”

On the ninth pitch of an at-bat that featured nothing but Suárez’s onerous warmth, Sosa catches up, blasting an unlikely (to you) two-run homer to left to tie the rating.

The Sox won't be shut out for the nineteenth time this season. Not on this evening.

Garfien, Guillen’s co-host, is shocked. But Guillen shouldn't be stunned as a result of he noticed it coming.

“Do I know the game?” he mentioned. “Did I say that?”

White Sox postgame host Chuck Garfien stands up after Lenyn Sosa’s tying homer Friday. His companion, Ozzie Guillen, simply watches. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)

Now it’s the highest of the tenth inning and Guillen continues to be first-guessing. He’s asking why Grady Sizemore, the Sox’s interim supervisor, isn’t pinch hitting for considered one of his weak-hitting lefties with a left-hander on the mound. The predictable occurs as Dominic Fletcher grounds right into a drawn-in infield and the runner at third, Bryan Ramos, is out at house. The subsequent hitter, Nicky Lopez, strikes out swinging.

The inning ends and Guillen is livid. You surprise if he’s offended as a lifelong baseball man or as a man who can’t imagine Grady Sizemore is a White Sox supervisor and he isn’t.

It’s seemingly slightly of each.

The Padres win it within the backside of the tenth and the White Sox lose for the 118th time, dropping to 0-100 this season when trailing after the eighth inning. The 1962 Mets’ modern-day document of 120 losses can be equaled two days later.

Guillen and Garfien instantly begin plotting with producer Jason Schwartz on tips on how to open the show. Instead of strolling onto the set as they’re launched (to finish the late-night-show vibe), they determine the lights must be dimmed and they need to act like they’re sleeping.

When the cameras begin rolling, Guillen repeats every little thing he mentioned off the air.

“Don’t throw fastballs to Latin players,” he mentioned. “They’ll hit it!”

There isn't any sugarcoating, and there are not any silver linings. For all of the enjoyable he has with Garfien on the show — which is why it’s a success — they take each sport significantly, from the preparation to the evaluation.

“We show up here no matter what,” Guillen says. “This is like, you’re a singer. You’re going to have a concert if you got 20,000 people or you got two people. You’ve got to perform the same way, no matter what.”

Friday evening marked the ultimate “Late Night with Chuck and Ozzie,” a talk-show twist to their regular format for West Coast highway video games that enables them to be looser than traditional. But how way more relaxed may they get?

With all apologies to the Campfire Milkshake and the still-classic black-and-white emblem, the “Chuck and Ozzie” show is the very best factor concerning the sad-sack franchise as of late.

Thankfully, for Sox followers, it’s going to stay round.

NBC Sports Chicago is closing its doorways for good after the final Sox sport of the season, and Guillen and Garfien will migrate over to the White Sox’s new regional sports activities community, Chicago Sports Network, subsequent season.

While the Sox’s baseball product is unwatchable and sport commentary has declined precipitously, the postgame show has remained must-see TV. Thanks to X (and NBC Sports Chicago’s lightning-quick social media staff), it’s gotten a little bit of a nationwide viewers.

Guillen and Garfien (together with ex-players like Frank Thomas, Scott Podsednik and Gordon Beckham) have stored followers firm, loss after loss, and delivered the form of straight-laced, trustworthy commentary that appears uncommon as of late on a team-owned community.

“When they lose, they lose,” Guillen mentioned once we talked within the inexperienced room. “We don’t. We got to f—ing keep going. And that’s the beauty of Batman and Robin.”

Guillen makes use of that comparability a few instances to explain his relationship with Garfien. He compares them to a different duo, the cops from “CHiPs.”

Guillen says that he’s Erik Estrada and Garfien is “the White guy.”

“That’s me and you,” Guillen mentioned.

Garfien began with the community when it launched in 2004 and he’s performed nearly every little thing for the community besides function the jib. But he’s greatest recognized for his work with Guillen on the postgame show and wouldn’t have it some other means.

“The highlight of my sportscasting career has been doing this show with Ozzie,” Garfien mentioned.

“I can say this is the best job I ever have,” Guillen mentioned.

Guillen left the Sox underneath a cloud after the 2011 season. He misplaced a years-long energy wrestle with normal supervisor Kenny Williams and orchestrated a commerce to the Marlins on the finish of the season. He lasted one season there and has performed a wide range of media and winter league managing jobs since then. But beginning in 2019, he was paired with Garfien, and the 2 discovered an plain chemistry.

Chuck Garfien has had the identical desk for 20 years at NBC Sports Chicago. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)

“I never knew I really had a chemistry with him,” Garfien mentioned. “But once we started doing shows together, it just clicked. And we know each other really well. We know how to push each other’s buttons and we know what good TV is. Ozzie is a really bright person. He knows exactly what he’s doing and saying. My job is to be the point guard and I’m just throwing him alley-oops.”

On the air, they name Garfien “the Ozzie intrepreter” as a result of he typically rephrases his companion’s Spanish-accented “Guillen-ese” for the viewers. But once they watch video games, it’s Guillen who's explaining the sport to his co-host.

“I have received a Ph.D. in baseball sitting here with Ozzie,” Garfien mentioned. “I know this game so much more, to the point where I know more than I should probably know about baseball.”

They intention to signify the viewing viewers, not the staff. Guillen laughs at Garfien when he wears the losses on his hangdog face. But this season pains him, too. He had the Sox on the high and now they’re on the backside.

“It hurts,” he mentioned. “It hurts to see this s—. … It hurts my feelings.”

Night after evening, the White Sox have misplaced this season. They’ve gotten drilled early, they’ve blown leads. They’ve been walked off, they’ve been dog-walked.

It’s been a catastrophe that has gotten nationwide consideration. When the video games finish, it’s as much as Garfien, Guillen and whomever else is on the set to make sense of all of it.

“There have been many shows where we start the show and I do not even know what I’m going to say until I say the opening line of ‘We’re here on White Sox postgame live with Ozzie Guillen, I’m Chuck Garfien,’” Garfien mentioned. “I’m like, all right, what’s going to pop in my head? That’s a scary place for a lot of sportscasters to be. But because I feel so comfortable on this set with Ozzie, I let that happen.”

Ozzie Guillen acts out a narrative about Dayán Viciedo within the inexperienced room of the TV studio. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)

Garfien envies his friends who do the same job for groups just like the Phillies or Dodgers. In 2021, the White Sox received their division. The arrow was pointing up.

“The easiest thing to do is to do a winning postgame show,” he mentioned. “That is a layup. I can literally kick my feet up and be like, look at this amazing game that just happened. You just watched it. You want to watch it again. Roll tape.”

The purpose this yr has been to verify the followers who're nonetheless watching till the bitter finish don’t flip off the TV or shut their tab. And sure, to draw followers who've tuned out the staff nearly solely.

“Believe it or not, only three years ago, people would stop me in the street and they would tell me how excited they were about the team and, ‘We love the postgame show,’” Garfien mentioned. “What we heard this year was, ‘I can’t watch the game, but I watch you guys every night.’”

When they do their show from the stadium — the place the studio can be full time subsequent yr — followers inform them their tales. People are nonetheless paying consideration because the Sox hurtle towards infamy.

“Right now, people, 10 o’clock at night, 11, 12, whoever is watching this show is either drunk or his wife (kicked) him out of the (expletive) bed,” Guillen mentioned. “But all the feedback I get, everybody is watching this show.”

When Guillen will get acknowledged, what's the share of people that inform him they love the postgame show versus thanking him for 2005?

“Ninety percent,” Guillen mentioned.

As the saying goes, you both need to cowl a fantastic staff or one that's horrible. No in-between.

“Some of our best shows are after losses,” Garfien mentioned. “That is correct.”

A memorable show aired in early August after the White Sox misplaced their twentieth sport in a row. Pedro Grifol wasn’t but fired, but everybody knew it was coming. Beating the Mets’ document was trying extra like a actuality than a joke.

On the published, Garfien slammed his analysis notes down when he realized the staff was 60 video games underneath .500. Guillen talked about how he felt unhealthy for himself that the Sox picked Grifol because the supervisor over him. Hall of Famer Thomas was apoplectic the staff was this unhealthy.

It was good TV.

“People thought it was funny, ” Guillen mentioned. “But s—, I feel that way.”

White Sox vp Brooks Boyer as soon as commented that different baseball executives used to name him and ask how this often-critical show was allowed to be on the air. But everybody loves it as a result of it’s genuine and entertaining. Guillen has the gravitas, and Garfien, who's all the time across the staff and does loads of one-on-one interviews for TV, is a recognized commodity. They can pull this show off when others wouldn’t even strive.

“I give a lot of credit to the White Sox for letting us do this show,” Garfien mentioned. “Because I’ve not heard one single criticism of anything that we’ve done.”

Believe it or not, that perspective comes proper from the highest.

“At one point I did ask Jerry Reinsdorf something about what we can say and not say on the air,” Garfien mentioned. “And he said, you’ve got to tell the truth. You’ve got to tell the truth. And we’ve been telling the truth.”

It’s no secret that Guillen goals of going again to managing. He thinks of himself as an getting old bullfighter and he needs to go away the sector with the gang carrying him on its shoulders. But his spouse, Ibis, needs him to maintain this job. He’s happier, well-paid and surrounded by household. The losses aren’t his personal.

So, he figures, whereas he’s on TV, he would possibly as effectively placed on a show.

“This show, we’re good at it,” Guillen mentioned. “We’re good at it because of Chuck. And maybe Chuck is good at it because of Ozzie.”

(Top photograph of Ozzie Guillen and Chuck Garfien courtesy of NBC Sports Chicago)