Sox Populi - A Chicago White Sox podcast

Hey, it’s time for the White Sox Hall of Fame vote, year five!

Adrian Serrano, Chrystal O’Keefe and Zach Hayes join Brett Ballantini to dissect the ballot, plus much, much more:

• Four Hall-of-Famers on the ballot ... not yet voted into our White Sox Hall of Fame, whoa
• Adrian’s fanboy picks
• Chrystal’s unapologetic support of Chris Sale
• Perusing the bonus categories, including a no-brainer defense pick and the impossible home run choices ... and Adrian even adds a homer to the mix
• Chrystal steps us through the early look at 2022 White Sox promotions, with her faves and bobblehead predictions
• Hey, the lockout is on, and, what new, owners are out for blood
• Zach gets brassy for Major League ... but has a new pet flick pick for 2023

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Bayleigh and Chrystal have brought their show Soxy Chicks to South Side Sox!

Bayleigh, a Red Sox fan formerly at Pesky Report, and Chrystal, a White Sox fan and pillar of this site, bring their love of baseball and knowledge to a bi-weekly podcast. They’ll talk about everything happening in Major League Baseball, and a little of their thoughts about their respective teams.

On this episode:

• Introduction and move to South Side Sox
• Thoughts and predictions on the 2024 season as fans
• Shohei Ohtani drama
• Pablo Sandoval’s career ... is it over or will he continue?
• Our least favorite disgraced pitcher, because unfortunately, we need to talk about him and move on
• All of the Reds are injured!
• Actually, a ton of people are injured
• The Orioles have been busy lately
• An ode to Tony Kemp
• Has Scott Boras lost his luster?

Be sure to follow their twitter account Soxy Chicks. You can also find Bayleigh and Chrystal on Twitter.

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Luis Robert is out for the foreseeable future, and naturally some of the South Side Sox crew got together to pour one out, commiserate, lash out, and speculate on what form of signed jersey-and-batting gloves tribute will be hanging in the visitor’s dugout come Tuesday night in Cincinnati.

Highlights of our talk together:

• Just how big a chunk of the preseason starting lineup and starting outfield is already lost in 2021?
• Is this somehow Adam Eaton’s doing?
• The utter lack of outfield depth does not suit a division title favorite
• Whither Melky Cabrera?
• Does the starting rotation’s success and presumed sturdiness belie any worries over having two-thirds-plus of the starting outfield currently sidelined?
• Would Rick Hahn ever repeat a challenge trade with the Cubs — say, to acquire Kris Bryant — after winning the Quintana-Jiménez-Cease trade so decisively?
• There has never been this much gallows humor in a South Side Sox podcast
• Likewise, this is a record number of heads-in-hands for an SSS podcast, so you may want to watch over on YouTube.

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With all the season’s-end awards issued, Sox Pop 163 assembled with Joe Resis, Brian O’Neill, Chrystal O’Keefe, Ryiin, Melissa Sage-Bollenbach and Brett Ballantini to review the good and bad of the 22 SSS prognostications on site before the 2023 season. (Also read our predictions-in-review article to accompany this podcast.)

• The host takes a victory lap
• Tip for next year: copy Chrystal
• Seventh-place finisher Brian quickly outs himself as the worst White Sox predictor of the bunch
• Random cap-tips and drive-bys for great and terrible picks, among them several picking the Mets as best in the NL (and special dispensation for Tommy Barbee picking them to win the World Series), Allie for both good (Gavin Sheets is terrible, Andrew Vaughn not bad!) and bad (one of many tabbing Lance Lynn as best pitcher)
• Celebrating the demise of the New York Yankees, and confirming inescapable loserdom of [redacted] and the Cubs
• A new round of loss predictions for 2024, among them Ryiin saying Pedro gets fired quick (nuh-uh replies Brett), Joe foresees a Soroka resurgence, and Chrystal is on board the losing train by seeing 118 losses

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Happy Soxivus! We are following up our first year celebrating Soxivus in 2021 with a full two months of festivities in 2022. Last year, we picked managers who could dethrone Tony La Russa in running the White Sox. This week, our Feats of Strength take the form of programming a SoxFest, after the White Sox cancelled their official one for the third straight season.

We’re overjoyed to have Father Soxivus, Tommy Barbee — the man who hatched the Soxivus plan last year — with us on these podcasts. Joining Tommy to program our Fest are Jordan Hass, Allie Wesel, Melissa Sage-Bollenbach, Joe Resis and Malachi Hayes, with the festivities hosted by Brett Ballantini.

Read our accompanying Feats of Strength story on programming Soxivus Fest that much of this podcast refers to, please.

• Reviewing the short-sighted decision to cancel SoxFest for the third straight year — did someone cheap out on putting down the non-refundable deposit on McCormick Place?
• We can get up in arms about losing SoxFest and chide Rick Hahn for being afraid to face the music, but it’s the hundreds of young fans (and fans who cheer like children, there are many, no shame there) who really lose out
• On to our SoxivusFest, with Melissa explaining her Run Sox Run activity, which borrows from Herb Lawrence’s ill-fated sprint challenge during the season. We think we would fare better
• Joe’s Put Away Pitches event challenges fan managers to make the right call on 1-2. Anything better than in intentional walk comes away with a free SoxivusFest T-shirt.
• Tommy’s Manager Draft cleverly finds a way to cram all of the bad, recycled White Sox manager possibilities into one season, in a sort of college of coaches arrangement. There’s also an Inspiration Station that has to be heard or read to be believed
• Jordan comes through with two fun ideas, starting with Rick Hahn’s Mild Ride — duller than white bread. Also, there are outfield tryouts, and if participants manage to injure themselves in exotic (but, for the White Sox, predictable) ways, they’ll get a start in 2023 before Oscar Colás
• Allie stages an intervention for Hahn, with the intention of making him stronger in future trade and free agent negotiations and getting him a true Seat at the Table
• Malachi puts a twist on the Garage Sale of years past, where creative payment plans are not only encouraged, but expected
• Adrian Serrano was not able to join the podcast, but did provide events of his own, as well. Additionally, he created our Soxivus 2022 T-shirt available to order at our SSHP store
• The second half of the podcast — yes, this one is chock-full — addresses the Ozzie Guillén managing rumors.
• The panel is deadlocked as to whether the White Sox are actually going to hire Ozzie — who, let’s review, left the South Side the first time by announcing his new manager position during a game he was managing for the White Sox

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