OAKLAND, Calif. — Move over, dad. Your 1988 Orioles have nothing on my 2024 White Sox.
Not anymore, outfielder/first baseman Gavin Sheets can say after the younger Sheets' White Sox lost to the Oakland Athletics Monday, tying the American League record for the longest losing streak at 21 games. Larry Sheets, Gavin’s dad who batted .230 with 10 homers and 47 RBI on that Baltimore team, endured the same misery 36 years ago.
“Unfortunately, we’ve discussed it,” Sheets told the Sun-Times after the Sox' 5-1 loss to the Athletics Monday. “It’s pretty crazy that he was a part of the Orioles’ one and I’m a part of this. Yeah, not much to say about it.”
Father and son talked before Monday's game, as they often do.
"I said, 'How about you guys win and let me have the dubious distinction of the American League record,' '' Larry said. "I’m hoping and praying they can get the monkey off the back [Tuesday] and have some fun the rest of the way."
This clearly has been no fun. Larry knows from experience.
"Each night you go in and I can see it with the White Sox," he said. "You get into the seventh or eighth inning and you don’t get a big hit or make a big pitch and the game just turns. I remember having the same thoughts, ‘What are we going to do tonight to not pull this game off.’ That’s the mental part of it."
Sheets’ dad has been a guiding light for his son, but there isn’t much advice he can offer for something like this aside from assuring him it won't define him as a person.
“He just said you have to take it game by game, it’s happened, and you have to move on,” Sheets said.
That 1988 Orioles team set the record straight out of spring training, losing its first 21 games and finally halting the skid with a 9-0 win against Jack McDowell and the White Sox on April 29 at Comiskey Park. Larry Sheets was the DH in that game, going 1-for-5 with a double against McDowell batting behind the Orioles’ 3-4-5 hitters Cal Ripken Jr., Eddie Murray and Fred Lynn.
A shortstop by the name of Ozzie Guillen and third baseman by the name of Ken Williams manned the left side of the Sox infield that night, going a combined 0-for-7 at the plate.
Two weeks earlier, with the record at 0-6 (the Orioles’ worst start in 33 years) Orioles general manager Roland Hemond fired manager Cal Ripken Sr. and named Frank Robinson to replace him, a move Sheets called "terrible."
"It upset the whole said applecart," Sheets said.
The announcement was made at what the Washington Post described as “a tense press conference.”
Robinson didn’t fare much better, the streak going on for 15 more games, and the Orioles finished 54-107.
"It happens so fast and you get in this funk where it’s piling up and you don’t even realize what’s going on," Larry Sheets said.
Gavin wasn’t born yet but he knows more about that story than his teammates.
“I was definitely aware of the last record, that’s for sure,” Sheets said.
The Sox will try to avoid breaking the AL record Tuesday night when they play the Athletics in the second game of the series at Oakland Coliseum. A loss and one more loss Wednesday afternoon would tie the 1961 Phillies all-time record of 23 games. They could break the record Friday at home against the Cubs.
"I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, and we didn’t live in the social media age," Larry Sheets said.
