Stay Classy, Chicago

Its official, Baseball season in Chicago is over. The"Devil" Rays eliminated the ChiSox yesterday at the Cell. After such an exciting and emotional end of the White Sox regular season, the playoff series against Tampa Bay was definitely a let down. The series will be remembered for wasted opportunities, "blackouts" and a bizarre interaction between Orlando Cabrerra and some Australian relief pitcher who yells a lot.

I am not going to lie and say that I am not dissapointed and disheartened by this series loss. But I am also not going to act like losing in the playoffs is the end of the world. I will leave that to a certain other team's fans. One thing that really has to mentioned is that this series and the latter part of the Season was played without the South Side's two all-stars. So really this season exceeded the expectations on every level.

If you look at the Pre-Season predictions by CNNSI or ESPN or pretty much everywhere, they all had the White Sox finishing around 3rd in the AL Central. Some even predicted 4th, but nobody thought they could win the division( or that they would battling the Twins for that matter.) It is OK to be dissapointed by the loss, but thinking about this helped give me some perspective.

I am going to mention a few names and I want you compare what your opinion was about them before the season started and and now after the season is over. Alexei Ramirez. Gavin Floyd. John Danks. Carlos Quentin. These guys all could have very, very bright futures.

Also, there are no worries that Ozzie can keep his job with this AL Central win. I don't care what anyone thinks about him, he is the man.

So, I am pissed that the season is over but I feel a lot better about the squad than I did a year ago at this time. I have no doubt that Kenny and Ozzie are gonna be makin moves in the off-season. The Sox defitnitely do have some major issues to address. They need some more options for starting pitching. Who is going to play 2nd and 3rd next year? How much longer can the aging veterans be relied on?

No matter the answers, the 2008 season is in the books and there are so many positives to take away from it. Til next year, Good Guys.