OAKLAND, Calif. — Every night for the last month, Larry Sheets has turned on the White Sox game only to relive a nightmare that has lately become impossible to forget.
Sheets was the designated hitter on the 1988 Orioles club that lost 21 consecutive games. That team didn’t win a ballgame until April 29. It was an American League record that stood for 36 years before the 2024 White Sox lost their 21st straight contest Monday night as Sheets looked on.
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“It’s baseball PTSD,” Sheets said with a fatherly interest. “It’s like you’re reliving it.”
Sheets is not watching out of a morbid curiosity. He’s not watching because of a lifelong fandom for the Southside’s ball club, or in the hopes that another team can take the mantle from them.
He’s watching because his son, Gavin, is going through the exact same thing he did. Sheets desperately wants to see his son’s plight end, one that is up there with the most unfortunate of shared baseball existences
“It’s been 36 years now, and I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” said Larry, who played in eight big league seasons. “And I can’t imagine today with social media. You go through the day, and you wonder how we’re going to lose this game tonight.
“I just keep talking to him about the fact that you’ve got to bring it from within.”
When asked how he was doing at the outset of his interview with The Athletic on Tuesday, Larry quipped, “You’re only as happy as your most unhappy child.”
Gavin and Larry speak every day over the phone. As the losses have mounted, that conversation has shifted to the infamy they share. Larry is one of a couple dozen people who knows exactly what this feels like.
He knows what it’s like to show up every day with the sinking anxiety of an impending loss before first pitch. And he knows what it’s like to walk into a clubhouse after that loss occurs. It’s important to him that his son knows how to handle it correctly.
“He’s helped me through times like this. It’s obviously not fun for anybody,” Gavin said. “It’s not fun to be a part of this. For him to also go through this — and get a feel from him for how to be around the clubhouse, how to keep guys in the right spirits, how to have a short-term memory as best we can.
“It’s nice to have him because it’s uncharted territory. But still, unless you go through it yourself, you don’t really know how to handle it.”
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Gavin, like many of his teammates, has not had a good season. Entering Tuesday, he’s posted a .642 OPS as an everyday DH and part-time right fielder. The 28-year-old has struggled to recapture the form he showed upon his call-up in 2021.
That’s a theme for this entire club. The White Sox were supposed to be good. Not this year, of course. But that 2021 American League Central championship-winning roster looked like the jumpstart of a special run.
As the White Sox entered play Tuesday at 27-88, only upping the historical stakes of their futility with each defeat, it is fair to say that special run never happened.
But Larry does have perspective about what came after his team’s 21-game skid. The Orioles finished 87-75 the next season. They were in the playoff hunt through the end of the season. There was something built from the rubble of the disaster, and he has reminded his son of that.
“We went from absolutely the worst to almost first,” Larry recalled. “There can be a light at the end of the tunnel. You just need to get through this hurdle right here. Win a game, and move on.”
During these streaks, Larry said, it becomes about the individual instead of a team game. “Baseball is not meant to be played like that,” he noted. Once players realize the goal of making the playoffs is done, he said, there’s a risk of everyone going in different directions.
Sheets remembers the aftermath of Baltimore’s first win, a 9-0 blowout over, coincidentally, the White Sox.
Even more noteworthy is what awaited the team after snapping the streak on the road. The Orioles’ first game back at Memorial Stadium drew an estimated 50,402 fans. In the previous six-game homestand, Baltimore drew an average of 14,000 fans, and the night after its sell-out, only 11,000 people showed up.
For one night, though, the city of Baltimore showed up for a team that finally won.
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Larry wants the same ending for his son.
“It’s a win that ends this thing,” he said, “and then hopefully you can win a couple in a row.”
But for now, he said, speaking from his own experience, “It’s embarrassing. You know what’s being said. And that’s the reason you’ve got to get it over and get it behind you.”
Gavin said he spoke to his father Tuesday, and they were able to have a chuckle about some things. Father and son take their jobs seriously, and there’s not a positive word to be said about the streak. Larry sheepishly said that the only lighthearted aspect to this is that at least they were both in the big leagues.
Still, it’s interesting that the losing streak is something both have endured, which they can acknowledge.
While both have endured this same record, and the pain that’s come along with it, Larry is the only one with experience of snapping it. Gavin is hopeful his turn is coming soon.
“We’ll definitely celebrate it,” Gavin said. “It shows that you can’t take for granted the wins. Getting a win in the big leagues is extremely difficult. It should never be taken for granted. Whether you’re 50 games above .500 or 50 games below .500.
“A big-league win is a big-league win. And it won’t be taken for granted in this clubhouse.”
(Photo of Gavin Sheets: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)