One of the most enduring sketches from Mr. Show is "The Pre-Taped Call-in Show," where David Cross' character cannot get through to his viewers that the conversation he wants them to ask about isn't the one that's currently on their screen. This week's show features last week's guest, so they don't know they're asking irrelevant questions to the expert on next week's topic.
Of course, the fault doesn't lie with the people calling in, or with the people on the screen. Everybody is at the mercy of the bigwigs at the Convoluted Network who had the bright idea to green-light such a bad idea.
I've sensed the same disconnect from the first week of spring training. Just like The Pre-Taped Call-In Show looked like a standard call-in show with legitimate call-in show topics, the White Sox are having a fairly typical start to their season. The White Sox have a whole bunch of Best Shape of His Life stories to share, and Pedro Grifol is the new manager who's focusing on details and getting back to basics.
If everybody would just ask the 2023 White Sox about their 2023 topics, nobody would be at wit's end (and I'd be curious to see what Grifol looks like with a full head of hair).
But because the White Sox never took proper inventory of everything that went wrong over the second year of the Tony La Russa era -- and because the White Sox didn't hold SoxFest in January as a forum for some of these topics -- they're dealing with questions they insist no longer apply. Holdovers want to regard 2022 as the distant past rather than the most recent body of work, and a new addition like Mike Clevinger wants to talk about his mechanics, not the accusations of domestic violence and child abuse that the public didn't know were lodged against him when he was signed.
And then there's Tim Anderson, who found himself stuck between past and present tense on Wednesday.
SOX MACHINE PODCAST: The unresolved anger between the White Sox and their fans
Had Anderson not aired his grievances to Chuck Garfien of all people, the leading story would've been James Fegan article in which he discussed his offseason work at Driveline in a quest to regain the feeling in his legs. Specifically, the feeling in his legs that allowed him to drive the ball, because after he returned from the groin injury, he spent most of the rest of his season feeling for singles to right field.
I'm always wary of assuming Driveline will produce results because Carson Fulmer was a repeat customer. Still, it shows that Anderson is doing something different to attack one element that contributed to the White Sox's disappointing season.
Anderson's story is just like Lucas Giolito reshaping his body in the opposite direction by losing 35 pounds, or Eloy Jimenez dropping weight to be taken seriously as an outfielder, or Yoán Moncada attempting to tame the oblique issue that he says derailed his 2022, or Yasmani Grandal working with a Blackhawks trainer, etc. They can often be dismissed because players who have to talk about how hard they're working are usually the ones who can't afford another down year, but they're also worth an audience because they're describing actions taken, and sometimes offseason overhauls work.
Alas, Anderson's 2023 agenda couldn't cleanly set sail because everybody was still arguing about 2022. He had to revise his comments in follow-up questions on Thursday, and he was largely successful.
“We were terrible last year; we get it,” Anderson said. “We get it; it was bad; we didn’t make the playoffs. All of that. But now it’s like, how can we create a new script and not an old script? Because the old will ruin the new.”
That's probably more correct than Anderson realizes. At any other time and for most other teams, Anderson's mild complaints about fan/media criticism may have been shrugged off. With the White Sox, fans have the fear of the old ruining the new, but "the old" predates 2022 by quite a few years. As long as Jerry Reinsdorf chooses to run the White Sox like the Convoluted Network, nobody can let their guards down.
Fortunately for everybody, spring training games start on Saturday, with Lance Lynn scheduled to go three innings if performance and circumstances allow. Cactus League play won't mask the odors of 2022, either, but fresh actions should give the White Sox a better shot at fielding questions about the things they're supposed to be talking about.
