The Chicago White Sox lost to the Detroit Tigers, 4-1, on Friday night, falling to 39-121 on the year, setting the record for the most losses during a season in Major League Baseball’s modern era.

Chicago broke the record set by the 1962 Mets, in the franchise's inaugural season. The White Sox have two games remaining this season.

Casey Stengel, New York’s then 72-year-old manager, said of his team, “You look up and down the bench and you have to say to yourself, ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’”

That Mets squad now passes the dubious distinction of worst team in the modern history of the game – the 1899 Cleveland Spiders went 20-134 – to the South Siders of 2024.

"No one wants to be associated with it," Chicago general manager Chris Getz said this week.

"It's not something we’re proud of," Getz said, via The Associated Press. “There’s a myriad of reasons why we stand here today with the record that we have. Now, with that being said, personally, I view this as a tremendous opportunity to build something."

The White Sox opened their season on March 28 and will close it on Sept. 29. In that span – covering 185 days and some 1,500 innings – they have lost 29 games (so far) by just a single run. A mark of a hard-luck team. They also lost 35 games by at least five runs. The mark of a terrible team.

They lost at home – 23-58 (.284) – and they lost away – 16-63 (.203). They lost at nighttime – 24-75 (.242) – and they lost in daylight – 15-46 (.246). They lost against right-handed starters – 28-92 (.233) – and they lost against left-handers – 11-29 (.275).

They lost to good teams – 21-90 (.189) against teams above .500 – and they lost to bad teams – 18-31 (.367).

They lost for long stretches – 14 in a row in late May, 21 in a row in late July and 12 in a row in late August, which included a three-game sweep by the Mets.

They won sporadically, winning "streaks" of three games four times and four games – their longest stretch without a loss – once.

“It’s the same as every other loss,” outfielder Andrew Benintendi said recently. “They all suck, regardless of how many there are. It doesn’t matter to us.”

They have scored just 494 runs – the lowest in baseball – and allowed 808 – third most. They have been shut out 19 times.

They fired manager Pedro Grifol in early August with a 28-89 record (.239). Grady Sizemore has taken the mantle and steered them to an 11-32 (.238) record thus far.

The infamous Mets side finished the 1962 season 40-120-1 (.250) and were outscored 948 runs to 617. They opened the season with nine straight defeats and had losing runs of 17 games in late May and 13 in August.

They set a host of low-water marks for futility that year, including wild pitches (71), hits allowed (1,577,) earned runs allowed (801) and errors (210).

The Mets' 120th defeat that year came on the season's final day, a 5-1 loss at Wrigley Field, where the Cubs turned an eighth-inning triple play.

When asked if the season had been fun, Stengel said, "I would have to say no to that one."

"It was a rough season for me. I had to get used to losing all over again," the manager said, via the New York Times. "It was saddening and shocking – saddening because we won only 40 games and shocking because we didn't win at least 50."

In a twist of irony Bill Veeck, at that time the owner of the White Sox, said of the '62 Mets, “They are without a doubt the worst team in the history of baseball.” He did add, that if you couldn’t have fun around that year’s Mets, “you couldn't have fun any place.”

The same can’t be said for this year’s iteration of the team Veeck once owned. There has been no fun in Chicago and they can't rest on the excuse that this is their first season. The wasn't a team that was together a team from scratch as an expansion franchise, cobbled together with leftover pieces picked off the scrap heap from the other 18 organizations. (The Mets joined the same year as the then Houston Colt .45s, who managed to go 64-96.)

Last season Chicago lost 101 games. But, two years before that, they won 93 and the AL Central. The fall has been stark. The fan base has not taken to the steepness of the tumble well. A turnaround does not appear to be imminent.

Only first baseman Andrew Vaughn, 26, has produced close to an average year at the plate (101 OPS+ and 99 wRC+ entering the final series). And star pitcher, and left-hander Garrett Crochet, despite being the subject of trade deadline rumors, stayed around to deliver a solid season: 3.58 ERA and 1.06 WHIP with 209 strikeouts over 146.0 innings after his final start on Friday.

There are no characters on the White Sox like the Mets’ beloved former Brooklyn manager Stengal (who won five straight World Series titles with the Yankees a decade earlier), Frank Thomas (who smacked 34 home runs), Gil Hodges (back in New York after leaving with the Dodgers four seasons earlier), Marvelous Marvin Throneberry (who infamously "didn't touch second either"), or right-hander Roger Craig (loser of an MLB-leading 24 games)

The 1962 team was bad, but in addition to those characters, they were beloved simply because they were there. And, well, that was enough.

The city had been deprived of National League baseball – at a time when such a distinction between the Junior and Senior Circuit truly meant something – for three seasons after the Giants and Dodgers traded Manhattan and Brooklyn for the West Coast for the 1959 campaign. (The biggest home crowd the Mets drew at the Polo Grounds that year was 55,704 for a Wednesday doubleheader against the Dodgers.)

"But we'll do better in 1963," Stengel said after loss No. 120. "We'll do better, all right. Just wait and see."

After the rough debut season, it took a few years for the fate of the Mets to improve. They began a new life two seasons later at Shea Stadium and built a home in Flushing.

In 1969, their eighth season of existence, the Mets had their first winning season, first 100-win season, won the first-ever NLCS (3-0 over the Atlanta Braves) and defeated the Baltimore Orioles in five games to win their first World Series.

For the White Sox fans now, they would count themselves lucky if the wait for a return to the Fall Classic took just as long.

So, a toast to the 1,380,7333 brave souls who paid their way into the south side stadium now known as Guaranteed Rate Field this season. As it was said then, by Jimmy Breslin, it can be said again: “Never has so much misery loved so much company.”

The best and perhaps worst news of all: They still have two games to play.

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