After newly signed free agent slugger Albert Belle was introduced during the 1997 SoxFest ceremonies at the downtown Hyatt Regency, then-Chicago White Sox general manager Ron Schueler was asked how he convinced Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf to shell out $50 million.
“I beat him over the head with a baseball bat and stole his checkbook,” Schueler replied.
Time flies, but SoxFest lives on, albeit in a much smaller venue now at the Ramova Theatre in Bridgeport, with less than a dozen current players and a corporate-style GM in Chris Getz who would never poke fun at the chairman.
Anticipation grows for new Chicago White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami: ‘He’s going to fit right in’
The only thing that remains the same is Sox fans, whose resiliency in the face of another long rebuild is something to behold.
Friday’s opening day of Soxfest Live — which also goes by its unofficial title, “SoxFest Lite” — was a chance for fans to get excited about the offseason moves that should help the Sox avoid a fourth straight 100-or-more-loss season. Unfortunately, only one of the newly signed players, starter Anthony Kay, was at the event.
But the up-and-coming core of Colson Montgomery, Shane Smith and Kyle Teel were on hand, and the biggest Sox free agent in years, Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami, sent a video saying in Japanese that he’d see them in spring training.
“Go White Sox,” he said in English to a big cheer.
The narration in the video referred to him as “the Japanese Babe Ruth.” One fan standing in the back of the theater cracked: “As long as he’s not the Japanese Adam Dunn.”
No one asked Getz how he convinced Reinsdorf to shell out $34 million over two years for Murekami, which is splurging in the current era of Sox spending. But it was seemingly a bargain for a player who should single-handedly double the fireworks budget at White Sox Park, and gives fans something to look forward to besides the food and giveaways.
One fan did manage to congratulate Getz on getting the top pick in the 2026 draft and asked him when he could buy a Roch Cholowsky jersey, referring to the UCLA shortstop considered the consensus No. 1 pick in July. Getz followed with a long-winded answer about how exciting it was to win the top pick in the draft lottery but didn’t say anything about drafting Cholowsky.
When SoxFest host Connor McKnight of the Chicago Sports Network politely reminded Getz he didn’t answer the question, Getz blushed and said it was awkward. Of course the Sox don’t want to give away their plans, even as it’s as obvious as it was when Conner Bedard or Cooper Flagg became the top picks of the NHL and NBA drafts, respectively.
White Sox general manager Chris Getz, left, and manager Will Venable have a laugh on stage during SoxFest Live at the Ramova Theatre on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, in Bridgeport. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Getz and Venable answered questions for a while on the theater stage, but it was difficult to hear them over the din of Sox fans talking among themselves on subjects near and dear to them, like when the Sox would build their stadium in the South Loop, when Justin Ishbia would take control of the team, and when they would announce the giveaways. That announcement came later in the evening, so get ready for Los White Sox poncho night, Irish Quarter Zip Day and an A.J. Pierzynski-Bobby Jenks bobblehead commemorating the final out of the 2005 World Series.
Friday’s event was exclusively reserved for season ticket holders, and the beer was free. It was the least Reinsdorf could do for die-hard fans who renewed their season tickets after the disastrous end of the Tony La Russa era, followed by the Pedro Grifol nightmare, which included the losingest season in major-league history in 2024.
Getz’s mantra in 2026 is that the Sox will take “a meaningful step forward.” But everyone has a different definition of “meaningful,” and he has stopped short of saying whether they could actually contend for an American League wild-card spot.
It’s still a young team and coming off an American League-worst 102-loss season, but the players feel as though the momentum of the second half will carry over.
“I think guys are excited,” Smith said. “I think we might downplay it a little here because it’s hard to put that into a feeling or words. But once we get out to spring training, once we start winning games, that’s when that feeling of momentum might start coming back.”
White Sox fans have some fun in the crowd during SoxFest Live at the Ramova Theatre on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026, in Bridgeport. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Spring training begins Feb. 10 in Glendale, Ariz., and opening day is March 26 in Milwaukee. The Sox normally don’t start drawing much until the weather warms, and last year drew a little more than 1.4 million fans, the fourth-worst in baseball and ahead of only the Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and Athletics. The Rays and Athletics both played in minor-league stadiums.
This team is full of likeable players who don’t give off an aura of entitlement, unlike recent Sox players like Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly and Yasmani Grandal. With the trade of Luis Robert Jr. to the New York Mets, there is no “face of the franchise” type of player, though Montgomery and Murekami will get an opportunity to fill the void.
Marketing the 2026 White Sox won’t be easy, but if they start winning the marketing should happen organically.
“To be honest, White Sox fans, I don’t think they like marketing anyways,” starter Davis Martin told me. “I think they just want us to go out there and be gritty, be a baseball team that plays all nine innings for 162 games.
“That’s what we want to be. We’re not marketing ourselves as anybody. We’re going to be ourselves and try to win games and play nine innings as hard as we can.”
Smith agreed, saying Sox fans don’t need to be told to get excited about the coming season.
“Not from the people I’ve spoken to,” he said. “They feel it’s coming as much as we do, so I don’t think it’s going to take much convincing. People love to see wins. There’s only so many things you can say without wins. That’s what we want.”
Montgomery, an Indiana native, pointed to the words of IU football coach Curt Cignetti after the perennially bottom-feeding Hoosiers won the CFP title game.
“Cignetti kind of summed it up,” Montgomery said. “He said ‘Indiana University just won the national championship. It can be done.’ All that matters (is believing). You see everyone playing in the postseason, and it just depends on us playing good ball. We’re all good players. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be here. It’s just a collaboration of putting it all together.”
Sox fans I spoke with on Friday at the Ramova seemed to agree that better days are at hand.
Hopefully it wasn’t the free beer talking.