On Chicago’s South Side, White Sox Fans Know Misery. But Not Like This.

The baseball team tied the modern day record for losses on Sunday, dropping a 120th game. In the team’s most loyal neighborhood, some people couldn’t bear to watch.

It was the bottom of the second inning on Sunday afternoon before Lauren Eaves, the bartender at BallPark Pub in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, remembered to turn one of the bar’s six flat-screen TVs to the White Sox game.

“Nobody’s asking for it,” she said.

In the dwindling days of a spectacularly dreadful season, many White Sox fans are averting their eyes. On Sunday, the team lost for the 120th time this year, tying the major league record for most losses by a modern-day team in a single season.

The loss happened nearly 2,000 miles away in San Diego, where the Padres beat the Sox, 4-2.

But it landed like one more gut punch on the South Side of Chicago in Bridgeport, the neighborhood where the White Sox have played for more than a century, and home to many families who have loyally cheered for the team for generations.

All Sunday afternoon, customers drifted in and out of BallPark, about as Sox-centric as a bar can be. The walls are covered with Sox memorabilia: a mural depicting the notorious Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979 that ended in a riot, a black-and-white portrait of the former maverick team owner Bill Veeck, a yellow vintage sign advertising $3 grandstand seats.

“Welcome Sox Fans!” a large sign by the door beckons.

These days, few fans who walk through the door of BallPark are here to watch the Sox.

“It’s just painful,” said Rania Al-Najjar, 29, a nurse, who said she was finished following games for the season.

The team has struggled through some mediocre years, but 2024 has been a demoralizing march to the bottom, landing them in a tie with the 1962 Mets’ record of 120 losses. After Sunday, the Sox still have six games left to play. Few envision that this team will avoid a record-breaking defeat.

“We expect to lose,” said Jacob Swartley, a lifelong fan and Bridgeport resident.

They are used to feeling like the underdog. Sox fans — proudly centered on the South Side of Chicago — often seem to fall in the shadow of the Cubs, whose celebrated ballpark, Wrigley Field, is on the North Side.

You have to be from the South Side to understand, said Joan Colby, 82, who nursed a Bud Light. And it’s not only about baseball. She remembers growing up in the area and seeing families who abandoned the neighborhood — and the Sox.

“People who had money moved to the North Side and became Cubs fans,” she said.

This year, Ms. Colby said, she tries not to listen to news of the Sox’s interminable losses. She was thinking more about her memories: walking to games with her parents and siblings when she was a little girl — more than a mile each way — and, on days when they couldn’t get to the park, listening to the games on the radio.

After the team won the World Series in 2005, Ms. Colby ducked out of work to watch the parade.

“I’m not really going to be able to ditch the Sox, ever,” she said.

Paul Gadalinski, 50, came to BallPark wearing a Bears hat and Bears jersey. Asked about the Sox, he let out a mangled shriek.

“I live on the South Side. I was born to be a Sox fan,” Mr. Gadalinski said. “But I don’t want to watch them lose and have the worst record in the history of baseball.”

Ms. Eaves, the bartender, grew up in Bridgeport — “my whole family are Sox fans, I’m a Sox fan”— but skipped the games this year. She last went to a game in person in 2023 on opening day, which is practically a holiday in Bridgeport.

For months now, there’s been little to cheer. “People are just like, whatever, the year’s over,” she said. “There’s always hope for next year.”

Some fans said they had given up on the team for good.

Mark Aguilar, a resident of Bridgeport for 27 years, sat at the bar with a cheeseburger and a Coors Light. He nodded toward his cellphone, propped up on the bar with a video playing.

“I’m just here to watch my fantasy football team,” he said, ignoring the Sox game on a screen overhead.

Mr. Aguilar had declared himself finished with the Sox in 2023. He said he blames Jerry Reinsdorf, the 88-year-old owner of the team, who, Mr. Aguilar said, kept hiring incompetent managers, people who didn’t even seem to want to be there. Penny-pinching, he said, was running the team into the ground.

“It’s like he only buys players if he has a Groupon,”Mr. Aguilar said.

As the final score of 4-2 flashed on the screen, Russell Mustari, who has lived across the street from the team’s ballpark for close to 50 years, slapped his hand to his forehead.

“It’s over now,” Mr. Mustari said, as the rainy drizzle that had been falling outside all day echoed his gloom. He had a fresh regret: that the Sox were not at home with their fans, however few, when they tied the record on Sunday.

“I wish they had lost this game in their own ballpark,” he said.

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