Michael Sondgeroth

Husband, father, teacher coach, nature lover

[CHGO Blackhawks @CHGO_Blackhawks]

Niklas Hjalmarsson, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Kane back in the Blackhawks locker room together today

[Scott Merkin @scottmerkin]

Will Venable on Murakami: "That comment means a lot. He means a lot to me personally and obviously to our club."

[JonnyBaseball 🇺🇸 | ジョニーベースボール 🇯🇵 @J0NNYBaseball]

Best story? Buddy hold my beer, the #WhiteSox have a Savannah Banana that plays a critical role on their team. A guy playing left field that is an infielder that eats ice cream and barks like a dog during games on all 4’s that is also a human HBP dummy, a 3rd baseman traded from the best team in baseball to the worst and thought about walking away and a Japanese Superstar that “fell” into the Sox lap because other teams scouts said he couldn’t hit a fastball. Plot twist he actually hits fastballs to the moon at an alarming rate oh and one more thing..

After enduring three consecutive 100-loss seasons—including 101 losses in 2003, a modern record 121 losses in 2024, and 102 losses in 2025—the Chicago White Sox completely flipped the script under first-year manager Will Venable and General Manager Chris Getz. They finished the 2026 regular season with an 84-78 record, swept the Houston Astros in the Wild Card Series, and advanced to the ALDS. [1, 2, 3, 4] #PostSeason

[Onyx Odds @OnyxOdds]

The White Sox really have their magic back

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

Cam Booser quit baseball at 25 and got a job installing ceilings.

Tonight he got the win for the Tampa Bay Rays in a playoff game.

Here is everything in between.

He broke his femur playing high school football. He fractured a vertebra lifting weights. He got to Oregon State, threw 11 innings, and tore his UCL. Tommy John surgery.

The Minnesota Twins signed him anyway in 2013, undrafted.

Then he tore the labrum in his shoulder.

Then a car hit him while he was riding his bike and broke a bone in his back.

Five seasons with the Twins. He never got out of High A.

And it was not all injuries. He says that part himself.

"The first part of my career was, by my own doing, pretty bad. I made a few mistakes."

He has told the Chicago Sun-Times that he came back from a drinking problem that "caused me to burn most bridges that I had built with most people."

So in 2017 he was done. Twenty five years old. Out of the game.

He went home to Seattle and moved back in with his parents. He joined Northwest Carpenters Union Local 41 and started installing specialty wood ceilings, at the same company his dad had worked at.

He called himself "a Minor Leaguer" next to the real carpenters.

Three years of that.

Then he picked up a side job giving pitching lessons to kids. And standing out there throwing to 12 year olds, he noticed something.

The ball was still coming out hot.

February 21, 2021. He got back on a real mound.

The Chicago Dogs of the American Association took him. Independent ball. The level below the level below the level.

Arizona gave him a minor league deal in 2022. The Boston Red Sox gave him one in 2023, and at Triple A Worcester he struck out 66 in 57.2 innings.

April 2024. His Triple A manager Chad Tracy walked up and asked if he could give them three innings tomorrow. Booser said sure. Then Tracy told him the Boston Red Sox were in Pittsburgh, and they wanted him there.

He made his major league debut at 31. The oldest rookie the Red Sox had used since 1947.

His teammate Vaughn Grissom filmed him calling his family.

Years earlier, long before any of this was plausible, he had said this out loud: "Ever since I was a kid, Fenway always called me. It was the coolest park to me. The dream is to pitch at Fenway in a Red Sox uniform."

He got that too.

The Chicago White Sox had him in 2025. The Tampa Bay Rays signed him for 2026.

And tonight, Game 2 of the American League Division Series against the New York Yankees, they handed him the ball.

Eight pitches. One out. That was the whole appearance.

Tampa Bay won it 5 to 2, and the W went next to his name.

The carpenter got the win in a playoff game.

The Rays lead the New York Yankees 2 to 0.

[James Fegan @JRFegan]

White Sox manager Will Venable said it repeatedly this year: “I don’t know how anyone hits Gavin Williams.”

To his point, the Sox whiffed 36% of the time against the AL strikeout leader. They also are 4-1 against him and have yet to let Williams go 6 IP.

https://t.co/ldOgF1U8PJ

[S★ @xxyllinn]

Inflation hit 9% but your salary stayed the same. Your purchasing power dropped 9%. You're not getting a raise. You're slowly getting poorer while your boss pretends the economy is fine.

[Jesse Rogers @JesseRogersESPN]

Sean Newcomb will start tomorrow for the White Sox which means a 5th straight short postseason start for them. Not even newsy at this point.

[SleeperWhiteSox @SleeperWhiteSox]

The White Sox continue their strategy of using lefties early to matchup against a lineup that struggles with Southpaws

Sean Newcomb will start Game 3 tomorrow for the Southsiders

[Crawford @Mattheius2783]

Never thought the #WhiteSox would be the catalyst that finally brings our nation together.

What a time to be alive.

[White Sox Takes @WhiteSoxTakes]

The White Sox need to dust off the old iconic Pirates of the Caribbean/Thunderstruck intro for Wednesday's game. Imagine an updated version of this #WhiteSox

[The Green Dragon Tavern @greendragonhq]

Massachusetts implemented a 4% tax on anyone earning over $1m in a single year. It resulted in free community college for any resident of Massachusetts.

Imagine what we could do as a country if we taxed billionaires?

[Scott Merkin @scottmerkin]

Martin on Wednesday: "It’s all we are talking about. We are about to go back to a zoo. It’s going to be wild. It’s going to be crazy. If Mune hits a ball 900 feet, it’s going to be loud as heck. We are all excited to hear it and be a part of it."

[Will Sommers @WillSommers2]

1 through 26 this team is so locked in

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

In a deranged speech tonight, Trump called on Iran to use a nuclear weapon against Los Angeles and San Diego, calling it "a very small price to pay."

The president of the United States encouraged a foreign nation to commit a heinous crime against humanity and incinerate millions of Americans.

The time for the 25th Amendment is long overdue for this murderous madman and traitor.

[BetMGM 🦁 @BetMGM]

CRAZY BUT TRUE: It took the White Sox almost TWO MONTHS to win 4 games in 2024 (July 10-Sept. 4)

Now they're 4-0 to start the 2026 Postseason.

The best story in sports.

[Sarah Langs @SlangsOnSports]

Sean Burke's 13 straight batters retired tie for the second-longest streak by a reliever in a postseason game behind Madison Bumgarner's 14 (2014 WS G7)

The last RP before Burke with 13 straight: Framber Valdez 2020 ALWCS G1

h/t @EliasSports

[Jon Morosi @jonmorosi]

Sean Burke, in describing the @WhiteSox chemistry, said the typical journey of a minor league player involves making a few friends at every stop along the way.

This is different.

"I feel like I took all my friends together and made a baseball team," he said.

@MLBNetwork

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

He had elbow surgery before he ever threw a pitch in college.

Then he got called up to a team that lost 121 games.

Tonight he retired 13 batters in a row and put that same team one win from the American League Championship Series.

His name is Sean Burke and he pitches for the Chicago White Sox.

Tonight in Cleveland he worked 5.1 innings against the Guardians, allowed one hit, walked one and struck out six on 83 pitches.

Thirteen of those outs came in a row. Major League Baseball named him player of the game.

White Sox 4, Guardians 3. Chicago leads the series two games to none.

Now go back.

He grew up in Sutton, Massachusetts. His grandmother taught him baseball by rolling a ball to him when he was a toddler.

He picked Maryland over UConn, Virginia and Virginia Tech.

Then he had Tommy John surgery before his freshman season and never threw a pitch that year. Six months without being allowed to throw a baseball at all.

Here is what his college coach Rob Vaughn remembered about that stretch.

Burke would climb onto the practice mound and go through his entire pre pitch routine. The look in. The set. The delivery.

With no baseball in his hand. Because he was not allowed to hold one.

Then COVID ended his next season after four starts.

Add it up. He got exactly one full healthy season of college baseball in his life. In 2021 he made 13 starts, threw 74 and a third innings, and had a 3.27 earned run average.

That is the entire resume the Chicago White Sox drafted in the third round.

It did not get easier. In 2023 at Triple-A Charlotte he went 1-4 with a 7.61 earned run average. The following year at Charlotte it was 4.62.

He has said that stretch is what built him.

"I tell myself I'm here for a reason. I'm doing this for a reason. I'm in the company I should be."

And then on September 10, 2024, the White Sox called him up.

That team lost 121 games that season. Nobody has lost more since 1901. They went 1-28 at home from July 10 to September 13.

Burke pitched four games for them.

He went 2-0 with a 1.42 earned run average and struck out 22 in 19 innings.

The team around him lost 121 times. He did not lose once.

By the next spring he was their Opening Day starter.

Braden Montgomery drove in two tonight. Chase Meidroth had two hits and a run batted in.

Be honest about where this sits. It is a division series, not a trophy, and Cleveland can still win three in a row.

But a kid stood on a mound for six months and threw a pitch that did not exist, because they would not let him hold a ball.

Tonight he threw 83 of them in October and retired 13 men in a row.

[White Sox on CHSN @CHSN_WhiteSox]

you will not *believe* who is playing at the United Center tonight....