The House Of Horrors

It's the ultimate nightmare.

It's Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man and The Mummy all in one room.

It's Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr., and Bela Lugosi all giving the evil eye at the same time.

It is the house of horrors... it's the Metrodome, where White Sox hopes go to die.

It doesn't matter what time of the year, it doesn't matter who's playing, it doesn't matter how big of a lead...something always happens.

It could be an opposite field cue shot off the end of the bat past a diving Paul Konerko, it could be Carlos Lee losing the baseball in the ceiling in left field, it could be Keith Foulke blowing a three run 9th inning lead, it could be a Twins late rally featuring a walk, two broken bat singles and an infield chop off home plate that bounces 30 feet in the air or Mark Buehrle being denied his 20th win the final weekend of the season...something always happens.

The White Sox have had issues at some locations this decade, from Oakland (where they lost ten straight in the early part of the decade), to Toronto (where they currently have a ten game losing streak), to Boston and Texas but no place compares to Minnesota.

Here's how they've done this decade at the Metrodome:

2000 : 4-2
2001 : 2-7
2002:  3-7
2003 : 2-7
2004 : 6-4
2005 : 6-3
2006 : 5-5
2007 : 4-5
2008 : 1-8

Totals 33-48 .407

The Sox have had a decent year or two but most years they aren't bad, they are flat out awful.

If you're a Sox fan you consider it a great achievement to go to Minnesota and not get swept.

All Sox fans and members of the organization from Kenny Williams on down will be so glad when Target Field opens next year and they can forget about, as one of the Sox beat writers told me, "the ultimate home field advantage in baseball..."

It's become a mental issue with the Chicago White Sox pure and simple, they go to Minnesota, in the back of their minds they start thinking, 'how are we going to lose today?' and more often than not, they do.