Ah, sweet September. A time to cling to the last days of summer, as the sun’s golden rays fade into autumn’s late afternoon chill and national-level sportswriters pine for the days of underperforming White Sox players of old:

The easy read on this is that it’s all the fault of general manager Ken Williams. Not only did the Peavy and Rios deals do nothing for the team’s pennant hopes, but they were just the latest in a series of seemingly botched moves. Last winter, for example, he traded off starter Javier Vazquez and nominal center fielder Nick Swisher. The former ranks among the National League leaders in strikeouts, innings and fewest baserunners per inning. The latter may have been some kind of butcher in center last year, but he’s hitting .256/.374/.506, while Sox center fielders have hit .224/.276/.308.

Ah yes, Nicky the Swish. Anyone remember Swisher? The watched third strikes? The pouting over his lame numbers and justified benching? The constant disaster in center field? But hey, you know, he’s doing well this year, so Williams was obviously an idiot for not taking the necessary steps of surrounding Swisher with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixiera, Jorge Posada et al. Of course.

And then we have Javier Vazquez. You may remember Javier Vazquez as the ace of a string of miserable teams. You may also remember him as the weak link for any number of solid teams. Perhaps you, like me, remember him as The Most Interesting Man In Baseball. But with Vazquez, it was never a question of numbers or standing on the leaderboard; a guy doesn’t land himself in second on the all-decade strikeout chart without throwing a good pitch or two. The problem with Javy was always the things he did when he wasn’t striking people out - namely, coughing up a seemingly endless number of runs in the fifth and sixth innings before leaving the game with the bases loaded. Vazquez this season is sixth in the National League in innings pitched and fourth in starts, and those are just dandy numbers, but every Expos, Yankees and White Sox fan knows Vazquez doesn’t average six innings a start because he’s good; the sixth is simply the time when his managers have usually seen enough.

And from a distance, when numbers are all that matter, Swisher and Vazquez probably look nice right about now yet when it mattered, Vazquez and Swisher’s numbers never added up to anything more than missed opportunities and squandered brilliance. It’s kind of surprising that SI’s Tim Marchman, author of the above and himself a Chicago guy, could have already forgotten this although, all told, most Chicago folks probably wish they could as well.