The last few times I went out to see the White Sox this season I skipped the press box in favor of the grandstand–in part because at that point the fans were more interesting than the players. In Chicago, only fans of the Blackhawks have suffered worse at the hands of ownership, but by now there are so few true hockey fans in town the comparison’s almost academic. Sox fans smoke a (very) little bit less than their hockey counterparts and they generally tell better jokes; for all the bitterness they share with Hawks fans they’re a hardier, more enduring breed. Even so, it amuses me when Sox fans go out of their way to run down Cubs fans. Cubs fans may be obsessed with status and cell phones and insobriety, but they don’t need to be told when it’s permissible to make some noise; they don’t require a scoreboard applause meter to get them to cheer louder; and they don’t pay more attention to the between-innings jumbo-TV sideshow races of frogs and planes and colored pinwheels than they do to the game itself. When Sox fans insult Cubs fans they display their innate insecurity–but hey, with a team like this, insecurity is to be expected.
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For all intents and purposes, the Sox’ season ended July 26 when Minnesota’s Torii Hunter went out of his way to level Jamie Burke in a play at the plate as the Twins won 6-2. The Sox had surrendered first place to the Twins with a 9-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers the day before, and they were now playing four games against the Twins at White Sox Park, three of them before sold-out crowds. But something went out of them with that beat down, something that had little to do with the season-ending injuries suffered by heavy hitters Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez. Quite simply, the Twins had their number. Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said we’d soon see who had the bigger dog, but in admitting he envied the hard-nosed play of Hunter he also suggested he’d rather be coaching those hungry mongrels than his own bunch of lumbering sluggers. The Sox never responded to the grit manager Ron Gardenhire had once again instilled in the pack of well-coached mutts and strays he’d put together in Minnesota; the Sox lost seven straight and 20 of 28 games as they fell from first place to third, nine games back. By late August, the season had become a training ground for next year.
The only real excitement at Sox Park this season was generated by the rise of relief pitcher Shingo Takatsu. “Mr. Zero,” the all-time saves leader in Japan, replaced Billy Koch as closer early in the year and came on each time to a series of gongs on the PA system. The crowd typically went ape, shouting, “It’s Shingo time!” With his thin arms and shoulders–he looked like a Little Leaguer in his fluttering sleeves–and 60-mile-an-hour breaking pitch (TV announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson again demonstrated his flair for nicknames by labeling it the “Frisbee”), he was an everyman’s dream. But I was in the upper deck on the Saturday night the magic ended. He gave up a game-winning three-run homer in the ninth to the Cleveland Indians. “He’s not Mr. Zero,” grumbled one fan. “He is a zero.” Even the postgame fireworks failed to cheer the fans, and we all talked quietly as we walked down the interminable ramps to the ground.
But you can’t beat fun at the old ballpark, as Harry Caray used to say, and we could thank Sox fans for that. When the Royals’ Abraham Nunez came to the plate, one fan yelled, “Abraham, can you play today? It’s Yom Kippur!” In honor of Desi Arnaz, Faust played the theme to I Love Lucy as KC’s Desi Relaford batted. And when the playoff-hungry Cubs’ final score was posted, a 2-1 win in New York over the Mets in ten innings, a few charitable fans cheered but to our right one Sox loyalist shouted, “Suck!” Down the first-base line, four helium balloons broke free of whatever small child had been holding them and sailed up and out with the breeze, over the right-field bleachers and above the advertising signs beyond, crossing just under a nighthawk that patrolled the fringes of the lights picking off bugs–all soon to be gone like the baseball season on the south side.
