Rooting for the White Sox

Like most baseball fans in this region, I root for the St. Louis Cardinals. That interest began at age four, amid baseball cards, info-packed Cardinals yearbooks, barber shop talk and radio broadcasts by the unmatched team of Harry Caray, Jack Buck and Joe Garagiola. Many years have passed, and many players have begun and completed entire careers. Teams’ entire rosters turn over, but the franchises go on. As comedian Jerry Seinfeld observed, “You’re really just rooting for laundry.” So most of us are St. Louis fans, and it stems from geographical proximity, with exceptions, of course. Even as kids in Cape Girardeau, we had John the Braves fan, Mike the Cubs man and Malcolm the L.A. Dodger.

My second-favorite team, since age six, is the Chicago White Sox. Since they’re in the American League, they rarely play the National League Cardinals. So here’s how the Chisox became my second team.

When I was a kid, we made trips to Chicago to visit my Aunt Kitty, Uncle Max and cousins Mike and Jen. One of the first visits was in 1959, when I found the whole Chicagoland area, as the media called it, crazy for the World Series-bound White Sox. They had not won the Series since 1917, and now the speed-driven Go-Go Sox, as they were dubbed, would battle the powerful L.A. Dodgers.

Despite the efforts of slick-fielding shortstop Luis Aparicio, second baseman Nellie Fox with a big chaw of tobacco swelling his cheek and a strong pitching staff, the Go-Go’s fell to the Dodgers four games to two. If I wasn’t quite hooked yet, I was eyeing the brightly-colored lure of the hustling South Siders.

On another trip to Chicago in 1965, my dad and I journeyed down to 35th Street to see the Sox battle the Cleveland Indians. Comiskey Park wasn’t in the greatest neighborhood, and my dad had to find a decent parking place. Most of the lots were of the don’t-get-too-attached-to-your-hubcaps type, but we finally found one that didn’t seem too bad.

It was fun to see a game in a different ballpark besides Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, and it was a good game. We went into extra innings, tied 3-3. In the bottom of the 10th with two outs, Cleveland third baseman Max Alvis settled under a pop fly. Just then, a gust of wind off Lake Michigan blew the ball off course. Alvis staggered, then tripped over the base as the pop up fell to earth, and the Sox base runner sped home with the winning run. Fittingly for Chicago, the game was decided by the wind.

In the two summers I worked at Ball Seed and American Plant Co. in Chicago, I watched many White Sox games on TV. After a hot day in the humid greenhouses and after a hot shower and dinner, it was exquisite pleasure to kick back in my makeshift basement apartment in my aunt and uncle’s house. The legal age to buy beer was 19 in Illinois then, so I could enjoy a cold Michelob in the recliner while watching the game. (Back home, not many Cardinals games were on TV, but here the Sox were on every day.) Ever the night owl, I especially looked forward to late games from the West Coast.

Part of following your favorite teams was studying the stats in the papers and reading the stories and columns, and you had lots of media with the Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune with its massive Sunday edition. I got to know the White Sox in great detail.

White Sox fans have been known to demonstrate an edgier attitude than St. Louis fans or Chicago fans who instead follow those more cuddly, family-friendly Cubs. Sox fans are quicker to razz opposing players and also to boo their own players for poor performance. A notable example is 1970’s slugging first baseman Dick Allen, who was league MVP at one point. He spent many a day off betting at the race track and was sometimes criticized for inconsistent work habits. When he went into a batting slump, fans would get on him. Dick showed his White Sox cred by tracing brief replies in the dirt with his spikes, visible to fans in the upper deck. I can’t reveal what they were, but they weren’t “I Luv U.”

The Chicago White Sox last won a World Series in 2005. They have made moves to make a run at the pennant this season. They’ve even brought in retired, longtime Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa to be the manager. Maybe this will be their year!

Burton Bock has transitioned from middle-aged man to retired man. He enjoys reading, writing and sometimes even 'rithmetic.