Part Seven Baseball By Leigh Novak
No teenage girl on the day of her prom could have kept up with my own exuberance and adrenalized glee on a recent Friday: The White Sox were coming to town.
And they expected me to sit through work that Friday – a day whose minutes were lazier than Dali’s clocks – and actually get something done. I got all of 45 solid minutes of work in that day, between baseball chat coffee breaks (killing time with my former South-Sider office buddy, both of us head-to-toe in the other team’s gear) and just to keep par as the classiest mo-fo in the office, sending out office e-mails with a picture of Osama bin Laden in a Cubs turban saying, “You can’t get pumped about the Sox without hating the Cubs a little in the process!”
I was meticulous in my preparatory habits in the week leading up to the series; this would be the Sox only visit to Seattle this year and I was focused on the task at hand.
I started preparing early in the week. I took my pinstripe jersey out of its sacred resting spot in my closet and batted off the dust. I put it in the washing machine, and upon its removal, held it up to my face and inhaled the sweet fibers of baseball before suspending it from a special plastic hanger to air dry.
The baseball void in my soul would soon be filled. I almost didn’t leave Chicago because I couldn’t stand the thought of a life without the White Sox. I was markedly woebegone when faced with the reality of abandoning my Sox (as if they cared) and the lifestyle that I built around a culture of baseball in Chicago. Hell, I even miss hating the Cubs and the uneducated and abundant inarticulate arguing with their fans.
The question of how my loyalty was so deeply embedded arose several times that weekend during the series. My fandom was largely uncontested among the surrounding game-goers, who like any good Mariners fans, couldn’t really care less. That is to say, until Ichiro’s name got called to bat.
I truthfully have nothing against the little guy, other than the fact that he doesn’t play for the Sox. But the hype and draw of him, for me, is reminiscent of Sammy Sosa’s days on the Cubs. Except that Ichiro is a damn fine player in every aspect of the game, whereas Steroid Sammy could hit a long ball and egomaniacally call it good (not that the Cubs fans would know to expect anything more, regardless if the situation called for a home run swing).
It is difficult explaining to folks unfamiliar with South Side Pride what it means to care deeply and passionately for a mere ballclub; especially one that has been a bunch of losers for most of your life. This ain’t no Yankees ball. Sox fans (like Cubs, fans, yes) spend a great deal of time in misery. When my fandom came into question during Sunday’s third and final game of the series (the one I did not attend, and the only one they lost), I tried to explain the roots of my ardor.
I must attribute it to more than just my father’s influence, though I am certain that remains the dominant reason. Without my dad printing dozens of pages of statistics that he would read among cigarettes and coffee on the weekends, and the Saturday nights spent on a blanket outside Old Comiskey listening to the game and waiting for the fireworks to explode from the scoreboard, I probably would not be nearly as interested, for my knowledge and perceptiveness of the game would be non-existent.
Even my boyfriend, whom I dragged to one of the games this weekend, sat bewildered next to me as I rambled off players and stats and commentary as though I belonged in the press box with a microphone. I was in my element, and although the many alcoholic beverages I consumed technically assisted my physical glow, I can only promise that my soul was emanating a certain aura that he probably did not otherwise recognize.
I may have been the only Sox fan around in the left-field bleachers that Friday night, but I made my presence known. I literally out-cheered hundreds of Mariners fans (partially because I had something to cheer about) and even managed to kick my Miller Lite onto a Mariners fan in front of me when Thome hit his line shot to right field. I was quite appalled at how put-off she acted when it was I who mourned the loss of a perfectly good and freshly cold brew. Besides, I don’t believe people should attend sporting events without expecting to get a little beer spilled on them.
After the game, I cheered my way back to the car, just as if I was mooing down the ramps at Comiskey. I started my own “Cubs suck” chant (without the bucket-drummers) and sought every Sox fan in the crowd for a high-five. People looked at me as though I was absolutely out of my gourd.
However, my proudest moment came around the seventh inning when I began getting text messages from buddies in Chicago informing me that I was the Comcast Sports Fan of the Game on the Chicago television broadcast. When I questioned the validity of their claims, they confirmed: “They just showed you with your tongue hanging out, arms in the air.” Sounded accurate.
Needless to say, I was beyond proud of my title, as was my Sox-loving family back home. I represented the South Side fans the best way I knew how: Informed and at the top of my lungs; a little obnoxious at times, but passionate to the core. Radiating with pride from every square inch of my body, liberating a season’s worth of suppressed fandom into two nights of live baseball. My spirit was renewed.
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Previously:
* Part One: Departure
* Part Two: Rebuff
* Part Three: MySpace
* Part Four: Peninsula
* Part Five: Homeward
* Part Six: Birds
Posted on May 20, 2008