By Roger Wallenstein
Shortly after White Sox reliever Jerry Staley threw a game-ending double-play ground ball at Cleveland’s mammoth Municipal Stadium, preserving a 4-2 White Sox victory to clinch the 1959 American League pennant, the fun began in the White Sox clubhouse.
And for good reason. The Sox hadn’t won a pennant since the infamous 1919 season. Only home day games were telecast in those days, but WGN made an exception on that particular September 22. Signing off, the venerable Jack Brickhouse used his signature closure, “That’s it for a little while,” adding, “But what an ‘it.'”
Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn infamously set off the air raid sirens in celebration. Please remember: Nikita Khrushchev was the Russian tyrant in those days at the height of the Cold War. Vladimir Putin is Snow White in comparison. Sox fans might have understood the origin of the sirens, but Cub diehards and those uninterested mistakenly headed for their basement bunkers.
And there was Jungle Jim Rivera, by that time a 37-year-old reserve outfielder for the South Siders, cavorting in front of his teammates, a fedora atop his pate, in a one-man conga line. After chasing the Yankees for a decade, the Sox had finally come out on top.
Rivera died last week at age 96. He came to the Sox via a trade in 1952 and managed to hang around for 10 seasons, primarily because he hustled and was the epitome of intensity and effort. The over-used phrase, “He’s good in the clubhouse,” could have been invented for Jim Rivera.
Posted on November 20, 2017