By now everyone in the Americas knows that the Chicago White Sox are in the World Series for the first time since 1959 and will try to win it for the first time since 1917. Success droughts of this magnitude are not all that unusual in sports, but this one is a little different because there are no curses involved, no bad luck, no excuses for failure. Just a whole bunch of inadequately staffed baseball teams trudging through season after season without winning anything.
White Sox fans are a sorry bunch, a minority in their own city. There is no special aura around their team. They go to the park or watch games on TV not because it is the thing to do. They do it because they love their team. White Sox fans are newcomers to hope. Hope was dashed in 1919 and stomped on in 1959, 1983, 1993, 1994 and 2000. Many of us never believed this team would even make the post-season as late as September 25th; such is the lot of the Battered Sox Fan.
Clinching the Central Division gave us hope. "The Pounding of the Darlings of the East" nurtured it. "The Domination of the Thunderstickers of the West" gave it strength.
Now DW and I go to 35th and Shields to see game one of the World Series on Saturday. 46 years ago I was an 8 year old Sox fan, rushing home from school to see the end of the game on the television, knowing that my parents were there in person, lucky enough to have won a lottery for two seats. Saturday, my 8 year old Sox fan daughter will wave to DW and me as we depart for the south side 48 miles away and 46 years later to witness another game one. The Circle of Life is complete. May it keep circling, but hopefully this winning thing will become a regular habit, not a once in a lifetime thrill. A White Sox fan can now dare to hope.
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