Hey Chicago, WhaddaYouSay?

If you know me, you know that I really like baseball.  You also would know, then, that I'm an American League fan.  I do love my Chicago White Sox - and I believe in the Designated Hitter  :-D  But I'm a National League fan, too - generally speaking, my National League team of choice would be the Colorado Rockies because I lived in Denver when the expansion team came in, and hey, National League was better than no league.  :-)

Going to White Sox park has always been a part of my life.  In fact, I'd only ever been to an American League game when I attended my first Rockies game in the early 1990s.  It was really fun! I went with a friend of mine.  She and her husband shared season tickets with two other couples, and it was my friend's turn for the tickets.  Her husband was out of town and she invited me to go to the game.  I jumped at that chance!  We were eating peanuts and drinking beer and having a blast - but I was also intently watching the game, because, you know, I really do like baseball.   I think it was probably about the top of the third inning when I realized something was amiss.

Me:  S, what's going on?  Why is the pitcher batting?  Where's the designated hitter???

S:   (after a substantial pause) A, this is the NATIONAL League.  There is no designated hitter.

Me: ::::no words, just me sitting there with a glaikit look on my face::::

S got a LOT of mileage out of that (years of mileage, quite frankly :-D), and I got a funny story that generally makes people laugh even now.  Seriously, as mentioned, I'd only ever been to an American League game at that point in my life.  It never occurred to me that there wouldn't be a designated hitter in any baseball game  :-D   Since that time I've been to my share of Cub games. One memorable one at Dodger Stadium where I attempted to explain the game to my then husband who was British (The Cubs lost - no real surprise) - and I've even been in a skybox at Wrigley Field a time or two - because I love baseball, and it's pretty amazing to live in a town with TWO teams!  

You cannot imagine what it was like in the city in 2005 when the White Sox won the World Series.  Suddenly we had this amazing team that not only won the American League pennant that year, they WON the World Series.  I actually got to go to Game 2 of that Series and it was the best baseball game I have ever been to in my entire life - bar none.  Every possible play you could have in a game was in that game - from a single to a grand slam.  My Christmas card that year was this photo, taken by Bob Milkovich Photography (it wasn't this shape - I tried to scan it  :-D).


That's the victory parade on LaSalle Street.  That's not snow - it was the confetti cannons.  Even Steve Perry (of Journey fame) was there to sing Don't Stop Believin' which had become our season theme song.  On the top of the card it said "A White Sox Christmas" and on the bottom "2005."  On the back, it said, 

Wishing you and your family all
the best this holiday season.

God Bless and how bout those
White Sox!

I keep one on my bulletin board - both at home and at work  :-D  

For the last decade, Sox fans have been lording it over Cub fans.  And really - the Cubs pretty much never win.  They do great for awhile, get everybody's hopes up, and then - pretty much without fail - they fall apart.  They don't seem to be able to bring it when it really counts.  There's the billy goat curse, and in 2003 there was "The Bartman Incident" during post season play (that poor guy . . .). There's always something, and Cub fans are often known to say, "there's always next year."

But now, the Cubs seem to have a young team that looks like it could actually go all the way this year.  They don't seem to know that they're supposed to clutch when things are going well.  I hope no one tells them, because as I write this, the fourth game of a five-game series is underway in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field against the St. Louis Cardinals.  

So, how can you be both an American League and a National League fan?  Here's the thing - it's hard to be a sports fan in Chicago.  All of our teams lose way more than they win - you gotta take it where you can get it.  It would be pretty exciting if the Cubs actually pulled off the prediction in Back to the Future and actually won the World Series in 2015 (and how funny is it that the guy who wrote that is a Cardinals fan!)

So, I'm taking it where I can get it - That's why this American League fan is singing along with the late Steve Goodman (and what shame that he died so young):   Go Cubs Go!



They'll win or they won't - but I hope they do.  I really do hope they can bring it this afternoon.

Guess we'll see . . . 





Comments

Linda said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Linda said…
So I guess we know that I had to leave Chicago for the Cubs to win. You're welcome! ;-)

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