Rambling on the Eve of Potential Euphoria

The White Sox are in the World Series.

Let me just repeat that so it sinks in.

The White Sox are in the World Series.

Holy shit.

This is a day I thought I would never see. This is something my father last saw when he was 12. This is something I've been yearning, hoping and wishing for since my dad took me to my first Sox game. I was four years old and strangely intrigued by the sight of staggering men with bad mustaches vomiting into drinking fountains in the dark, dank concourses of Comiskey Park. The place was vile, dirty, smelly and beautiful all at the same time, especially on the nights we seemingly had that grandstand in right field all to ourselves.

Over the years, there were many players who pulled on that often-garish White Sox uniform who I idolized: Chet Lemon, Bull, Baines, Pudge, Rudy, Ivan, Walker, The Hammer, Thiggy, Ozzie, Scooter, Rock, La Chispa, Blackjack, One-Dog (Sporer's most hated nickname of all time), Robin, Ray-Ray, The Big Hurt, the Little Hurt, The Officer, Spanky...the list goes on and on and on.

My love for the game truly blossomed when they won ugly in '83. I sat in golden box seats as Tony LaRussa whipped third base across the infield shortly before he was fied by Hawk Harrelson. I held out hope that the 1990 squad would give the best ballpark around a proper send off by toppling the hated A's - unfortunately, Dave Stewart was right - we couldn't hold their jocks (some things never change). In '93, I emerged from the Lost Semester a happy, somewhat-well-adjusted young man as the Sox won another division title. To this day, the Orioles, A's and Blue Jays make me want to vomit.

I remember the oh-so-lean years of the mid-late '90s - Jaime "Piece of Shit" Navarro, Danny Tartabull, Chris Snopek, Jorge Fabergas, Tony "Crackpipe" Phillips, Carlos "Fatass" Castillo, Mike "Potential? What Potential?" Caruso - dark, desolate times, friends. Throw in the White Flag trade in '97 (Sox facing an INSURMOUNTABLE 3 game deficit on July 31) and the God-awful 1998 Season of Sammy that spawned a colony of "Cubbie Diehards" that made even the true-blue Cub fans want to wretch over their fickle nature, and it was quite the unpleasant time to be a Sox fan.

Yet in April of 2000, watching a Saturday game against Detroit that featured two brutal bench-clearing brawls, I started to feel like that team could be special. They stuck together, made a nice trade to pick up Charles Johnson, and basically coasted to a division title. Unfortunately, they happened to coast straight through the first round against Seattle. Another great season, another flameout.

Throughout the early part of this century, I watched in agony as a team loaded with talent and potential middled their way through each season as the Indians and Twins fucked them right in their minds in much the same way the Hanson brothers applauded player-coach Reggie Dunlap for doing to Tim "Dr. Hook" McCracken. An All-Star appearance here, a 27-game hitting streak there, another 83 win season, and nobody seemed to give a shit.

Enter Kenny Williams, who I foolishly chided at the beginning of this season for the work he did on the 2005 model of the Sox. "Get rid of Ordonez and Lee?" I gasped. "Heresy!" Given this man's track record (David Wells, Todd Ritchie, Roberto Alomar...TWICE) I thought he had finally lost it. Yet here we sit today - a glorious season for a glorious franchise. As they steamrolled through July, I thought "Great, another easy division title, another first round flame out." Instead, we had what may have been three of the most nerve-wracking weeks of my life as the Sox tried to give their season away. The National Media loved every minute of it - dickheads like Jeff Brantley saying "See, I told you I was right about the White Sox being a fluke!" Too bad for them that their self-righteousness got shoved right back down their throats...

As for how everything has gone until this point, I couldn't be happier. We kept the hated Indians out of the playoffs, giving Cleveland fans yet another reason to be depressed (given that they have to live in Cleveland, that's pretty hard to do). Next we swept America's Darlings, the Boston Red Sox, right out of contention. As much as I was rooting for Boston last year, I have to say that there was no sweeter sight than watching the White Sox dance around Fenway park as 34,000 New Englanders sat in stunned horror. (Sidenote: I was watching Alias with Michelle the other day, which should now be known as Gay-lias, and there was a scene when Jennifer Garner, who is carrying the fruit of known-Red Sox fan Ben Affleck's loins, is in a coffee house in Prague talking to some dude who is wearing a Red Sox hat - she says "The Boston Red Sox - I like them" - I am convinced that when this scene was filmed, she and Ben believed that the timing would be perfect, as the Red Sox would naturally be readying themselves to defend their title. Just another reason the sweep made me happy). We then were able to dispatch the club from Orange County, holding last year's AL MVP to a 1-for-20 showing (for those of you not into baseball, that's an average of .050, and that's not very good).

Now, we get to face the tough club from Texas, which as Sgt Hartman reminds us is only home to "steers and queers". Yes, they have good pitching. Yes, they play in the friendliest righthanded hitting ballpark in American history. Yes, they have a neat train that rides around and such. But since their stadium's former namesake is Enron, and Enron is the reason I lost a plum job with Business-class travel, four-star hotel stays and a planned trip to the Netherlands that certainly would have involved a weekend trip to Amsterdam, leaving me in a stupor of stoned euphoria, I must blame the Astros for having that taken away from me. I call upon the Baseball Gods to smite these villains and allow the White Sox to bask in the glory of a world championship.

So in conclusion, thank you to the 2005 White Sox - should you win the Series, you will have a place in my heart above all others - above the 2005 Illini, the '90s Bulls, the '85 Bears, and, well, I guess that's all the good teams I know.

GO GO WHITE SOX!!!!!!!!!!!