Posted on 10/10/2005 9:26:16 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson
CHICAGO (AP) -- Anybody looking for the White Sox Nation is going to need more than a map.
For one thing, the team barely owns its own neighborhood.
For another, the White Sox don't offer enough tradition, romance, celebrities or even anguish for most tortured souls to latch onto. With the Red Sox shedding their lovable loser tag a year ago, the Cubs have that market cornered in Chicago and beyond.
And third, even if there is such a thing as a White Sox nation, it's probably Venezuela. It's one of the few countries south of the city limits where: a.) baseball is bigger than futbol; and b.) the Cuban national team isn't the hands-down favorite.
"Oh, yeah," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said the other day in lilting, sometimes-fractured English, "Venezuela definitely love us."
Guillen explains this is so largely because of native sons Chico Carrasquel, who became the first Latin American All-Star in major league history while playing shortstop for the White Sox in the early 1950s, and Luis Aparicio, who took over the position, made an even bigger splash, and gave every Venezuelan kid who ever lingered on a diamond something to aspire to.
Modesty prevented Guillen from recounting that he became that rare kid who actually turned the daydream into a reality, but no matter. Suffice it to say Guillen is a hit back home. Because no sooner had the former shortstop and first Venezuelan to become a big-league manager clinched the American League Central title than he received a call from President Hugo Chavez.
"I would say I was honored," Guillen recalled about his appearance a week ago Sunday on Chavez's national radio show. "Not too many people like the president. I do. My mom will kill me, but it's an honor to talk to the president."
The team drew 2,343,833 fans this season, the fourth-largest attendance in franchise history and the biggest since 1993. Two decades ago, that kind of number was good enough for the White Sox to score annual attendance victories over the crosstown Cubs. But two shortsighted decisions turned that tide and even a championship at the end of this season probably won't reverse it anytime soon.
Shortly after buying the team in 1981 from the last of baseball's carnival barkers, Bill Veeck, a limited partnership headed by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn put some of their games on WGN's just-launched superstation. Unhappy with the ratings and cash flow, the duo decided to sell the team's games on a pay subscription channel called SportsVision. A month later, Harry Caray, the team's wildly popular announcer, switched allegiances and joined the Cubs.
"I would lose my people -- cab drivers, bartenders and others," Caray was quoted at the time, "who can't afford cable TV."
Instead, it was the White Sox who lost fans in droves. Cubs games were carried across the country and beyond, often in the afternoons, when kids home for the summer or just back from school could tune in. Propelled by Caray's boundless, sometimes-beery optimism and his seventh-inning rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" -- a tradition he began on the South Side -- it was the North Siders who caught the nation's fancy.
White Sox fans back home felt embittered and the ones who moved away felt cut off. In an excellent article on Slate.com in August, Mike DeBonis, senior editor of the Washington City Paper, captured the feeling.
"But if they do win it all, there won't be hundreds of books and special-edition DVDs that exhaustively document the final moments of anguish and misery on Chicago's South Side," DeBonis wrote. "When the sports world's most mundane epic losing streak ends, it will go quietly."
That, as DeBonis points out, is because the White Sox have precious few books to connect their history, even fewer celebrities to help raise their profile, and not even enough painful losses over the years to boast of a glorious past. There's nothing to rally around.
The club had a chance to turn things around with the construction of a new ballpark in 1990, but botched even that. With Reinsdorf threatening to leave town, an 11th-hour legislative deal got the stadium built. But as befits political deals struck with bad intentions, the resulting ballpark was so cold and lacking in charm that it became an example of what not to build, so much so that few people even consider it part of the retro-styled boom that began in earnest the following year at Camden Yards in Baltimore.
By then, the White Sox nation had learned to live with little and expect even less.
"It's been pretty comfortable here in the shadow of every other loser in baseball. And if they win, there won't be some mammoth catharsis as we slough off our losing reputation. Which is fine, too," DeBonis concluded. "Unlike Red Sox or Cubs fans, we won't have to re-evaluate our relationship with our longtime losers. Our Sox can just go on winning. Or losing. Whatever."
The White Sox were once the St.Paul Saints
,so I am rooting for them.
They moved away to Chicago in 1901. We waited 60 years
to get another team.(FYI:Comisky park was the 1st place
the Star Spangled Banner was publicly played)
That is correct. Comiskey bought the St. Paul Saints and brought them to Chicago in 1901 when the American League was formed.
One of the original players in 1901 was Billy Sullivan. Billie Sullivan later played with Red Faber. Red Faber played with Luke Appling. Luke Appling played with Nellie Fox. Nellie Fox played with Minnie Minoso. Minnie Minoso played his last game in 1980 at the age of 57. Harold Baines was on that team. Baines played until a couple years ago and is now a coach for the Sox.
How time flies.
The thing I love the most about this American League Champion White Sox team is the fact that damn near the entire team is made up of hard nosed players with chips on their shoulders. Just look at the roster and how they were aquired. They gloriously reflect their fan base.
Juan Uribe - Considered a bust in Colorado and traded for White Sox minor league prospect Aaron Miles. Uribe became an absolute stud short stop with the Sox and drives in clutch runs.
Jose Contreas - Aquired from the Yankees for the greatly appreciated but 'flash in the pan' Estaban Loaiza. A little patience and nurturing from Don Cooper and he's practically unhittable.
A.J. Pierzynski - Cast off of from the under achieving-butt hole-laden Giants that wants to win so bad that the MLB teams that squat when they pee were afraid to sign him for fear he may upset the prima donnas in their clubhouse. If the Chicago Blackhawks don't sign A.J. once the WS is over, they're bigger idiots than i already think they are.
Jermaine Dye - Former Gold Glove receiving outfielder once hampered by fluke injuries and considered too "fragile" to be counted on to help a team to the pennant. Wrong.
Paul Konerko - Former first round draft pick of the Dodgers that was considered a "bust" and was traded to the Sox for a couple of bums that are so far out of baseball now that I can't even remember their names.
Bobby Jenks - 100+ mph fast ball with a nasty hammer for a curve reliever picked off the Angels on waivers because they considered him too much of a headcase because he used to once in awhile throw back a 6 pack and occasionally set his own arm on fire in a bar.
Jon Garland - Aquired from the Chicago Flubs for Matt Karchner. Right now you're probably saying, "Who?" Garland was often considered a bust by many impatient folks that don't understand what's involved in the developing maturity of a starting pitcher that has the God given stuff that Garland brings to the game.
I'll stop now, but the list goes on and on. By the way... Kenny Williams is an Oakland Raiders fan from way back in the 70's and It's not "White Sox Nation". The correct term used by true Sox fans is "White Sox Army".
Sox Pride. It's About Us.
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