Experiencing 2005: Things are getting hot
I started an essay after the 2005 season that I never finished. All of those writings have never seen the light of day, but here we are, 15 years later, so maybe it’s a good time to drag them out. They represent my thoughts and feelings at the time, with very little present-day editing.
July 4, 2005
Mom, Dad, and I wait out a two-hour rain delay but are rewarded with a five-run first inning and ultimately a 10-8 White Sox victory. I am 7-2 thus far on the season, or rather, the Sox are 7-2 when I am in attendance.
My screaming for Jermaine Dye nets him six RBIs today. Everybody gets a hit except for Joe Crede. Young Brandon McCarthy still can’t get it together.
My parents and I have played “guess the attendance” at every game since I can remember, long before it became a scoreboard staple. (I can’t imagine what my guesses must have been like when I was six years old: “A gajillion people are at this White Sox game!”)
Per family rules, we write our guesses on our scorecard at the end of the third inning. In Old Comiskey, my father never lost this game. He had an instinct for the attendance in that park and was often accurate within a couple hundred people. He doesn’t have the same feel for the new park, and I usually win. But today, he is off by only 453 to ace the family bragging rights. Mom beats me, too. But have I mentioned that I am 7-2 in games that matter?
July 10, 2005
This month is my parents’ 35th wedding anniversary, and I’ve been planning the party since March.
Twenty-six of my parents’ friends and family meet in a truck stop parking lot in the western exurbs, where a bus picks us all up and takes us to Sox Park. My Uncle Dale has brought bloody Marys for the trip; it’s going to be one hell of a day.
We have Patio Party tickets, which means all of the Bertucci Boys chicken and pasta we can eat, and all of the beer we can drink for three innings. My parents meet Bill Melton and Ron Kittle (I remind the latter that we’ve already met). The original wedding party—Mom, Dad, best man Jim, and maid of honor Aunt Nancy—is reunited in a photo.
A surprise for my parents awaits when we get to our seats—friends Rick and Susan from their dorm in college, who live in Chicago and therefore didn’t take the party bus. The four of them haven’t seen each other in at least a decade, and I didn’t let on that Rick and Susan were coming.
It’s at least 85 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. I am very hot and very sweaty, but the beer is cold.
It’s a thrilling back-and-forth game, with the Sox rallying with two runs in the ninth to tie it. Unfortunately, Luis Vizcaino gives up a single, sacrifice bunt, and a double in the top of the 11th; the Sox can’t answer in the bottom, and they lose, 9-8.
I personally drop to 7-3, but Dad consoles me. “Everything we could control was perfect today. Besides, regardless of how good they've been this year, it’s more fitting in the history of things that they lost.”
My dad, the cynic.
All Star Game
There is a new promotion this year—the fans vote on the final player to be added to the roster after all of the managerial selections. Scottie Pods is on the ballot. Mom votes for him 10 times a day.
My mom, the optimist.
July 16, 2005
My Aunt Nancy's 50th birthday party. Most of this side of the family are allegiant to the Cubs, but there is a first-cousin-once-removed who somehow grew up a Sox fan in Glenview. On his way out of the party, he stops to say goodbye and adds, “See you at the World Series.”
I laugh.
July 20, 2005
The bullpen has been so reliable this year, that an implosion is surprising. Down 4-3 going into the ninth, Freddy García gives up a solo shot and is pulled. Cliff Politte and Neal Cotts are charged with keeping it close, and they fail: The deficit balloons to 8-3. The White Sox make it all kinds of interesting in the bottom of the inning with three runs, but fall short and lose, 8-6. [Note from the future: As it happens, this was Frank Thomas's last game on the field as a White Sox. He would be put on the DL two days later. Now I'm sad.]
I am 8-4. In a normal year, this record would be great, but I am disappointed. Of course, in a normal year, I haven't attended 12 games before July ends, either.
July 23 - August 6, 2005
Family vacation. We are out of Chicago radio space, and Dad subscribes to Sirius XM so as to not miss a game. A nice four-game sweep of the Orioles puts the Sox 15 games up on August 1 and brightens up an otherwise lackluster two-week stretch of baseball.
The dog days, they are here, but my team is up 13 games as vacation ends.