By Robert Dean
Guest Columnist
After three straight seasons of 100-plus losses, including the worst record in modern baseball history, the Chicago White Sox are going to the playoffs.
Will they win the World Series? No. Not with that pitching staff. But that’s not the point. This team fought its way out of a rebuild with a roster full of rookies, a Japanese slugger in Munetaka Murakami who plenty of people swore couldn’t hit American pitching, and a first-time manager in Will Venable who had a lot of upside and nothing to show for it until now. Hope hits hardest when you didn’t see it coming.
I know it’s just sports. But this one means something to me. I grew up in Bridgeport and Canaryville, in the shadow of the ballpark. The Cubs are a national brand now. The White Sox belong to the South Side, to the neighborhoods where the streets go by numbers, places that have spent decades being told what’s wrong with them. If you’ve lived in Eastern Kentucky for any length of time, you know that feeling. Somebody is always writing the obituary for where you’re from. And you’re still here, still showing up.
I don’t let sports run my life. My day isn’t ruined when a team loses. I’m not the millionaire out there playing for his daily bread. I’m the broke writer trying to keep his head above water. I’m a fan, just like everyone else who pulls on a jersey. What the Sox give me is a break, a reminder that some little things are wonderful when a lot of stuff absolutely sucks.
Last season, half the concession stands at the ballpark weren’t even open. This year you have to throw elbows to get in line for a Polish with onions. Walk into a beef joint on the South Side and the Sox are back on the TVs, instead of some guy at the counter hollering, “Why put ’em on? To watch ’em lose?” When the team wins, the hot dog vendor makes a little more, so does the guy selling bootleg jerseys outside, so do the stadium workers picking up extra shifts. When one thing goes right, a whole neighborhood feels it.
Is it a distraction? Yes. I need the dopamine hit of a home run sailing over the wall or a pitcher going lights out, the same as Caleb Williams lacing a pass into the hands of one of his receivers. (Sorry, Bengals fans.) I have to find joy where I can get it. I keep flowers in my house because they make a place look nice and class the joint up a little. Same with lighting a candle, or hanging the photo you love instead of leaving it in a box somewhere. After long days in the salt mines, we’re all chasing a smile we forgot we had.
Baseball is one of our last communal experiences in a digital world. We watch the games, we talk about them, we make bets and pin our hopes on them. For the lifers, we never took our Sox hats off. It’s a curse we’re born with. But we’d appreciate some company.
I’m trying to get my kids into baseball, and it’s a lot easier when your team wins.
It costs $60 to fill up my Hyundai. The crack in my windshield has only gotten bigger. I needed this.
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