Regular Reader wrote:
Walt Williams Neck wrote:
went to a ton of games in the 70's in 1970 went to all but one home game, They won a whopping 56 games that year, Had an outfield of Bradford, Berry, May. Melton and No Neck....isn't it fucking mind boggling that Ken Berry was the last Sox outfielder to win a Gold Glove in 1972! Spent Most of the time heckling opponent players like Frank Howard and Yaz...that fucking Yaz had the biggest rabbit ears in baseball. Spent a lot of time with Nancy Faust in the centerfield bleachers giving your songs to play when certain hitters came up. Then the fired asshole Gutteridge and got Chuck Tanner moved Melton to 3rd One Thumb to 1st. Pitching staff was a little better,,,,saw Stan Bahnsen throw a 12 hit shutout.1972 the traded Tommy John and Steve Huntz for Dick Allen ( my favorite all-time Sox) I was lucky enough to talk with TJ and he kids he was a throw in player in the deal. They also had a SS BB Richard fast as greased goose shit...one game he picked up a hot dog wrapper and Harry said it was the 1st thing he picked up anything cleanly in a week. In 1973 they got one of the smartest ball players I ever remember Ken Henderson also was at the biggest attendance games a bat day double header 55,555.I am probably boring you and you all have your grammar pencils out
Last the singin peanut vendor ....things go better with.......Peanuts!
That actually was my first day at Comiskey.
I remember standing in the aisle trying to catch a foul ball down the right field line
My realization that people don’t live forever came via a Paul Edmonson baseball card. I had his 1970 Topps card but he wasn’t on the team. I can picture that card as if it were sitting in front of me. Edmonson is at the top of his wind-up. The border of the card is gray. I asked my dad if he was any good. He didn’t have much to say. That wasn’t because he had posted a 1-6 record for the 1969 White Sox juggernaut either. My father explained that the Sox were wearing black armbands because Edmondson had died. I had never thought about people dying before. That was something that happened to pets. Up until that time my experiences with death consisted of funerals for deceased animals which were officiated by my best friend Patrick McGowan who wore robes in his best approximation of a Catholic priest. I never understood Patrick’s fascination with the priesthood, but then, I’m only one-quarter Irish and he is a full-blood.
So, the passing of one of my beloved White Sox had me asking my old man all kinds of questions that he wasn’t too comfortable answering. I remember staring at that baseball card trying to grasp the idea that this strong young ballplayer no longer existed. And the black armbands made me feel as if Sox games were funerals rather than sporting events. And in a way they were. Even dead, Edmondson had a better 1970 season than any of the White Sox starters as Tommy John posted a 12-17 record to lead a group that included Jerry Janeski (10-17), and Joel Horlen (6-16).
On a cold Sunday in May I attended my first Sox game in person. Although I had already been to at least a few Cubs games, this was a big deal. My dad and I were going to see our team. Up until I was a teenager we always got to far more Cubs games than Sox games. My father didn’t drive and he worked a half mile from Wrigley Field. Nobody really called it Wrigley Field then. It was Cubs Park. And Comiskey was always Sox Park. In fact there was a sign on it that actually said “Sox Park”. Hell, I still call it Sox Park. And not because I’m angry that they changed the name of the new park to U.S. Cellular Field. Wherever the White Sox play their home games will always be Sox Park to me. Unless, of course, it’s at Milwaukee’s County Stadium, where they had played selected 1969 home games in an effort to increase their fan base.
We drove down to the South side with our neighbors across the alley, Jack McGowan, a diehard Cubs fan and his son, the aforementioned Patrick. The expressway we took was, and still is, called the Dan Ryan. Back then I thought it was the “damn Ryan” since traffic was always heavy and that seemed to make grown-ups angry and prone to swearing. I naturally assumed Sox fans from the western suburbs drove in on the fuckin’ Eisenhower.
Years later my father and Jack would get into an argument that started over the Cubs and Sox and escalated from there. They would never speak to each other again. Who said baseball wasn’t important? Who said grown men weren’t childish? But on this frigid spring day they were friends and we were tooling down the Ryan in Jack’s late model Ford on our way to my first White Sox game.
As we approached the ballpark I was struck by how much bigger it seemed than the tinker toy scale Wrigley Field- the whitewashed walls rising like those of a factory on the urban prairie. It was love at first sight. But that’s all the romance there is in this chapter. The truth is it was a lousy day and the Sox had a lousy ball club. If it’s overwrought sentimentality you’re after, there are plenty of books written by Red Sox and Cubs fans to provide it. Do I sound bitter and miserable? No, I sound like a Sox fan! We’ve never been able to see the nobility in losing. But even in the dark days of the late sixties and early seventies there was always enough to keep my White Sox fires burning. Bee-Bee Richard was on the way!
I don’t have a whole lot of specific memories of that game. I’m not one of those people who can still remember the smell of the grass the first time they entered a ballpark. In fact, I’m fairly certain the grass was in miserable shape and didn’t smell like much of anything despite the best efforts of groundskeeper Gene Bossard and his crew. What I remember most was trying to stay warm and Patrick and I bugging our fathers for more hot chocolate. I know the Sox lost to the Tigers by a score of 6-5 and that it seemed as if the game lasted forever. After examining the box score I know Willie Horton and Al Kaline hit home runs for Detroit, No Neck Williams went four for six at the plate, and good old Bill Melton made two errors at the hot corner. The time of the game was over three hours which was pretty long for a ballgame in that era. And three hours on a forty degree day watching the Sox lose in old Comiskey felt like a lifetime. We were but four of 8,143 brave souls in attendance. I’m pretty sure Paul Edmonson was glad to be somewhere else.
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