On a rare day when the Bears, Cubs, and White Sox all played at home, the best team of the bunch drew the smallest crowd. The Bears are, well, the Bears, and the Cubs are never so lovable as when they’re losing. But to commit oneself to the Sox and their home finale last Sunday was to defiantly believe in them–in spite of what sense and both ancient and recent history suggested.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In the series opener, Freddy Garcia allowed the Indians to trickle out to a 4-0 lead, but in the fifth inning Joe Crede, beginning the home stand of his career, drove in Aaron Rowand for the first Sox run, and Paul Konerko tied the game later that inning with a two-run double. Carl Everett, mired in a terrible slump, put the Sox up in the seventh by launching a shot into the right-field seats, but in the eighth Damaso Marte committed the cardinal sin of walking a batter with a one-run lead and then gave up a double. Just when the new bullpen closer, Bobby Jenks, seemed about to work out of trouble, he grooved a fastball to Aaron Boone for a go-ahead two-run single. The Sox went tamely after that and their lead was down to two and a half games.
The Sox won the biggest, best game of the year the following night. Crede again gave them their first runs with a game-tying two-run homer, and the Sox went ahead 6-5 in the seventh. But Jenks again couldn’t hold the lead. Rowand, usually reliable, misjudged a fly hit straight to him and it sailed over his head for a double that put a man on third. To avoid a big inning, Sox manager Ozzie Guillen elected to play the infield back, and he wound up looking prescient: the Indians tied the score on a grounder, but Crede came up in the bottom of the ninth and hit a sayonara, a walk-off homer, into the left-field seats.
Just before the Sox game began, the scoreboard was turned over to a highlight reel of the team’s splendid year. Weighted, of course, with early-season delights, it began with Mark Buehrle’s opening-day shutout of these same Indians in an hour and 51 minutes on a glorious early April afternoon. Then Buehrle took the mound as if determined to return to that April form. He mowed down the Twins his first time through their order, and Crede once again gave his pitcher a lead–this time with a two-out RBI single in the second that ameliorated the news on the scoreboard that Cleveland had tied the game in Kansas City. The Sox added three runs in the third as Rowand tripled and Paul Konerko homered, and Buehrle coasted to a 4-1 win in a brisk hour and 53 minutes. He pitched like a pilot making up in the air the time he’d lost on the ground. Crede got the last out with his trademark play–charging a slow roller.
The fans at Sox Park Sunday were the true faithful, the ones who’d given their hearts to the team fully expecting to have them broken. Under skies that threatened more rain, everyone headed to their cars, buses, and el trains with the feeling that they’d stolen another blissful day. As jovial as they’d been after that glorious opening-day victory, Sox fans could count 93 more wins since then, and the playoffs at last seemed imminent. Could these days of bliss last until the World Series? And beyond?
