Blue skies and unseasonably warm temperatures greeted the baseball season on both sides of town last week. But the blissful weather for the home openers only served to disguise what appears to be a dramatic change in the local sports climate. The White Sox were welcomed back April 4 by a sold-out crowd of 38,141; the fans were gleeful, joyous, and enthusiastic, quite a departure from the surly, win-or-else south-side stereotype. While making changes over the winter the Sox had promised crisp, well-played baseball, and that’s exactly what they delivered in a 1-0 victory. The Cubs opened Wrigley Field April 8 in front of a jam-packed 39,892. Cubs fans are usually considered happy-go-lucky sybarites more eager to cheer their heroes than decry their shortcomings, but this audience didn’t behave that way at all.
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Over the winter the Sox let Magglio Ordonez walk through free agency and traded slugger Carlos Lee for speed merchant Scott Podsednik. These changes, combined with the temporary loss of Frank Thomas, out at least into May as he recovers from ankle surgery, left the Sox depleted in power, if perhaps better on defense–a team that will have to scramble with steals, bunts, and the hit-and-run to score. But this was what manager Ozzie Guillen wanted. “We’re gonna manufacture runs,” he said, talking with reporters during a Sunday-morning workout the day before the opener. “I think the batters we have this year are a lot better. This year I’m gonna put myself in the situation to see if I can manage or not. Last year, I was just changing pitchers and talking to you guys for 162 games.”
That’s the reason they play the games, isn’t it, to find out if a team is as good as its manager thinks it is? Opening day came off exactly as Guillen said. Ace Mark Buehrle took a perfect game into the fifth inning, and helped by two sharp double plays faced only one batter more than the minimum in shutting out the Cleveland Indians through eight. After leading off the Sox seventh with a double, plodding Paul Konerko went to third on a fly ball that Ordonez’s replacement, Jermaine Dye, hit deep enough to advance even him, and scored when Cleveland shortstop Jhonny Peralta booted Aaron Rowand’s grounder. The run was all the Sox needed. A gong welcomed bullpen closer Shingo Takatsu onto the field in the ninth and rang again for each out as Takatsu nailed down the 1-0 win. The game was done in 1:51.
