C'mon, Baby, Don'tcha Want to Go...
Playing "Sweet Home Chicago" here. It's not the Cubs (that would be a sign of the apocalypse; we've had enough of those, thank you) but it's a pennant and a World Series appearance for my home town. Last time that happened was in 1959.
September 22, 1959: The White Sox win the pennant with the defeat of the Cleveland Indians.
I was two months and three days old. My father didn't follow sports, and my mother, from England, was oblivious to baseball, so when Mayor Daley the First set off the air raid sirens to celebrate the White Sox winning the pennant, they had no
idea what was going on. My mother, walking down the street with me in her arms, knew what air raid sirens were, though: she'd been a little girl in London during the blitz. She searched the street for an air raid shelter, saw none, so she did as she'd been taught in London and nestled her baby--me--in the gutter, sheltering me with her body, until someone came along and told her there was no air raid.
The first ball games I ever attended were White Sox games. The Sox gave free tickets to kids who had perfect attendance and those on the honor roll. Most years, I qualified for both. Grandpa--the baseball fan in the family, and a Cub fan, which accounts for my ending up a Cub fan, too--and I always stopped at McGillicuddy's, across the street from Comiskey, before each game. He always had a Bud, and never asked what I wanted, simply ordered a 7-Up, because 7-Up was, in his view, what little girls drank. A lot of places would put a cherry in the 7-Up, but not McGillicuddy's. There, you drank your 7-Up straight.
Then Grandpa would let me give the tickets to the ticket-taker (they were my tickets, after all), and buy me a score card as we entered the park, which he taught me to fill in: "Draw another goose egg." Those were not great days for the Sox, but I have nothing but fond memories of those games. Which is why I'm not a Sox-hating Cub fan: the Cubs are my number one team, but unless they're playing each other, the Sox are my AL team.
So there has been a World Series in Chicago in my lifetime, barely. And now there's about to be another one--my only wish is that I could be there. You Chicago folks raise a glass for me, okay?
September 22, 1959: The White Sox win the pennant with the defeat of the Cleveland Indians.
I was two months and three days old. My father didn't follow sports, and my mother, from England, was oblivious to baseball, so when Mayor Daley the First set off the air raid sirens to celebrate the White Sox winning the pennant, they had no
idea what was going on. My mother, walking down the street with me in her arms, knew what air raid sirens were, though: she'd been a little girl in London during the blitz. She searched the street for an air raid shelter, saw none, so she did as she'd been taught in London and nestled her baby--me--in the gutter, sheltering me with her body, until someone came along and told her there was no air raid.
The first ball games I ever attended were White Sox games. The Sox gave free tickets to kids who had perfect attendance and those on the honor roll. Most years, I qualified for both. Grandpa--the baseball fan in the family, and a Cub fan, which accounts for my ending up a Cub fan, too--and I always stopped at McGillicuddy's, across the street from Comiskey, before each game. He always had a Bud, and never asked what I wanted, simply ordered a 7-Up, because 7-Up was, in his view, what little girls drank. A lot of places would put a cherry in the 7-Up, but not McGillicuddy's. There, you drank your 7-Up straight.
Then Grandpa would let me give the tickets to the ticket-taker (they were my tickets, after all), and buy me a score card as we entered the park, which he taught me to fill in: "Draw another goose egg." Those were not great days for the Sox, but I have nothing but fond memories of those games. Which is why I'm not a Sox-hating Cub fan: the Cubs are my number one team, but unless they're playing each other, the Sox are my AL team.
So there has been a World Series in Chicago in my lifetime, barely. And now there's about to be another one--my only wish is that I could be there. You Chicago folks raise a glass for me, okay?
posted by Maines at 2:17 AM
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