I am a Chicago White Sox fan

i am excited that the Chicago White Sox has made it to the World Series this year - i find it romantically satisfying that thus far they have outlived the curse - i am looking forward to enjoying a few games drinking a black and tan out of a chilled pint glass and making steamed hot dogs the way i remember

now i am not a typical sports fan - i do not routinely seek out my team's games - as a result i am not familiar with the players - i can't tell you stats and am not familiar with the lingo - it is usually with a passing curiosity that i will pick up the sports pages (and only when these have been discarded on the lunchroom counter) to see what Chicago has been up to

but i am a Chicago White Sox fan

according to Frank DeFord - i am being what a fan is supposed to be - i am sticking to the first team i ever knew - the team that opened up the world of sports for me - now granted - the world opening up was no more than a teeny-tiny crack - but that crack was revealed to me through none other than the Chicago White Sox

i went to the old Comiskey Park to see the White Sox playing - the old concrete and steel "Baseball Palace of the World" with the pinwheels on the scoreboard and Andy the Clown bounding about and where Harry Caray's fame began before he moved north - as a hispanic teenager growing up on the southside i rarely had an opportunity to go anywhere remotely interesting - but when i came home from school with free tickets to the next sox game because i had perfect attendance - my parents could not refuse my one reward - so i took my sister and my friend dolores and we walked the six blocks and bought steamed hot dogs doused with celery salt and hung out at the ball park

these were very quiet games - they were usually in the middle of the afternoon on the weekend and the ballpark was for the most part pretty empty - but we were there - sitting in the nosebleed section for the first part of the game and slowly making our way down to the empty box seats below - no one checking our tickets or caring that we were there - it was exciting to be getting away with something like that - and we cheered whenever there was a need and we booed at whatever opposing team was playing - and we laughed in our freedom and drank fountain soft drinks and ate candy and more hot dogs and flirted with the bat boys - we sat through the entire game - mostly it was because we were not thrilled about going home where chores and bore awaited - and since we were there - we would occasionally tune into the game - and when we did - it was exciting and memorable because suddenly we were aware of the years that had passed in this old park - and at that time i had romantic visions of Casey at Bat (until then, the only baseball reference in my life) and pretended that the White Sox were the Mudville Nine

the bonus - an unexpected familiarity with what the game was about

i went to one cubs game - i was much older though and it was through whatever job i had at the time - we sat on the roof of one of those brownstones that surround the park and ate catered grilled hot dogs and chicken - but the hot dogs were just red hots on a piece of cold bread - not steamed to perfection and i'm sure they were nowhere near the .80 cents we could get them for down south - i couldn't see the game from the rooftop bleacher and was sadly dismayed with the tiny image on the tv that was housed in the weatherproof acrylic box hanging over the ballpark below - there were no bat boys nearby to blush at my gaze - among the cases of beer, there were no fountain soft drinks - i couldn't even really hear the game from my vantage point - at the end of the game - i picked my way through the littered alleyway and into a cab that whisked me away to the southside where i belonged

one thing is certain - i really miss the freedom and heady exhilaration of those days at comiskey park when once in a while - the sox hit a home run and i could stand on my seat and really truly cheer for my home team