This is how serious it is getting. A pal from Sports Illustrated asks me if the White Sox have a nickname. The Go Go Sox, South Side Hitmen, Winning Ugly, like that.
I am stuck. When did it come to this? Do the White Sox really need an identity? Things are moving too fast.
Whenever the Sox are good, they become a bumper sticker. That`s just the way it is.
Sox fans know this. They do their part by bringing bedsheets to Comiskey Park. ”Winning Ugly II” says one. ”Worst to First” says another. ”We ARE for real” insists a third. ”South Side Revival” swears another.
Admirable all, but nothing like, say, ”The Bash Brothers” in the other dugout, the Oakland A`s. The Monsters. The World Champs.
The A`s can call themselves world champions in fact, not in fantasy, as yet another banner declares of Comiskey Park, ”A Field of Dreams.”
The last time I gave this any thought, the Sox were everybody`s favorite footwipe-generous, accommodating and paying their own way in.
It occurred to me that the Sox were not quite a baseball team, like a paralegal isn`t quite a lawyer and a paramedic isn`t quite a doctor.
My suggestion was that they are the Chicago ParaSox. Might still be.
Not a whole lot has changed. Same Whozats, Howzats, Whatiznames and Carlton Fisk.
Rickey Henderson of Oakland saw that right away. He said the Sox don`t have anybody in their lineup. I guess it was nobody at third base and at shortstop and in center field who has been catching Henderson`s line drives.
That wasn`t Robin Ventura and Ozzie Guillen and Lance Johnson keeping Rickey off base. That was nobody.
That`s not Ivan Calderon hitting .300 or Ron Kittle whacking balls on the roof or Bobby Thigpen shutting things down in relief.
That`s just the Chicago Nobodies. They come into the middle of June with the second-best record in baseball and their best start in 33 years.
That`s what`s changed. Just the record, not the approach.
”When we were losing,” said manager Jeff Torborg, ”when we were 24 games under .500 at last year`s All-Star break, all we could do was play the next game. We couldn`t do anything about the standings then, and we can`t do anything about them now.”
The Sox are still turning into whatever they are going to be, like the cicada, but making less noise about it.
”We still have two-thirds of a season to prove anything to anybody and to ourselves,” says Torborg, not about to be caught up in any premature authentication.
The series with the A`s has the aroma of a pennant race, a four-game showdown in June, a chance for the Sox to measure themselves against the best. ”What it means if they beat us,” said Oakland manager Tony LaRussa,
”is they might bring in more fans and make more money.”
LaRussa was here when old Comiskey was last ringing with this much joy. LaRussa knows the sound.
”Heard it in `82, in `83 and `84. Some in `85,” LaRussa said.
Winning Ugly then. Winning how now?
Here`s the awful truth: The Sox are winning because of good starting pitching, an effective bullpen, timely hitting and good defense.
Sound baseball, but not a bumper sticker anywhere in there.
The Young and the Faceless?
Mutts and Jeff?
It`ll come to me.
