“It’s not just `another game,’ ” said White Sox manager Gene Lamont before Monday’s game against the Seattle Mariners. “I know it. The players know it. But we’ve got to try to play it like `another game.’ “
Part of Lamont’s philosophy applied also to the capacity crowd of 42,116 fans who turned out on a chilly night to watch the Sox clinch their first American League West pennant since 1983.
Bundled up as though they were attending a Bears game at Soldier Field in November, the Comiskey Park fans, like the Sox and their manager, knew this was not “another game.”
They treated it as something special, too. From Wilson Alvarez’s first pitch of the night, they cheered and yelled and twirled white socks over their heads as though this behavior could warm them as well as encourage Lamont’s players.
Bo Jackson must have caught the fever. The man with the artificial hip really heated up the crowd in the sixth inning when he broke up a 0-0 battle by launching a towering, high, two-out flyball that dropped into the left-field seats for a three-run home run and a 3-0 lead.
The only thing cold in Comiskey at this moment was the champagne on ice in the Sox clubhouse.
In the weekend series against the Texas Rangers, Comiskey fans roared from start to finish for strikeouts when Sox pitchers reached two-strike counts on hitters. The same practice continued Monday.
The first big batter-pitcher confrontation of the night came in the Mariners’ first inning, when Alvarez got ahead one ball and two strikes against 43-home-run slugger Ken Griffey Jr. As fans screamed for the third strike, Griffey took ball two, ball three, then fouled off three pitches. Finally, he popped to Craig Grebeck at second. It wasn’t a strikeout, but it still drew a huge cheer and more sock-twirling.
The weather alone set this night apart from most others in the 162-game schedule. The temperature was 52 degrees. A brisk wind of 9 m.p.h. whipped out of the west. Welcome to postseason-type baseball weather in Chicago.
Hot chocolate and coffee were big sellers at concession stands. Still, beer sales remained brisk.
Fans wore Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks jackets as well as heavy White Sox wear. They wore hoods, stocking caps, parkas, mittens, stadium boots, sweat pants. They huddled beneath blankets.
If native Chicagoans were cold, the White Sox might have been colder. Every member of the Sox starting lineup lives or grew up in a warm-weather climate.
Ellis Burks lives in Ft. Worth, Texas; Grebeck in Cerritos, Calif. Frank Thomas grew up in Columbus, Ga.; Jackson in Bessemer, Ala. George Bell lives in the Dominican Republic; Robin Ventura in Santa Maria, Calif.; Lance Johnson in Mobile, Ala.; and Ron Karkovice in Orlando. Ozzie Guillen and Alvarez are both from Venezuela.
The White Sox donned long johns, sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets. Guillen took batting practice with a woolen cap under his batting helmet.
While the Sox offense struggled, Alvarez gave the pennant-hungry fans plenty of opportunities to cheer. They gave him a noisy salute when he registered his fifth strikeout, getting Mike Blowers to retire the side in the fourth. Alvarez struck out six Mariners in recording his 15th victory.
