Erasing 46 years of futility and frustration, the White Sox surged into the Fall Classic with a 6-3 victory over the L.A. Angels of Anaheim, sending Sox fans into near delirium.
Throughout the city, fans shook and sang, hugged and cried tears of joy.
“We’ll be dancing in the middle of Western tonight,” said Jerry O’Sullivan, 27, as he watched the game at McNally’s bar near 111th Place and Western Avenue in Beverly. “I expect to hear air raid sirens.”
The sirens, sounded by then-Mayor Richard J. Daley when the Sox clinched the American League pennant in 1959, were silent Sunday night.
Not that there was any need to wake up White Sox Nation. They were plenty loud enough on their own.
Several hundred fans gathered around U.S. Cellular Field, waving flags and cheering as passing motorists honked.
All night, at homes and bars across the city, there was a sense among many Sox fans that this was finally the year.
More than 1,000 fans packed 115 Bourbon Street in Merrionette Park, cheering every Angels out and going batty after every Sox run.
Donna Beck, 45, of Tinley Park was so confident heading into Sunday’s game that she called in sick to work Monday, figuring she would be partied out.
She had planned her next “illness” as well.
“I told them I’m going to be sick next Monday too,” Beck said. “I’m going to be going to a World Series game the night before.”
Throughout the bar, fans lit cigars, clanged glasses in celebratory toasts and threw confetti after the final out.
Mike Terracciano, 30, of Wheaton raised his arms like a prizefighter and started hugging everyone. He immediately called his fiance, a Cubs fan, on the phone.
“I wanted to spread the news,” he said. “The White Sox are going to the World Series. I knew they could do it.”
Tracy Charneia, 29, broke down in tears, crying for her dead grandmother, whom she called the biggest White Sox fan ever.
“I wish she was here,” Charneia said. “This is amazing.”
At McNally’s, fans pounded their hands on the wall with every big play and took turns whacking at a makeshift stuffed “Rally Monkey”–the Angels’ simian mascot–that was hung with yellow twine from a ceiling fan.
Outside, on the bar’s marquee, was a sign that read, “Please God, Let Da Sox beat Da Angels.”
As it turned out, there was no need for divine intervention–just clutch hitting and yet another key umpire’s call.
After catcher A.J. Pierzynski was–correctly–called safe at first on an infield hit, third baseman Joe Crede put the Sox ahead for good in the eighth inning with a dribbler up the middle.
“That was beautiful. Are you kidding me?” screamed Ovi Tisler, 21, as he watched the game at Schaller’s Pump in Bridgeport. “This is like scripted.”
Even Tisler could not have written a better ending.
Chicago police geared up for the celebration, putting extra officers near the bars in Bridgeport, Beverly and around U.S. Cellular Field.
Police spokesman John Mirabelli said his department would put more officers on Rush Street, but no problems were anticipated.
“This is a great time to be a Sox fan and a Chicagoan,” Police Supt. Philip Cline said Sunday in a news release. “Whether fans celebrate tonight, this week or after a World Series victory, we fully expect that they’ll show their pride for the White Sox safely and responsibly.”
Immediately after the game ended, there was near pandemonium outside many South Side bars, but no reports of trouble.
Not that Sox fans are greedy, but few would mind obliterating yet another date in the team’s history book: 1917, their last World Series championship.
“I was there in 1959. This is amazing,” said Joe Larmon, 55, of Charleston, S.C., who watched the game at Cork and Kerry in Beverly. “We’re destiny now. We’re going all the way.”
