In a word, the city was glowing Thursday.
The White Sox had been a proxy for this city of blue-collar roots, of smarting Second City status, of a million real and perceived adversities hung on it and its South Side team.
In a stroke this week, the Sox washed those cares away, in what locals recognized as the Chicago way: hard work.
What happened after the Sox won was more than a World Series victory–it was akin to relief.
As the World Champion White Sox returned to Midway on Thursday, fans stood seven deep along 63rd Street to welcome them home.
Manager Ozzie Guillen jumped from his limousine to walk along the route, a parade marshal for a block, shaking hands and talking to well-wishers.
Other players waved from cars that crawled down the street. From the sidewalk, waves of screams rose and fell against a background of steady applause.
The crowd formed three hours before the team’s 3:30 p.m. arrival. Those who got there late saw the impenetrable scrum and climbed up–onto street signs, fences and light posts. Flags and homemade placards bounced and waved in the humanity.
“You’ve made history,” one sign told the White Sox.
“Don’t Stop Believing!” another exhorted.
Most signs were simple: “World Series Champion Chicago White Sox.”
It seemed to say everything.
“I cried when they clinched,” said Art Baltazar, 36, of Archer Heights. “I cried when they beat the Angels. I’ve been crying all week.”
Near U.S. Cellular Field on Thursday, honking cars cruised by as fans cheered or waved Sox flags well into the afternoon. Residents of nearby Bridgeport wore the team’s World Series victory like a new suit.
“We’re the center of attention right now,” said lifelong resident Shirley Mesa, 45, as TV news crews filmed her and about 200 others waiting to buy Sox memorabilia inside the Grandstand souvenir shop on 35th Street. “At last, something positive.”
“It’s a burden I’ve carried since I was a young boy,” said Reggie White, who has lived all his 40 years on the South Side, his team never visiting a World Series in all that time.
The feeling he had now–being a winner–was too much to contain.
“I feel like a champ!” he shouted in the middle of a conversation. “I feel like a champ!”
The people around him seized on the outburst, too, repeating it like a cheer.
“I feel like a champ! I feel like a champ!” they said.
At sporting good stores in Bridgeport, the Loop and elsewhere, shop floors were crowded and fans formed lines to buy trinkets that not only said “White Sox,” but “World Series.”
“You feel like it was you. You feel like the winner,” said Sylvia Gomez, 46, of Chicago Lawn. She couldn’t sleep Wednesday night, she said, and Thursday night didn’t look much better.
“I hope God blesses them, because they made us all winners,” she said.
It was something magical that happens when a professional baseball team wins a game in Houston on Wednesday, and an anonymous man downtown is pumping his fist Thursday at passersby in Sox gear and declaring, “We did it!”
“This isn’t about a sport. This is about life,” said Gene Hynes, 54, a traveling GMC salesman from Plainfield with a lingering jealousy of fans of championship teams.
With bags under his eyes and a smile on his face, he is adjusting to a different reality now.
“You don’t have to hold your head down anymore,” Hynes said. “I can look at Yankees fans with pride now. I can say ‘We won the World Series.’ “
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SOX REFLECTIONS
After the Sox’s amazing World Series, chicagosports.com collected reflections from fans explaining what this win means to them. Here are a few excerpts:
“This year the unthinkable has happened, and the White Sox are the 2005 World Series Champions. My only regret is that my father, who passed away in 1995, is not physically around to enjoy this happiness. I do know that in heaven today my father is walking around in his Sox cap with pride and lots of joy.”
–Orlando, Elgin
“My parents moved to Chicago in the late ’50s. Even though he never was able to attend a game, my dad was a White Sox fan. I attended my first game in high school and have loved them since. The summer of ’93, my dad started getting sick. In July I told him I was taking him and mom to their first White Sox game, box seats and all, along with his two grandkids. His face that night said it all. Two months later my dad passed away. I am so glad I was able to attend that game with him.”
–Sherri Beller, New Lenox
“I’m a product of a mixed marriage (Sox fan mom, Cubs fan dad). Baseball has always been my favorite sport, and the Sox my favorite team. My grandfather (my mom’s dad) was a huge Sox fan. … My grandfather passed on in 2001 and missed all the excitement. He lived and died without seeing one World Series champion. I like to think he’s watching from above, cheering them all the way.”
–JP, Chicago
“One of my first dates was to a Sox game. My date told me tradition was to spill a beer on at least one person. Nice date, huh? Well, I got drunk and knocked a carton of four beers on a nice family of four. I believe my date felt he was in love with me at that moment. Moving to 2005, I am a Cubs fan, but I wept with deep joy for the Chicago White Sox. I couldn’t be happier.”
–Sarah Jackson, Astoria, N.Y.
“I am almost crying when I am writing this. My father, who died in 2001, was the biggest Sox fan I knew, and followed them through thick and thin. The most important thing that he did was help introduce his little boy to the joy of baseball, which still remains as I turn 45. … I wish he was here to celebrate today, but I am sure that he is smiling from heaven. Congratulations, SOX you deserve it!!!”
–Robert Tatum, Philadelphia
