SoxFest, Part 1

Fan conventions are perfect for anyone who enjoys waiting in line the way Clare and I did yesterday during SoxFest, held at the venerable Chicago (nee Conrad) Hilton downtown.  Per my daughter’s orders, we arrived a half-hour before the 9 AM opening; that was line #1.  The next one formed in front of autographs for Daniel Palka and Adam Engel.  The line was capped at 250, but it felt more like a couple of thousand, with us at 1,999.

 

Since we had nothing better to do than stand there, I told Clare the story about how I almost met Joe DiMaggio a year or two before we were born.  Maybe it would be more accurate to say that DiMaggio and I found ourselves in the same room at a memorabilia show in the south suburbs, ca. the summer of 1990.  Only the Yankee Clipper would not allow anyone to catch a glimpse of him without paying first.  To enforce that no-see policy, DiMaggio sat behind an all-encompassing curtain.  The paying customers had their audience (no doubt with a lackey holding a stopwatch to keep anyone from hogging the time) while the rest of us could only imagine.

 

A man behind us overheard and chipped in about how he met Ted Williams as an 11-year old.  Supposedly, the Splendid Splinter was on his best behavior that day.  I’m skeptical because of that story I read about Williams autographing a ball for a kid in Chicago and then throwing it out the team-bus window.  But at least the kid could see the demigod’s face.

 

The wait wasn’t as bad as I’d feared.  When the time came, I snapped a photo of Clare and Palka; my daughter is the one wearing the “Palkamania” tee-shirt.  Yours truly received an autographed picture, signed “To Bukowski from Palka[:] It takes one to know one.  When I said it was because we were both such good basketball players, Palka added a little something tall-tale-ish in nature.  As for Engel, I asked if he knew anything about long-ago White Sox centerfielder Ken Berry.  When he said No, I told him to ask broadcaster Ed Farmer.

 

We were done around 10:30 AM, with the next thing Clare was interested in starting at 1 PM.  And here I thought I was done being a parent who had to keep his kid occupied.