Never Can Say Goodbye

 Clare and her boyfriend Chris went to the White Sox game yesterday afternoon against the Braves.  Talk about homecoming for ex-Sox players.  Gordon Beckham, Tyler Flowers and A.J. Pierzynski all played for Atlanta.  Only A.J., four years gone and counting, got a standing ovation.  The TV cameras showed Clare—in her Pierzynski Sox jersey—and Chris on their feet with everyone else.  

Sox fans want their players to be one of two ways, in the spirit of Paul Konerko or A.J.  Paulie is who we’re supposed to be, a perfectionist dedicated to his craft to the day he retires, and fearless, like the game he took a pitch in the face and later hit a homerun.  That’s South Side.

And A.J.?  He’s the punk our parents told us not to hang out with after school; he was too smart for his own good.  But even a good boy like Paulie probably couldn’t resist.  We all wanted to be as sharp, as tall, as good-looking, as cocky, as talented as A.J.  Oh, and fearless, or do I mean reckless?  It all depends on what dugout you’re sitting in, I guess. A.J. was so perfect he could pass for a North Sider, not that he ever wanted to.     

Sox fans, myself included, are of a type who would cut off their nose to spite their face.  We hate Cub fans for filling up Wrigley Field while refusing to do the same at the Cell.  I think it goes back to Jerry Reinsdorf threatening to move the team in the late ’80s to get a new stadium and then masterminding the owners’ lockout in ’94; south of Madison Street, we can be quick to take offense, slow to forgive. 

If Reinsdorf wants anything close to acceptance, he brings back A.J., immediately if not sooner.