Then, Not Now

I try to live in the present as much as possible, given how the past is always tugging at me.  It does no good to focus on Clare as a child or bat-swinging teen; she’ll still be six days away from her wedding.  Baseball, thankfully, is different.  MLB all but begs you to indulge in nostalgia, with Cooperstown and “turn back the clock” games.  But I prefer to do my own time travel.

For some reason, the 1940s White Sox hold a special attraction to me.  Maybe because they give way to the Go-Go teams of the 1950s, maybe because Ted Lyons came back from the war to play the good soldier in the dugout, managing some awful teams; the Sox had seven consecutive losing seasons, 1944-1950.  Whatever the motivation, I’ve been collecting photos of Comiskey Park as well as Sox players from the era, along with other stuff.

This week, I got the decal I bought off of eBay; it’s a four-inch square turned into a diamond by what’s printed on it.  On the front is “Watch the White Sox Play 1940” and on the back is the schedule, starting with that Opening Day no-hitter by Bob Feller.  I’ve already mentioned Luke Appling’s contention he was robbed of a hit in that game by an umpire. All I could find in the Tribune was mention of a ten-pitch walk Appling managed with two out in the ninth.

Next up courtesy of eBay is a sticker of a cartoon figure the Sox used in the ’40s, of a player dragging an oversized bat.  Somehow, the piece ended up in England, so I’m doing my patriotic duty by repatriating it.  Sure beats watching a team in “rebuild.”