Time flies. Fifty years ago to the day, the White Sox
played the Red Sox in a day game at Fenway Park. I watched in between getting dressed for
graduation from St. Laurence High School.
Between the TV and the radio in
the car (the ceremonies were at Medinah Temple on the Near North Side), I
must’ve been aware of some of the ten hits Walt Williams and Luis Aparicio had
between them at the top of the order, five apiece. It’s even possible the game was still on when
we got back in the car, what with a final score of 22-13 with 40 hits
total. What a graduation gift, as my Sox
won.
The 400 or so young men of St.
Laurence waited in line, the way they had been taught to do over the past four
years. In our white tuxedoes, we looked
like an army of waiters ready for duty at the world’s biggest country
club. There was probably a shake of the
hands for every waiter/graduate along with the unsaid hope none of us would die
in Vietnam.
It would be a miserable summer
both for me and my team, which would finish the season at 56-106. I spent seven or eight weeks taking public
transportation—two buses and the “L”—to get to a job close to the Indiana
border by 7 in the morning. Because I
couldn’t, or wouldn’t, I actually got fired from a City of Chicago patronage
job. From there it was stocking shelves
at Walgreens. I would live and learn.
And the White Sox would grow interesting
by season’s end with Chuck Tanner taking over in the dugout and Roland Hemond
in the front office. By September, I was
off to college (more bus and “L” rides), a White Sox fan making his way on the
faraway North Side of Chicago.
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