A Sunday Afternoon in September

The notion of Chicago being a “city of neighborhoods” is both cliché and truth, depending on the time. Where and when I grew up, it wasn’t so much neighborhoods as parishes. Mine was St. Gall. We lived four blocks west of the church, my grandmother one block north and three blocks east, on the other side of Kedzie. She owned a two-flat and occupied the first floor with her widowed daughter, my Auntie Lou, who was a great White Sox fan. I doubt my grandmother, who left Austrian Galicia when she was little more than a girl, ever attended a game in her life. But she did love her grandson, and for that I’m still grateful. In grade school, I walked over for lunch on days my mother went shopping downtown. If there were a lot of sales on State Street that day, I went back after school and waited to be picked up. There were always enough Salerno butter cookies to tide me over. In summer, my aunt would go on vacation, and the grandchildren took turns sleeping over. In fall, I went over either to dig up carrots in the garden or pick strawberries; the carrots may have been easier. Mowing the lawn was good for a quarter. My grandmother had a flip-handle Sunbeam electric with a metallic blue-green paint job. They show up from time to time on eBay. I was over on a Sunday in September, the start of sophomore year, to mow the lawn. The White Sox were a game-and-a-half back of the Twins and Red Sox with the Tigers in town, Joel Horlen vs. Joe Sparma. I’d mow a section of lawn, then come in to watch an inning on TV. My grandmother didn’t mind. I may have been her favorite. This went on for the backyard and the gangway; for some reason, there was a large stretch of grass between houses on the east side. It was the same for out front, mow and check, mow and check. At some point I realized Horlen had a no-hitter going, but I still went back out to mow the lawn. Don’t ask me why, superstition, probably. I remember Cotton Nash coming into play first base for Ken Boyer in the top of the ninth and Jerry Lumpe making an out. According to baseball-reference.com, Bill Heath and Dick McAuliffe did likewise to end the game. It was Horlen’s sixteenth win of the season, a hit-by-pitch and error by Boyer short of perfection. I’d forgotten it was a Sunday doubleheader. The Sox won the second game, too, also a shutout, though the Tigers did manage five hits. It was such a tight pennant race in 1967—Sox, Tigers, Twins and Red Sox—that the teams were allowed to go and print World Series’ tickets. My aunt bought two for us, only for the Sox to collapse that last week of the season. She died in 1972 while Horlen passed away last week. I haven’t seen any mention of it by the Sox.