Black Sox Faction

On Over
Sure, Kittle was one of the sparks of the 1983 team, Bere was 14-2 in 1993, and Iguchi was a key to the 2005 team: but shit, all that is eclipsed by that half of a second of a half of a second after Lex Ramirez swung the Sox into game 163 yesterday. He knew it, I knew it, we all knew it - even Minny knew it: that giantic swing wrought a giantic homer and kept the Sox on the road to another World Championship.

I will straight away amidt that this season has beenone of my favourite seasons of all time. We didn't think the team in 2000 or 2005 had a chance entering the season. But this year we expected even less: I scoffed @ GM Wiliams assesment of the Detroit trade that netted them Cabrera and Willis over the winter "It puts detroit in a better position to compete with us". What? And in the end he was right: Detroit couldn't compete for the one game the Sox needed them to win.

The season has been so exciting. Yes, the team has had it's downtimes - what team other than the Angels have not had them this year? Sometimes it was the starters, the relievers, the fielders, or the batters. Yes, injuries -in the form of both of the teams All Stars - have disrupted this team more than the other surviving teams, (but not as bad as, say, Cleveland. But the continued scrapping of the team - time after time they were left for dead before and during - and even the day after the end of the regular season- that to have them playing now is just a treat.

Funny. The addction to this team started early. There probably has not been another season of heavy transistor radio listening for me than this year. I have compulsively have watched and suffered this team the whole year, and they are JUST ABOUT THERE.

So-one game. AS Hawk would say it, "Thrill me one time". And can they do it? Like I wrote yesterday, anyone can win in a baseball game. The reason they play 162 games, instead of 16 or or 30 or 82 or whatever is because any team can win on a given day. Either team could win to-nite, and it would not be an upset. However, there are numbers and feelings that point well towards the Sox.

Though last weeks sweep by the Twins of the Sox was a horrow show and dropped them to 1-8 in Minny, Comiskey has had a similar hold on the Twins: they are 2-7. The Sox themselves have the fourth best home record in baseball. And even though one may assume that the twins sweep of the Sox would prove decisive - it's now the Sox who are on a huge roll. Even though Detroit and Cleveland were playing out the year, the Sox won the last two MUST WIN games. The Twins went 1-2 to end the regular season, when 2-1 would have them in Florida already waiting for the Rays. One can imagine that the twins, watching Lex's granny, had to be.....displeased that they had to go to the airport to catch a plane to Midway.

And the Twins mite win. They are good, and 88 wins are decent. John Danks will be on 3 days rest for the first time in his MLB career, and he is 1-1 in 4 starts w/ a huge ERA this year.

But man, that instant happiness in that half second of a half second right after Lex's swing. I just gotta see that again to-night. Or, as this game is on cable, i gotta listen for it.