We gone!

Cait Higgins, Sox Superfan

Last year, it came down to the wire. Twins, Tigers, White Sox. This year we’re the first team in our division to be eliminated! Oh well. I guess this season has come to a bittersweet end. Even though we haven’t started the postseason, our season is virtually over. I say it is bittersweet because of ‘05 and then how close we came last year, only to be on the verge of being worse than the Cubs last year (that’s 96 losses, if you don’t remember). The sweet part comes from how the painful season is finally over. We can go to the game and enjoy the fun. Richard Roeper (my hero) made a comment in his article the other day that he has come down to trying to give away his season tickets: “First prize, two tickets to the Sox game. Second prize? FOUR tickets to the Sox game!” Another great quote I heard this week comes from my other favorite Sox fan, Mr. Steve Dahl. He said that this is the time of the season where the fun starts. I believe he referred to it is “Ligue Season” after the infamous father and son duo who decided to beat up the Royals’ first base coach Tom Gamboa in 2002.

Something we can look forward to is having our players back. I can’t wait till spring training when I can see Joe Crede and Scott Podsednik 100% and healthy after a nice relaxing offseason. I’ll be looking forward to seeing them back and ready to perform. If we can have those two guys in ‘05 shape, we wont be in the same spot we’re in right now. And, a year from now if the good people at NBC5 decide to do this again, and I get the honor of blogging my team’s season highs and lows, I will be writing in a much less somber tone.

We have witnessed some of the most wonderful milestones this season. Mark Buehrle no hit the Rangers in April! How exciting was that?! He also got his 100th career win in June against the Astros! Bobby Jenks broke the American League record and is tied for the Major League record for most consecutive batters retired! Jim Thome is (as I am writing this) TWO away from hitting his 500th home run… and he is ready to do it against his old team! Juan Uribe just got his 100th career homer. It has been a good season for milestones for our Sox. I guess if you have to look on the brightside, those are the places you can start.

I hope we will be able to continue blogging into the post-season, just to see how everything plays out. I am pulling, I mean PULLING for the BREWERS (obviously, even though I couldn’t complain if the Cardinals won the Central) and the Mets. So, we’ll see how that turns out. Now that there is that big “E” next to our stats, I can say that I am spending the rest of the energy that is not being burned out by school on rooting against the Cubs. Not to diss any Cubs fans or my fellow bloggers on the northside, just to do what I’ve always done. This year, though, their losing means so much more to me than it ever has before. I’ve been harassed by too many a northsider (I go to school at Loyola, so I am CONSTANTLY surrounded by Cub Nation) to let the team get away without my entire baseball soul rooting against them.

On that note, I think I will focus on my major: sports. Let’s go White Sox. Let’s pull this one out. Let’s use this time to ruin the other teams’ chances to go to the postseason. Let’s get the Royals in there! All kidding aside, let’s focus on knocking these Indians out!