At long last Chicago wins a World Series

I am not as rabid a fan as I used to be mainly because of the inflated salaries of the egocentric, steroid enriched athletes who play baseball today. However, the White Sox were a refreshing change. They won because they had a balanced team that mastered the fundamentals of baseball. Good pitching, good defense, good base running, timely hitting, and Manager Ozzie Guillen's skillfull handling of his players left no doubt who was the best team in baseball this year. The Sox's victory showed that you don't need the best ball players that money can buy, ala George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees, to win the World Series.

The White Sox have always been over shadowed by the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs play in the North Side which is inhabited by the Yuppies and the wine and brie crowd. The Cubs receive a lot of press from the likes of columnist George Will, the master of obfuscation, and others of his ilk. However, the poor White Sox have to play in a neighborhood that borders the project houses in Chicago and no one dares to wander too far from the stadium after a night game. Basically, the White Sox are blue collar and the Cubs white collar.

No one on the White Sox is considered a super star or is a darling of the press like Derek Jeter of the Yankees. Instead, the players almost seem to be a microcosm of Chicago itself with names like A. J. Pierzynski, Paul Konerko, and Scott Podsednik.

The Sox's victory brought to mind the local Sox fans who have been waiting in the wings for so many years for a World Series victory. Probably the biggest Sox fan I know is Mike McKay and I congratulate him, Jack Jochums, James Weistart and my brother Don who have all been life long White Sox fans. My late father was also a life long fan and he would really have enjoyed seeing the Sox win the Series. Another great Sox fan was the late George Sabol who ran the Glass Bar Tavern, currently the site of Jess's Pub, for many years.

One of the outcomes of the World Series is that it drew lower ratings for the Fox Network, who broadcasted the World Series. Evidently, the White Sox and the Astros are not big favorites nationwide. So it seems necessary for Major League Baseball to figure out how to get an East or West Coast team back into the Series so that the networks can make money again and Major League Baseball can fatten up its pension fund even more.

Maybe Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, can create a true World Series with teams from Japan, Mexico, and Latin America participating. Then Americans can be united on who they root for. I mean something has to be done. We can't stand to have the networks to continue to lose money. After all, they are the tail wagging the Major League dog. Maybe making 4 strikes for an out or moving the pitcher's mound back another 10 feet will result in more home runs and bring back fan interest. Since players are no longer allowed to use steroids, something has to be done.

Or maybe we should leave the game the way it is and if it doesn't create enough fanfare for the networks to televise the game, then salaries will dwindle and people may have to go to the ballpark to see the game and watch players who are playing for the love of the game. Maybe the playoffs will have to be dropped because of no television. This would mean that the team who won the most games during the regular season would go to the World Series instead of taking a chance of getting bumped off by another team that hit a hot streak. In addition, the World Series could be played in the summer rather than the winter. Incredible! Why didn't we think of that before?

It doesn't stop there either. Without television revenue, ball parks may have to be preserved since it would be too expensive to tear them down every 20 years. Players will no longer be paid large sums to advertise Viagra because only the local fans will know who he is. It seems like without television, baseball will have to revert to its original form. Wouldn't that be something? Then it would be a treat to go see a game in person, the way it was meant to be watched and played the way it was meant to be played - like the way the Chicago White Sox played this year.