Welcome to
Alphabe-Thursday sponsored by Ms. Jenny at
Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent." This week we are studying the letter "C" as in
CHICAGO White Sox.
My Dad was born in 1918 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He lived most of his life in Westwood, New Jersey...a suburb of New York City. Dad loved the CHICAGO White Sox and hated the New York Yankees.
When Dad was in Boy Scouts the kids in the troop decided to each pick a baseball team. Dad chose the CHICAGO White Sox. He told me that when they got to him there weren't many teams left, so he went with the White Sox. The White Sox have probably never had a more loyal fan. For the rest of his life he followed his team all the way into his 90's. Win or lose he was a loyal fan.
I can remember Dad sitting in the garage in our 1956 DeSoto listening to the baseball game. He had discovered that the car radio could pick up the Baltimore radio station. So, when the White Sox played Baltimore he could listen to the games.
This was long before cable and satellite TV. Dad mostly followed his team in the newspapers. That was the only way back then. Yes, when they played the Yankees he could watch the games on the New York television station or listen on the radio. Sometimes he even went to Yankee Stadium and watched them play there. Although he visited Chicago a couple of times it was never during baseball season, so he never saw them play in person at home.
His loyalty never wavered. Yes, he'd get upset when they lost, but he'd be ecstatic when they won.
Over the years we always knew what to get Dad for Christmas, birthdays, Father's Day, etc. It made shopping easy.
Dad was a good sport and Mom would send pictures.
In 2005 Dad's prayers were answered. The CHICAGO White Sox were World Series Champions for the first time in his life. They beat our Houston Astros. Dad was still living in New Jersey and he would watch the games and call me in Texas afterwards. Of course, I was watching from here. I remember one game went into extra innings. Fourteen to be exact. It was very late at night when he called, but he was so excited. He was almost 87 years old and I was so grateful when he finally got to see his team as World Champions even though it meant the Astros lost.
That Christmas we gave Dad a
legacy brick. The
CHICAGO White Sox charities sold bricks to commemorate the team's World Series win. Dad was excited when he found out that his name would be enshrined at Cellular Field. None of us have ever seen his actual brick in CHICAGO, but I have a duplicate sitting on the bookshelf in my den. It says, "BILL DURGIN OF NJ - LOYAL FAN SINCE 1932." (If anyone reading this lives in Chicago and goes to Cellular Field please take a picture for me. As I recall we were told that his brick is somewhere on the legacy brick diamond near first base.)
Eventually, Dad moved to Assisted Living in Texas. I signed up for the CHICAGO White Sox games online. I'd bring Dad over to my house so he could watch the games. For the first time in his life he was able to watch most of them. He'd sit in front of the computer and come to life. It was like he was a little kid again.
Eventually, Alzheimer's took it's toll on Dad. However, he remembered his CHICAGO White Sox. Every day he wore his White Sox cap. He even had the White Sox logo painted on his face at an Assisted Living event.
Eventually he had to be moved to a nursing home. When we went to visit him the day before he died he was sitting in a wheelchair wearing his CHICAGO White Sox cap. He was loyal to his team until the very end.
I still get online notifications from the CHICAGO White Sox when they play a game. I had signed up when Dad moved here and I decided to keep following them after Dad died. In a way I feel a piece of Dad is still with me when I get their box scores.
Now head over to
Jenny's blog for a list of this week's participants. Thank you for visiting.
