Nothing like perfection to cement a memory

Nothing like perfection to cement a memory

John Kass
July 24, 2009

As Mark Buehrle was pitching late in the game on Thursday, legendary White Sox TV announcer "Hawk" Harrelson gave the rest of us permission to get on the phone.

Hawk wasn't quiet about it either. Hawk sounded like the top of his head was about to pop off.

"Call your sons! Call your daughters! Call your friends! Call your neighbors! Mark Buehrle has a perfect game going into the ninth!" yelled Hawk, who's been playing and calling games since just before Constantinople fell to the Turks.

So if Hawk said it was OK to call, it was OK. Even foolish mythological creatures like the wild Heinie Bird know you can't jinx a perfect game from a phone. This wasn't some stupid church-of-baseball movie, like the one my wife made me see with Kevin Costner pitching a perfect game, ponderous and serious, poetic flashbacks on his troubles with Kelly Preston, reminding himself to "clear the mechanism."

Buehrle wasn't a poet clearing his mechanism. Buehrle hunts and drives a truck. He was goofing around in the dugout. And all of us could see.

My boys were with their buddies, 8th graders crowded around the TV set, but this time without Xbox controls in their hands. "Yeah dad," they said. "We're watching."

Back in my office cubbyhole, some crazed Sox fan started shrieking "Come ON! They're SQUEEZING HIM!" when home plate umpire Eric Cooper didn't give Buehrle an inside strike. The crazed fan shrieked so loudly that distinguished editorial board members came rushing out of their offices, squinting, befuddled, to find out who'd released the madman.

You've got your own story, about where you were and what you were doing, and baseball is like that, especially perfect games, of which there had been only 16 in regular-season history until Buehrle's.

Even in Cubs bars, like the Billy Goat Tavern, they were watching. At the Goat, they only use the siren for Great Moments in Cubs History. But in a heroic display of cloven-hoofed bipartisanship, Jeff the Bartender cranked the siren for Buehrle and the Sox.

"Sure, I did," confessed Jeff. "I'm a baseball fan. And Buehrle seems more like a Cub to me."

I thought of all the calls going out across Chicago and the suburbs and the state, people sharing this. Even America's No. 1 Sox fan, the skinny guy with the ears in the presidential limousine, must have slammed the red phone down on a foreign leader.

"I don't care what the Chinese Navy is doing!" President Obama probably said. "Buehrle's perfect through 7! Hawk said it's OK to call Rich Daley! Gotta go! See ya. Go Sox!"

My friend and former colleague Bob Vanderberg, who knows more about Sox history than any man alive, was at the game Thursday. Vandy called me when he got home from the ballpark.

"Billy Pierce had a perfect game going in June of 1958," Vandy said. "Until the 9th, when a pinch hitter came in and hit a bloop double to right. It hit the chalk."

On Thursday, center fielder Dewayne Wise made the catch to save Buehrle's perfect game in the 9th. Wise ran to the wall and climbed up the image of Pierce's face on the padding out in left center.

"It was as if to say this time, Billy, we're going to win it for you," Vanderberg said.

Baseball history is important to fans. We crave it and pass it down carefully, as if we're monks of Ireland saving civilization. But Wise isn't a monk. He's paid to catch the ball.

And that's what every Sox fan will remember, Wise running back and leaping, his right knee digging into Pierce's right cheekbone, sticking his glove over the wall to rob Tampa Bay right fielder Gabe Kapler of that home run. The ball almost popped out of his glove, and in that uncertain split second, Wise corralled it with his throwing hand.

As he slammed the wall, I thought of the last time Wise sold his body out to make a desperate catch, back in April when he robbed the Tigers of a sure double with two runners on base, hurting his shoulder in the process. Wise separated his right shoulder that night and spent an eternity on the disabled list and the shoulder hasn't been the same. Still, on Thursday he ran into the wall.

John Buehrle, Mark's father, was on Comcast SportsNet later, saying he phoned his son.

"I called him after, just like I have every game since he's been in baseball, and left him a little personal message," said Buehrle's dad, who has a pacemaker in his heart and said he needed it during the ninth inning. "And I said, make sure to give Mr. Wise a hug for me."

When the game ended, naturally I called my boys.

"Wise should stay on the Sox for the rest of his life," said the one with the Buehrle poster over his bed.

"That was the greatest catch I've ever seen in my life," said the other.

They're only in 8th grade. They'll see other catches, other games. But this one will always be perfect.

jskass@tribune.com

I Love This Commercial

Its good to have baseball back.

5 More Months

I think pitchers and catchers usually report mid-February, right?

As Long As There Are Playoffs, There Will Be Prayer in Sports

I always laugh when someone says 'As long as there are tests there will be prayer in public schools' because its so true. I think the same can be said of sports and playoffs.


A Chicago White Sox fan prays as Sox closer Bobby Jenks faces the last batter to win 5-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in game three.
Tribune photo by Charles Cherney / October 5, 2008


I know Bobby Jenks has brought me to prayer more than just a few times this season.


Tom Portway holds St. Christopher medal in his mouth as as Sox closer Bobby Jenks faces the last batter to win 5-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in game three.
Tribune photo by Charles Cherney / October 5, 2008

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Chicago White Sox fans warm up in the stands as the Sox prepare to host the Minnesota Twins in a one game playoff for the American League Central crown, in Chicago.
Tribune photo by Charles Cherney / September 30, 2008

On the Edge of My Seat

The White Sox are playing a one-game tiebreaker with Minnesota tonight to see who gets the Central title. I only wish the Sox had taken up my suggestion a few years ago of cloning Mark Buehrle so we could have him pitching tonight - but he did an excellent job last night to get us to this tiebreaker.

My hopes are not high, even if they win this game, but lets Go Go-Go White Sox, Chicago is proud of you.

Slow Day

The Sox just won the game in 14 with a 3 run homerun from Swish. I actually can't believe I sat here and watched the whole game, they were down 6 - 1 at one point early on. Thats cool. The fans that stayed for the whole game got quite a show. I'm supposed to go to the game on Thursday with my Dad, I'm looking forward to that.

Today was a slow day. We had the big storms last night, the power went out around 8 or 8:30 and didn't come back on until 1:30. I'm glad it came on when it did, it was getting hot in the house and I was waking up about every 20 minutes or so. It was just an overall weird night. I was working on my computer about 7:45 or so when I heard my Dad calling me, I opened the door to see what he wanted and he said we needed to get in the basement because the sirens were going off. I grabbed a pillow, unplugged my laptop and ran downstairs with it.

Bringing the laptop for me actually makes a lot of sense. When we do get these storms where we do have to retreat into the basement I usually start getting nervous as all there is to do is turn on the TV and think about the storm overhead. With the laptop I could follow the storm, but also do other things, post on some message boards and think about some other things too.

After the first big storm passed we were all ready to go back to our normal stuff when the power went out. Funny thing is even when the power is out there is still a glow in the sky from the city so it wasn't pitch black. I could see there were all kinds of branches down in front of our house and I could look out the frontroom window and see that there was a very large branch blocking the street (I live on an intersection between two streets that make a T so it wasn't my street that was blocked it was the other). I got to watch all kinds of cars try to go down that street, then turn around and go back. As time dragged on it was getting hot and I was bored. I ended up watching some videos on my Zune. The power was spotty at best this morning, but it seems to be on for good now. We are lucky because there are a lot of people who don't have power right now and may not have it for a few days.

I ended up not doing too much today. The big highlight of the day seemed to be when Hogan's Heroes came on TV this afternoon. Hopefully there will be more going on tomorrow. Looks like another hot day, I'm really not looking forward to walking to the bus.

I Voted, Have You?

I punched for Jermaine Dye for the American League, and Aaron Rowand for the National League.



Vote for the final two spots for the All Star Game

Thome & The Fan

Not only is Jim Thome a classy guy, but so is the man who caught his 500th homer ball.

Instead of trying to sell the ball on ebay for a quick payoff, Will Stewart gave it back to Thome, who plans on bringing it to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

"I feel it is a part of Chicago baseball history," said Stewart, right after handing the ball back to the White Sox slugger during a postgame press conference.

In exchange for the ball the White Sox are giving Stewart a bunch of goodies. Given to Stewart were a pair of season tickets for next year, but being from Texas he couldn't use them, so he gave them back to Thome to donate to one of the charities he works with.

"As I'm from Austin, Texas, and not from the great city of Chicago and not able to use the season tickets, I've asked to donate the season tickets to your charity for use," Stewart said. "That's the best thing I can think of to give back to the city of Chicago."

The Sox are going to fly Stewart and some of his friends up next year for one of the Cubs-Sox games which they will watch from Thome's box.

When we get so many negative views of sports figures and even people at the game, its a welcome sight to see people acting so wonderfully.

Thome is My Homie

Jim Thome hits his 500th homerun.



Mega-congrats to a guy who is supposed to be a genuinely nice and down-to-earth guy.

9/11 and America's Pastime

A friend of mine had free tickets to the Sox game so we went this evening. Security was different at today's game than normal. I had my purse checked twice before entering the stadium, and they patted down my brothers jacket which wasn't normal. They had a moment of silence to remember the victims of 9/11 which was very eerie because its not normal to have almost 32,000 people so quiet. A group of some kind sang the National Anthem, and again it was quiet. Usually people cheer through the last line or so, but this time it was quiet until the end. I'm not sure if that had anything to do with the day though.

As usual though the Sox stunk. We did stay through the end of the game. By the end of the game the place was pretty empty. We kept joking that Bobby Jenks doesn't even come in to work anymore, its just a cardboard cutout of him in the back. Oh well, at least it was free.












I took this one as we were leaving. The city is very beautiful at night, the picture really doesn't capture that.

My Friday

If you heard about the Minnesota Twins scoring 35 runs in a double header on Friday, I was there. Or at least the first game. Or at least part of the first game.

My brother bought me Sox tickets for my birthday for April 6th (birthday is April 5th). The April 6th game was canceled due to the extreme cold and that game was replayed 1:05 on Friday.

On Friday I was really wishing that it had been played in the freezing weather in April. It was just bad. I don't even know how to describe it other than bad.

In the 4th inning the Twins were leading with 8, bases loaded, full count, I leaned over and said he's going to toss him a cookie, if its a grand slam I'm leaving. Next pitch it was. We did stay slightly longer than that, but not much more. I have never left a game so early before, but it was far too hot to watch such a terrible game. It is probably good that we left when we did too because I still ended up with a sunburn.

The one good thing about the game was that we were pretty close to the Sox bullpen and I got some nice pictures of our pitcher Jon Garland.







After we left the game we stopped of at the 7-11 that is set up to look like the Kwik-e-Mart from the Simpsons. From what I've heard there are only a few like this in the country so it was pretty neat to go see. I have been a fan of the Simpsons for many years, but the last several seasons have not been very good in my opinion and I don't know if I will go see the movie or not.









And keeping with the political nature of this blog...

Father Corapi

Wow. What a past few days. I started my new job on Thursday and then last night and today I got to see Fr. Corapi speak in Arlington Heights, IL.

Before Fr. Corapi came out there was a sneak preview of a new DVD coming out in a month or two called Champions of Faith: Baseball Edition. The few minutes that they showed us were incredibly moving. The documentary is talking to various baseball stars about their Catholic faith and how it inspires them. Some big names on there too, you know they have to be if I recognize them and they aren't on the White Sox: Mike Piazza, Jeff Suppan, Ivan Rodriguez, Craig Biggio, Juan Pierre, Mike Sweeney, and my very own AJ Pierzynski and Ozzie Guillen were among some of those interviewed. It was just really touching to see how they make their faith such a part of their life. They were accepting pre-orders there so we ordered two of them, one for Dad and one for me. If you have a baseball fan in the family I highly recommend it, but even if you don't or aren't I still recommend it. Mom is not a baseball fan, but she was really moved by it too.

After the Champions of Faith preview was a quick little plug for the movie Bella, which looks really good. Not much was said about it, but they said that if we wanted Hollywood to change and reflect our Christian values that we would have to support good movies when they come out and Bella is one of these. I already wanted to see Bella whenever it comes out so he was preaching to the choir with me, but I'm glad to see that they are getting it out there.

First off for those who may not be completely familiar with Fr. Corapi here is part of his official biography...

Father John Corapi is what has commonly been called a late vocation. In other words, he came to the priesthood other than a young man. He was 44 years old when he was ordained. His experiences prior to ordination have been termed simply astounding, but that is probably somewhat of an overstatement. They might be called extreme, however. From small town boy to the Vietnam era US Army, from millionaire businessman in Las Vegas and Hollywood to drug addicted and homeless, to religious life and ordination to the priesthood by Pope John Paul II, to a life as a preacher of the Gospel who has reached millions with the simple message that God's Name is Mercy!

I saw Fr. Corapi speak in person once before at St. Thomas More parish in Chicago back in, I want to say, 2004. Fr. Corapi comes out and one of the first things we notice is the amount of security he had. There were these big burly guards all around him that reminded me a lot of the secret service guys when we went and saw President Bush. Sadly, it appears that this is indeed necessary because of the many death threats and false accusations made against him. This is something I have heard of him having to deal with before, but still it was rather shocking to see. And since I was sitting directly in front of one of the security guys it was sort of a part of my evening.

He then gave his lecture about leadership. I suppose there really isn't any point in my trying to resay everything he said, because I could never do it because he's too awesome at speaking and I'm too crappy at speaking and remembering what he said. Suffice to say it was very stirring. One thing that stood out to me both last night and today was how much his speech and his phrasing and comparisons are made using military terms and imagery.

After his lecture there was a concert by Tajči. We actually didn't stay for this. Although her voice was beautiful, we had a long day and were tired and were aware of the long day ahead of us.

Waking at 5:50 this morning we made our way to Arlington Heights again. We were standing in line in the cold again by 6:30 (Fr. Corapi was to speak at 9:00). They let us in by 7:30, 8:30 was the rosary and 9:00 was Fr. Corapi. The format of todays talk was Q&A. He covered just about every topic you can think of; Iraq, terrorism, abortion, euthanasia, the priest abuse scandal, crazy "Catholic" antics, "Catholic" politicians, the lack of response from the bishops, drug abuse, media Jesus controversies (the "finding" of Jesus' bones and Jesus' "wife"), where our nation is going, and many more. All of these were discussed with the humor and ability of Fr. Corapi that many of us have grown to love. There was going to be a mass after Fr. Corapi spoke, but we have to go to mass tomorrow for Dad's RCIA, and since I was really uncomfortable from sitting all day long we decided to leave. Inbetween some of Fr. Corapi's lectures Tatiana (Tajci) came out and told her conversion story and what it was like living under an athiestic communist regieme.

It was a really great day. If you have a chance to see Fr. Corapi in person go if you can. If not he's always on TV and the radio preaching and teaching.