went to the whitesox game on monday, may 22nd 2006. it was the triumphant return of frank thomas to US comiscular park (ok its formally US CELLULAR FIELD, but to me it will always be (new) comiskey park)frank thomas got a standing ovation when he was the 2nd batter in the 2nd inning. a massive ~60 second ovation. in turn, he crushed a pitch from OLD BAD JON GARLAND into the left field seats for a homerun, following up with another homerun in his next at bat. then he singled.however in tr00 frank thomas form he popped out to the catcher in either hte 8th or 9th with 2 on and 1 out, thus fortifying arguments that he is NAUGHT CLUTCH.this was a magnanimous game for the whitesox. garland gave up 3 homeruns en route to a 6 1/3 IP 4 ER peformance, which isn't especially good or great in the grand scheme of things, but he didnt let the game get out of hand... matt thornton eventually came in and shut down the A's for an inning and two thirds, including a clutch doubleplay inducement when he came into the game, hten kept them at bay for another full inning.in the bottom of hte 8th the sox scrappily got a run and had a baserunner on... then with two outs believe, rob "monster mack" mackowiak, a pinch hitter for currently-languishing-centerfielder brian anderson, hit a 2 run HR to rightfield which barely made it out of the ballpark, however still tied the game at 4-4. fireworks ensued.then chicago's favourite meatwad, BOBBY JENKS (for some reason i get mental imagery of bobby "that boy just aint right" hill and sashage links, so i have hte nickname sashage jenks for him) and he did his thing. in 2 IP he slammed hte door on the A's, only giving up a dinky single to rightfield, but blew everoyne away with some upper 90s heat and that wicked ~78-80 mph hook/curveball (i prefer the term SNAPDRAGON for curveball)giving the sox two innings to work with, they eventually got runners on first and third with two outs for speedy utilityman/benchplayer extraordinnaire (i mean, at one point dude was 0-3 and his average dipped down to .400) pablo ozuna, who on the first pitch executed a suicide squeeze bunt to perfection. hte runner at third bolted for home, so there was going to be little no chance to get him at home. the only play was to first, where ozuna was racing to. ozuna hustled his arse down the line and forced htem to hurry the throw, which dragged the 1B off the bag, and caused him to drop the ball, which ultimately made ozuna SAAAAFEEEE and allowed te run to score. fireworks ensued. the game was over.the crowds at comiskey are awesome. there's a lot of 20somethings there, fortunately most of them don't seem to be the ignorant fratboy type that populates wrigley field... they're into the game, most of them are explicitly socks fans, and also have a pretty decnet knowledge of baseball (well, at least in terms of the average fan)plus, as it's been for years, the core constituancy of whitesox fans tend to be pretty knowledgeable about baseball. whereas cubs fans berate and terrorize visiting fans who are from out of town to see their team, sox fans often welcome them to comiskey nad show them hospitality. we had befriended thois guy kenny from oakland who was very knowledgeable about baseball. it was neat. A's fans, in my experience, are usually some of the better fans inbaseball judging by who travels. then again, when you're in chicago and seeing a team from california, usually the type of fan that comes out 1/2way or 2/3s across hte country to see their team knows baseball pretty well.anyways, the celebration was raucous but in a good way. the only time i've seen a celebration like this --- aka chanting "lets go whitesox" in the mass exocus of people leaving down the exit ramps and people still yelling and yelping and applauding and WOOING --- was back in 2002 when i went down to champaign, IL on my birthday to see the bears open up the season against the minnesota vikings, and in similar fashion the bears won it i nthelast 2-3 minutes of the game.people were highfiving each other all throughout the ramps, on the streets, on teh train. this team is bringing chicago baseball fans together, and it's a wonderful phenomenon to be caught up in as opposed to the grim stark drunken assholishness that usually accompanies the mediocrity of the cubs over at wrigley.if i were to make a metaphor about the feelings going on.. the cubs are like the suburbs... you get well to do yuppie/post-yuppie types who are usually middleaged nad i nteh family patriarching epoch of their life acting all smug and smarmy. you know, in the burbs all the houses have big fences, and everyone has big ol SUVs htat they lock 2-3 times with the remote keyring lock-remote and they look at you all hard if you pass by their stuff, cuz they're essentially walled off individualists. the sox fans are more citylike in that there's more of a sense of community. more proverbial open arms of people who are all excited to meet new people and talk baseball. at cubs games, sure, you come across people who are willing to talk some baseball, but by and large you get looked at like you're some kind of an asshole who is BOTHERING THEM if you dare to pipe up and bohter htem and talk baseball. plus the daygames cater to the fucking families there.fuck the children. i absolutely loathe the whole "take the kids/family out to the ballgame" convention of baseball. now i'm not overtly boisterous, but those seven arbitrary words that are dentoed as "swears" or "profanity" don't mea jack to me. at wrigley i've had parents turn around and give me THE LOOK cuz whilst talking to my friends or my uncle i might use the full language, you know, with those seven deadly words that would unlock the final seal of the apocalypse if they're said in the proper order. i hate sitting behind a family with kids, they're always eating food ordering drinks, standing up and moving around going ot the bathroom.i mean kids get a free pass cuz they're essentially younger and dumber than adults. hey dont make excuses like they havent had a chance to leanr yet... just do it. i mean, working at a library for years i can tell you that absentee parenting is on the rise. i hate sitting behind these families cuz often the kids are loud and boisterous and needing food constantly, yet if you talk and slip out a word that you use everyday without thinking, you're the giant asshole who is ruining their kids.i've never had this happen at comiskey. the parents just like, you know, get into the ATUAL BAEBALL GAME. PLUS I MEAN, they're just words the kids will eventually word.so yeah this 2006 season it is night and day between comiskey and wrigley. and as time wears on, the "wholesome" cubs image is being exposed as a sham. wrigley is a mix of vapid suburban families who need an excuse to go out and do something together, and their purpose is to go and buy souveniers jerseys and hats and decorate their kids as cubs players; and then its the post-fratboy crowd. the kind of people who look like chicago narcotics units... murphy's bleachers shirts, flocks of 4-5 of them, and they get loud and openly berate people in hats for other teams (not to mention, out of every ballpark i've bene to, the vendors oyutside sell THE MOST anti-(other teams) shirts... there's like 5 varieties of anti-sox shirts, most of htem feature a vandalized logo that says "SUX"... the most offensive seeming one had a st louis cardinal with a bat coming out of its ass that says "THE CARDINALS TAKE IT UP THEIR PUJOLS"yeah. calling fans of other teams, especially a much-hated rival team that happens to be vastly superior to the cubs, faggots... thats the way to go.this is not a total diss on the cubs... i just don't like the manager, the upper management/ownership, most of the fans, and about 1/3 of the players. oh and the ballpark is vastly overrated. im sorry. give me comiskey or miller park any day of the week. so yeah it was an awesome baseball game last night, and after a bunch of sad sack boring games (altho the sox/angels game earlier wasn't bad in that it was 6-0, then the sox made it 6-5 and had a runner on third with 2 outs in the 8th for jim thome, but they didnt convert and then anaheim got 6 in the top of the 9th as it started pouring so like, yeah)but the whitesox will have another legitimate shot at a world series. i'm not going to proclaim the winner of the series, or even in it... i see it like this: i have predicted the whitesox will be in the playoffs, much as i did last year, and then they will have another leigitmate shot at winning it all... cuz besides being better on paper (thome is a GIANT UPGRADE over this old frank thomas incarnation, despite his 2HR last night, .290/17/46 versus .190/9/25 is no contest... not to mention, two bad outings have brought javvy vazquez's era up to 4.42 or something, but i think he'll end up with a 3.75ish ERA and 15-20 wins still, and 200+ Ks) this team has the "it" factor... call it chemistry, call it comraderie, or call it a "never say die" attitude... they play their asses off and never give up, even if its a 4-6 run defecit early in the game oyu almost KNOW that they're going to come back. so you can never say for sure cuz injuries can bite hard... what if they lose thome and a starter and garland continues to suck? what if detroit rails off a 20 game winning streak? its sitll baseball, and as such inherently unpredictable, its just that right now there is a potentailly long (3-5 years? lets hope aloud) window for success on the southside of chicago, and the whitesox are capitalizing on it by making the sox far more appealing and homely and enjoyable than the product on the other side of town. i always said this organization tries harder to win, and the organization always claimed that they'd spend the money if the fans showed up.well last night was a sellout, and games are like 25-30+ K per game, which means the tickets are getting sold, and the sox opened up the pocketbook for a big contract to konerko, and they took on thome's salary, and they put money into garcia, garland, and contreras.the whitesox are a wonderful baseball experience right now, and we're lucky to have that in chicago after years of crap to mediocrity... especially from the northside, where most of the cubs fans still feel that its 2003 and we're having setbacks, that we're really an 88-95 win team that can get a round or two deep into the playoffs every year, as opposed to admitting that they're a middling 75-85 win team that might have a crack at 90/wildcard if and only if their perpetually injured wunderarms prior and wood can get their act together.its may 23, 2006 and where is mark prior?