A dying Sox fan’s last wish

By Stan Watzke

Two years ago, I got engaged and joined my roommate and his dad, Bernie Russell (aka “Big Bern”) for a round of golf. Upon hearing the news of my engagement, Big Bern commented, “Congratulations, but you know they’re all c%#ts, right? You marry them, and then their asses get as big as a desk.”

Make no mistake, Bernie Russell was a White Sox fan, born and raised in Canaryville, and when I was asked to write a piece about White Sox fans and what this World Series meant to Chicago, I couldn’t help but think of guys like Big Bern, who tended to develop a chip on their shoulder toward most everything in life, usually as a direct result of dozens of years rooting for the second team in the Second City. Yet, like most White Sox fans, Big Bern also had that likeable soft side, like the time he said that when he died, he wanted Sinatra’s “My Way” to be played at his wake and didn’t want a dry eye in the house.

Being a Sox fan meant growing up around lots of guys like Big Bern. It meant being the last one to leave Comiskey Park as your dad, uncles and grandpa were drunk, lost and staggering around the ballpark. It meant using that downtime with your brother and cousins to collect empty paper beer cups to step on in the empty stadium, creating the sound of gunshots going off.

It meant playing whiffleball in the alley behind my grandparents’ house, hitting a ball on the neighbor’s roof and singing, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye” as you circled the imaginary bases. It meant sitting behind a guy with a plastic helmet who yelled “Karko!” while giving a beer shower to the opposing team’s outfielder. It meant growing up and moving to the suburbs, and yet watching those kids keep playing the drums under the viaduct, never seeming to age or leave the streets.

There was the magical “Winnin’ Ugly” season of 1983 and the thrill of getting a ball on my birthday from the Polish shortstop, Jerry Dybzinski. There were the chants of “Har-old, Har-old,” and the seemingly gargantuan roof-shot home runs from Kitty and The Bull, back in the days when 35 home runs still meant something.

After that we had Scooter’s gritty team in ’89 that had no business winning, with a closer named “Thiggy” who had no business setting a major-league saves record. We saw a skinny kid from Auburn named Frank Thomas triple off the right field wall in his major league debut, and then we watched as the skinny kid turned into “The Big Hurt” and made sportswriters compare him to names like Ruth, Gehrig and Williams.

We had the ’93 squad, full of youth and pitching promise, and the cancelled World Series in ’94 while the team was in first place, only to see that youth and promise finally dismantled with the white flag trade of ’97. Finally, we had 49 homers from Albert Belle and a silent exit in the 2000 playoffs.

And until this year, that’s pretty much been it. It’s a sad story, full of holes and lost seasons, but what about the poor father who had a hole in his White Sox memory from 1959 to ’83? Or the poor grandfather with a hole in his White Sox memory from 1919 to ’59?

Big Bern had one of those holes in his memory, and that hole should have been filled this year, but Big Bern developed lung cancer just as the White Sox were going on their unbelievable run.

Big Bern was watching the White Sox sweep Boston in October when his son said to him, “Dad, can you believe how well they’re playing?”

Bern was starting to become a bit confused because the cancer had spread to his brain, so he responded, “Yeah, but it’s only practice.”

Bern’s son insisted, “No, they won the series, it’s a real game.” Big Bern looked at his son and said, “You guys are all f%&#in’ nuts.”

Yes, White Sox fans are all f’ing nuts. We are foul-mouthed, middle-finger waving, mullet-sporting, heavy-equipment operating, tattooed, first-base coach attacking loyalists. And we were nuts enough to believe that a team with no payroll, no superstars, no egos and no chance of winning the big one could win the hearts and minds of thousands of fans by stampeding through the playoffs with an 11-1 record to capture Chicago’s first World Series title in 88 years.

After the World Series, Detroit Free-Press writer and ESPN talk show regular Mitch Albom commented that this baseball season would ultimately be remembered not for who won but for who didn’t win, in particular the Yankees with their exorbitant payroll and the defending champion Red Sox.

Sorry Mitch, but this World Series was a little more than that, because the last time the Chicago White Sox made it to the World Series, a machine boss named Daley was running a city wrought with scandal. Okay so maybe that wasn’t the best analogy, but as Dick Sr., Dick Jr. and Big Bern would say, “If you don’t like it, screw off!” So for Cubs fans everywhere and for East Coast biased clowns like Mitch Albom, just realize that White Sox fans will be waving a new finger now.

At my wedding reception this summer, the opening song of our slide show was Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin,’ ” and in a cheesy, beautiful coincidence, that song became the anthem of the 2005 White Sox. Everything seemed to make sense, and the world seemed right after the Sox won. But there one piece missing.

As promised, at the wake for Bernie Russell, there was not a dry eye in the house. And because fans like Big Bern never lived to see the White Sox win it all, I asked the ghost of Steve Goodman to fill in the holes for all those South Siders having an Old Style in heaven right now:

By the shores of the Robert Taylor homes, where the Hawk Harrelson wind blows so cold,

An old White Sox fan lay dying in his midnight hour that tolled.

Round his bed, his friends had all gathered,

They knew his time was short, and on his head, they put this dark black cap, from his all-time favorite sport.

He told them, “It’s late, and it’s getting dark in here,”

And I know it’s time to go.

But before I leave the lineup, boys, there’s just one thing I’d like to know.

Do they still play the blues in Chicago,

When baseball season rolls around?

When the snow melts away,

Do the White Sox still play

In their firework covered sky?

When I was a boy, they were my pride and joy,

But now they only bring fatigue.

To the home of the brave,

The land of the free,

And the doormat of the American League.

Told his friends, “You know the law of averages says: Anything will happen that can.”

That’s what it says.

But the last time the Sox won a pennant was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.

The Sox made me a criminal and turned me into a wreck.

I’d forsake my parents and teachers to go sit in the bleachers with Harry, Piersall and Bill Veeck.

And then one thing led to another,

And soon I’d discovered alcohol, gambling, dope.

But what do you expect when you raise up a young boy’s hopes, and then just crush ’em like so many Disco records.

Year after year after year,

After year, after year, after year, after year, after year.

’Til those hopes are just so much popcorn for the pigeons beneath the Red Line to eat.

He said, “You know I’ll never see Comiskey Park anymore before my eternal rest,

So if you have your pencils and your score cards ready, I’ll read you my last request.

Give me a doubleheader funeral at Comiskey Park on some sunny weekend day.

Have Nancy Faust play the ‘National Anthem’ and then a little ‘Na, na, na, na, hey hey, hey, Goodbye.’

Make six bullpen pitchers carry my coffin and Roger Bossard clear my path.

Have the umpires bark me out at every base in all their holy wrath.

It’s a beautiful day for a funeral, ‘Hey Pudge, let’s go Seventy-Two!’

Somebody go get Wimpy to come back and conduct just one more high-pitched interview.

Have the Sox run right out into the middle of the field, have Sammy drop a routine fly.

Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a Polish with onions, and I’ll be ready to die.

Build a big fire on home plate out of your corked Albert Belle bats, and toss my coffin in.

Let my ashes blow in a beautiful snow from the prevailing 30-mile-an-hour southwest wind.

When my last remains go flying to all fields, like a Kittle roof shot or Rudy Law triple, I will come to my final resting place, out on 35th and Shields.”

The dying man’s friends told him to cut it out. They said, “Stop it, that’s an awful shame.”

He whispered, “Don’t cry, we’ll meet by and by, near the Heavenly Hall of Fame.

I’ve got season tickets to watch the White Sox now, so it’s just what I’m going to do.

But you the living, you’re stuck here with the Cubs, so it’s me that feels sorry for you.”

And he said, “Ah, play, play that lonesome loser’s tune, that’s the one I like the best.”

And he closed his eyes and slipped away. And what we got is the dying Sox fan’s last request.

And here it is:

Do they still play the blues in Chicago, when baseball season rolls around?

When the snow melts away, do the Sox still play, in their firework covered sky?

When I was a boy, they were my pride and joy, but now they only bring fatigue,

To the home of the brave, the land of the free and the champions of the whole Goddamn league!

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