Imagine the Possibilities...

Sports are a funny thing…I can’t believe how much I hated baseball two years ago, after the horrific nightmare that the 2003 NLCS and ALCS, and how much I love it now. Rooting for a team that wins a championship in a major sport is a difficult feeling to describe. In this case, the series wasn’t especially dramatic, so there wasn’t a real moment of shock…it’s just a warm, happy feeling that doesn’t completely go away for a whole year. I think it comes from the realization that you can make fun of anyone else’s favorite team, and there’s really nothing they can come back with. In fact, your friends who are fans of the team’s rivals and teams that they beat in the playoffs probably won’t even give you crap about non-sports related things, for fear that you might bring it up. Since fans aren’t really involved in winning the title, I’ve decided that’s pretty much it.

It was a little tough deciding what angle to take when describing the best sports moment of my adult life. I couldn’t really compare it to either of the Bulls dynasties, that would be like choosing which of my relatives is my favorite or deciding whether childhood is better than adulthood…there’s just no decision you can make that you feel totally ok with. It also wouldn’t be right to write about my favorite players on this team…the way that this team was, it wouldn’t seem fair to credit any one player, or even three or four players. Heck, even just giving credit to the playoff roster wouldn’t capture all of it, since it’s entirely possible that the White Sox wouldn’t have won the division without getting 34 games out of the Big Hurt (by the way, the Sox were 24-10 in games that Thomas appeared in and, more importantly, the lead in the division went from three and a half games to eleven in just over a month while he was healthy) and multiple solid starts from Brandon McCarthy.

If I was going to give credit to any one person, it’d be Kenny Williams, who over the past two years has added Ozzie Guillen, Juan Uribe, Tadahito Iguchi, Carl Everett (a couple times), AJ (we’re trying to cut down on spelling errors so I won’t attempt the last name), Scott Podsednik, Jermaine Dye, World Series hero Geoff Blum, Dallas Municipal Softball League All-Star Chris Widger, Jorge Contreras, Freddy Garcia, Orlando Hernandez, Cliff Politte, Dustin Hermanson, Bobby Jenks, and Luis Vizcaino – with a couple of exceptions the core of a championship team - and the only truly significant players lost were Carlos Lee and Magglio Ordonez. He did this without making even one trade with Isaiah Thomas or the Vikings front office. Wow.

However, I will say that I was not completely sure that I was ever going to see a White Sox Championship (or even a World Series game in Chicago, for that matter) in my lifetime, and it happened. This has made me more optimistic that the following things, which I also doubted would ever happen in my life, will someday take place:

The Yankees will finish a season behind the Devil Rays.

The Yankees will have a lower payroll than the Devil Rays.

There will be a minor accident on a major Chicago-area interstate and, once both cars are on the shoulder, everyone else will keep driving at a decent pace as if nothing was out of the ordinary, because after all, the part of the road that they are allowed to drive on is completely unaffected.

There will be a college football team that everyone accepts as both the best team in the country and a legitimate national champion.

It won’t be a team from the ACC, SEC, Pac-10, or any conference with the word “Big” in its name, and it won’t be Notre Dame.

Ok, forget that last one; that’s just absurd. We’ll change it to “it won’t be a team ranked in the top five in the first poll.”

I will go to Best Buy and not wait in line at all when I check out.

Another restaurant (or, for that matter, any type of business) will open in Wheaton that is open for dine-in until at least midnight during the week.

All right, we’ll settle for not in the top three in the first poll.

The Bears will acquire a quarterback who doesn’t make me cringe every time he throws a football, and he will go through at least two seasons in a row without a major injury.

At some point there will be a Cubs manager, Bears coach, or Blackhawks GM that manages not to be hated by the entire city of Chicago by the time they retire or leave town.

The NHL lockout will end (remember that in Chicago the NHL Lockout has been going on since the late 1990s).

An NFL player, instead of getting away with killing someone, will commit a minor crime that an average person with a decent attorney could probably get away with, actually go to prison for it, and cause potentially irreparable damage to their career….and it won’t damage my fantasy team’s season.

Speaking of my fantasy team, Joe Horn, Darrell Jackson, and Cadillac Williams will all play in the same week.

Daunte Culpepper will break George Blanda’s record for interceptions in a season (it’s 42…and although he was on Houston at that time, he also played for the Bears during his career. The career record, also Blanda’s, by the way, is 277. CPepp is at 86, so he’d probably have to play into his 40s and have a couple of 30+ INT seasons to do it. It would be fun if he started getting close and they showed a “chasing Blanda” graphic on Sports Center every time they show him throwing a pick, like they’ve been doing with Barry Bonds home runs recently).

I will watch an entire football game and not see any penalties called on special teams play.

The Cubs will win the World Series. (Ok, that one was too crazy. How about back-to-back winning seasons, or even back-to-back seasons without making a team-killing trade?)

The White Sox will outdraw the Cubs.

The Saints will actually WIN a game because of a stupid penalty, missed PAT, silly turnover, or bad call.

Alex Rodriguez will come through for the Yankees in a big playoff game, but Derek Jeter will do something to mess it up.

Isaiah Thomas will trade for a young, underpaid player who isn’t a head case, is medically fit to play basketball, and listens to his coaches.

An entire year will go by without any roads that I can see from my house or office going under construction. This will be because the previous year all state construction projects were completed well ahead of schedule, and they just went ahead and finished up the next year’s projects as well.

I will contribute to a website that gets over 1000 hits (per three months).

The Bulls will have a perrenial all-star at the 2 guard position who doesn't get compared to Michael Jordan and isn't white.

Some other NBA team will have a perrenial all-star at the 2 guard position who doesn't get compared to Michael Jordan and isn't white.

Jon Lewis will contribute to a website that gets over 1000 hits (per three months).

I will find a solid, bible-believing church that openly schedules its services around the local NFL team’s games, or at least shows them on one of the screens on stage when the service runs over (it can be on mute…).

The superstar athlete as we now know it will disappear forever (stay tuned…).

The White Sox will win the World Series again.


It’s hard not to get greedy when good things start happening, isn’t it?