The main arteries leading to Bill Veeck Stadium were clogged with traffic before the start of game one of the American League Championship Series. Cars inched their way toward parking lots that were already filled. Ticket holders who had managed to ditch their cars somewhere along the route strutted past the traffic in a way that must have truly infuriated those who were simply, hopelessly stuck. Not me. I parked on Halsted north of 35th, locked the doors, and fed the meter to get it at least close to the 9 PM cutoff. Then I walked down to Kattouyia’s Hot Dogs for a killer Polish sausage (literally: it was deep fried and made my heart murmur with surrender even as it went down). Then I walked across the street to Puffer’s, a delightful little Bridgeport tap, where spots were opening at the bar as local ticket holders left for the game. The televisions were tuned to the pregame coverage, but the sound was down; Tito Puente was on the bar stereo. “George Bell would feel at home here,” said the bartender. In spite of the October cold–a cozy, homey sort of baseball chill, in contrast to the brisk ripeness of opening day–the front windows were open. The whole neighborhood was buzzing with good wishes and high expectations. It was there I heard that Michael Jordan was retiring from basketball.
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A Tribune article on where to watch the playoffs lumped Puffer’s in with other Bridgeport sports bars, but that was wrong, a misguided journalist’s attempt to grant the place some instant stigma. Puffer’s is a natty, neighborly little shotgun tavern, with a wide wooden bar and, opposite, small and intimate tables rather than booths, an arrangement that gives the place a deceptive width. It is owned, in part, by a high school friend of a friend of mine, and it has a selection of beer and spirits to shame any north-siders who think they have a lock on the city’s alcoholic sophistication. I started with a Fuller’s, a heavy Scottish ale, and moved on, before the night was over, to a Golden Prairie, a malty, pleasantly busy lager from a microbrewery on Clybourn, and Legacy, another local lager, somewhere between the previous two in taste and texture. The bartendress asked if I wanted a “Smoke a Jay” button, referring to the White Sox’ opponents, the Toronto Blue Jays, and for a dollar I bought one and pinned it on. Down the bar, a few regulars clinked glasses with the toast “To ourselves.” Up the bar, under the television, another regular caught a glimpse of a helicopter shot of the area surrounding the ballpark, and slipping into a hokey, self-deprecating accent said, “There it is–Da South Side.” A scalper wearing a CCCP warm-up jacket wandered through selling tickets at face value and found no takers. The bartender caught sight of a meter maid sauntering past, eyeing a car parked right in front, and shouted, “Hey, who’s got the white Taurus? Anybody got the white Taurus? You gotta feed the meters till nine o’clock.” A few people scuttled out of the bar to their cars, and the meter maid shot the bartender a hostile glance. On the television, they showed a quick replay of Michael Jordan throwing out the first pitch.
Then came the three quick punches of the game and, of course, the knockout of the night. The Jays scored in the fourth on a two-run, two-out double by Ed Sprague. The Sox came back in the bottom of the inning on a two-run single by Ozzie Guillen, who stole second and scored the go-ahead run on a single by Tim Raines. Then the Jays counterpunched. They scored three runs in the fifth, the big blow John Olerud’s two-out, two-run double to center. As with Sprague’s double–and as with several of the Jays’ big hits in the series–it seemed the result of a Sox scouting report that was accurate and detailed, but out of sync with itself. The Sox, as always, had their defenders placed where the odds said the Jays would hit the ball. The Sox pitchers were throwing the ball where the Jays didn’t like it. But, with the pitches where they were, the Jays were hitting it where they usually didn’t. Sprague dropped the bat on a low, inside McDowell split-finger fastball and sent it down the right-field line; Burks, shading him to center, just missed catching up with it. Olerud laced a McDowell pitch to right center; Lance Johnson had been shading him to left, and again just missed catching up with it. Then CBS’s Pat O’Brien and Jim Gray broke in, from one of the photographers wells along the field, with the report that Jordan was retiring.
We were stuck in a skybox with a bunch of suits (my friend had only been offered the tickets himself earlier in the day). I was the only one taking the trouble to keep score, but to their credit they did have the skybox windows open, even on this cold night. (There was no distinction to be made between April and October cold on this evening; it was just plain frigid.) Yet Fernandez, supposedly a cold-weather pitcher, started colder than the weather. He walked the leadoff batter in the second, hit the next man, and following a sacrifice bunt and another walk allowed a two-run single. The Sox countered with two in the third (there was a bases-loaded walk to Thomas), but that’s all they would get while the game was in doubt. Dave Stewart, the old Oakland Athletics ace –even now unbeaten in eight lifetime decisions in the playoffs–looked as if he had been thawed out for the occasion. Returning to the locker room while the Jays batted, checking with manager Cito Gaston that he would remain in the game, he allowed only two hits after the Sox’ third-inning uprising before leaving for the Jays’ bull pen closer, Duane Ward, in the eighth.
