Hit by a Pitch

Jermaine Dye and the White Sox agreed to a two-year, $22 million deal (with an option for a third year) earlier this afternoon. Dye is batting .245 on the season, but has done much better after the All Star break (.311) than before (.214).

Dye’s stats for the season, courtesy of the official site of the White Sox:

Average: .245
HR: 24
RBI: 62
R: 60
SB: 2
Current Month Average: .327

Hi. Ichiro just bunted and got a triple.

It is painful to be a White Sox fan this year.

There aren’t many things I love more than talking shit. When we were at the Rockies/Cubs game on Saturday, Ben started making fun of the White Sox fan sitting nearby, because he was eating a hot dog with ketchup on it. Making fun of ketchup on hot dogs is only one way Chicagoans assert their superiority over everyone else in the world. I don’t even eat hot dogs and I can list the acceptable toppings, which include mustard, onions, pickle relish, celery salt, sport peppers, and tomato. Ketchup on a hot dog is a sin against humanity, rivaled only by New York style pizza that is cut in triangles and supposed to be folded (the thought of folding a slice of pizza is terrifying and wrong, like the Yankees).

So Ben lays into the Sox fan, who’s just sitting there in a sea of Cubs fans, minding his own business. He really shouldn’t have started, because Coors Field is overflowing with Cubs fans, and really, they make fun of themselves. I’ll see you one ketchup-eating hot dog guy and raise you one crazy tan woman with a Cubs jersey and white short shorts up her ass. White shorts up your ass is like the Big Joker of stupidity — nothing can beat that. But just in case, I’ll include woman with off-the-shoulder-elasticy Cubs jersey and 900 nondescript white dudes with random facial hair who wear their Cubs hats and cheer for the team like they’ll turn into pumpkins at midnight if the Cubs don’t win but couldn’t name four Cubs players without looking at the scoreboard.

It’s not that I hate the Cubs. I don’t. I love Carlos Zambrano. My dear, sweet Nana (you didn’t call her grandma) was a Cubs fan, and afternoons at her house were always filled with the drone of the Cubs announcers. My mom’s family is from the north side, and I’m from the north side, so I was born to be a Cubs fan (although, to be fair, my dad’s wacky Lithuanian family is from, well, Lithuania, but later the south side).

Unfortunately, I wasn’t into sports when I was a kid. When I got older, I hated when the Cubs had night games and it was impossible to park anywhere. When I grew up and got a real job, I hated all the drunk-ass Cubs fans crammed into the Red Line when I went home to Andersonville. It was all just too much.

It was too much last week when the Cubs were here. Coors Field was packed with ass shorts and annoying guys who booed when Jamey Carroll hit a grand slam (Who does that? Say it with me in your best Dan Hawkins voice, “IT’S JAMEY CARROLL!”). At Beers of the World, they ran out of Sierra Nevada and Five Barrel, so I had to get a Guinness. Getting tickets sucked, so on Saturday we had to sit in the bleachers, where some ridiculous teenager who didn’t know what the “H” and “E” on the scoreboard meant got a big glob of nacho cheese on the back of my sweet-ass custom White Sox shirt and spent the whole game talking about how bored he was and asking where all the bitchez were.

At least the five other Rockies fans and I got to witness the team blowing out the Cubs 15-2, which I suppose made suffering through the infestation worth it. I just don’t know, though, who all these Cubs fans are. Are they from Chicago? Is it trendy to be a Cubs fan now? Are the Cubs the American Idol of baseball — something that millions of people are into even though it’s lame? Is being a Cubs fan a rite of passage for Lincoln Park Trixie and Chad types, no matter where they live?

I don’t know, and I shouldn’t hold the fans against the team, but sometimes I can’t help it. I wouldn’t even be talking shit like this right now if Ben hadn’t started in on the guy with ketchup. We White Sox fans may be a minority, but we look out for each other and we don’t wear white shorts up our asses.

If Wesley Willis were alive today, I’m pretty sure he’d write a song about Bobby Cox being ejected from a game for the 132nd time (a new record).

Bobby Cox has a hot temper
he’ll kick your ass and get tossed from the game
his face gets red like fire
he is special to me in the long run

Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox

He’s been a madman on the field 132 times
his record isn’t tainted or marked with an asterisk
he never used performance-enhancing drugs
Bobby Cox whips Barry Bonds’s ass with a belt

Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox

Maybe next time he’ll do the army crawl grenade thing
like that crazy-ass minor league guy
he’ll argue balls and strikes
and the umpire will feel the power of Bobby Cox

Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox

He’s in the Hall of Fame of coach meltdowns
He makes Bobby Knight look like a delicate flower
Who would win in a fight, Bobby Cox or Ditka?
Well, Ditka, but Bobby could take anyone else

Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox
Cantankerous Cox

Rock over London
Rock on Chicago
588-2300 Empire

AP/Jack Dempsey

An interview with Denver Broncos wide receiver Javon Walker will air on HBO’s “Real Sports” tomorrow. (Denver Post story here.) This is the first time Walker publicly discussed the Williams slaying, and the only time he plans to do so.

I can’t even imagine what it’s like to have a teammate and friend bleed to death in your arms, or what it’s like to have the bloody clothes from that night in your house somewhere because, well, because you have to keep them. I don’t know what it’s like in Javon Walker’s head and how he deals with this. I’m not sure Javon Walker knows how he deals with this.

Although I’m just a fan and I didn’t know him, I remember the day Darrent Williams died like some people remember when Kennedy was assassinated or when the space shuttle exploded. I was sitting on the couch watching some game or other and the ticker at the bottom of the screen said that Darrent Williams had been shot. I didn’t see the whole thing at first, or didn’t process it right away — the fact that he was dead took a minute to sink in.

I used to make fun of people who got upset when some famous person or other dies, because I thought it was lame to get upset about the death of someone you don’t even know. But there I was on January 1, probably in my pajamas, drinking coffee, just in shock and incredibly sad. Not Darrent Williams. I love him.

You know how there’s one guy on a team you just love even though he’s not the star? Darrent Williams was that guy for me, and probably for a million other people, too. He was so much fun to watch on the field, and his frohawk was, hands down, the best hair of any professional athlete, ever (DerMarr Johnson gets honorable mention). He had an awesome attitude — check out this Denver Post article and watch the video. Don’t you just love him? I can’t even look at that now without getting upset and now that some time has passed, pissed the hell off. Why does shit like this happen in Denver?

Darrent Williams wasn’t the only professional athlete shot in Denver. In 2003, Joey Porter (formerly of the Pittsburgh Steelers, now with the Miami Dolphins) was shot outside a bar on Denver’s north side. In 2006, Julius Hodge (formerly of the Denver Nuggets, now with Italian team Cimberio Varese) was shot while driving on I-76 after leaving a bar. No suspects have been arrested in either case.

As a resident of Denver, I feel like I need to take some ownership of incidents like this. I want to do something to make it better, even if the only things I can do seem small and inconsequential. I can apologize. On behalf of Denver, I’m sorry that these things happened. I’m sorry that Darrent Williams is dead. I’m sorry that Javon Walker has to live with this in his head for the rest of his life. I’m sorry that Julius Hodge was shot and for whatever effect that had on his career. I’m sorry that these guys all came to Denver and this shit happened. I’m sorry that these crimes haven’t been solved. I’m sorry that Denver is a surly adolescent of a city that can’t get its shit together and that we have gangs and assholes and so much ridiculous shit that Reggie Evans has to apply for a concealed weapon permit and Carmelo Anthony gets harassed at the convenience store.

What else can I do? I can support the Broncos and send the team all my “good football” vibes. I want them to have an awesome year — maybe we, the people of Denver, need them to have an awesome year, because we love them and want them to kick ass because it would honor Darrent Williams and running back Damien Nash, who died in February of natural causes (apparently heart related).

But really, I’m not sure how that helps. I love football, but I don’t think it’s some profound, meaningful thing. Maybe it can be, though, in situations like this. The Broncos are a football team, but this year, it’s about more than just being a football team. It’s about tragedy and pain and getting through it as best you can and hopefully, someday, healing and becoming something better than you were before.

I joke about it all the time, but it’s true — sports are a metaphor of life and usually it’s kind of bittersweet funny, like when Tadaguchi gets traded to the Phillies and I feel like the new boyfriend I thought was the one dumped me and I eat ice cream and dream about what might have been. Sometimes — thankfully, not as often — it’s horrible and tragic and ugly and leaves you feeling sad and alone.

I know that the Broncos aren’t my family or my friends. I can’t call them up on Saturday night when I want to go drinking or ask them if these pants make my butt look big (I wish!). But in a way, they are my family and they are my friends. When you love a team, their pain is your pain, even if it’s a diluted, tangential pain. Their loss is your loss, but their healing and power and ass kicking is yours, too, and when you’ve shared the pain and loss with them, the ass kicking is even sweeter. If the Broncos can come back from this and be better, so can the rest of us.

In that Denver Post article, Darrent Williams said, “That’s why I work every day to get better.” If you’re a fellow Broncos fan, this is our year to work every day to get better. We’re all family and friends and, as fans, it’s up to us to cheer on this team and honor D-Will and everybody we’ve ever loved by working every day to get better.