A Baseball Update - The White Sox Are Hot!

My South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox, are 3 and 0 since the All-Star Break, and have swept their first series of the year. The last time they were 3-0 at the start of the 2nd half of the season was back in 2005. And that, as devoted White Sox fans know, was the year they won the World Series against Houston in 4 games. Definitely a positive sign. And the team has started hitting big time. They won the first game 10-1, the second 10-4, and yesterday 7-2. Of course, they were playing the Pittsburg Pirates, who have lost 10 out of their last 11 games, and have won only 4 games more than the White Sox, who currently have the second worst record in baseball, but you can't argue with success. The Sox looked great this past weekend, and this might well be the start of the big turnaround. Just to make sure the streak continues, television play-by-play guy Dan Plesac, who is filling in for Steve Stone on some White Sox road trips this year, has worn the same polo shirt three days straight, without washing it, in case that might be the reason for the turnaround. He does say he is spraying the shirt with deodorant each night and will continue wearing it - unwashed - as long as the streak continues. Never underestimate the power of superstition in baseball.

Those 3 games took place at PNC Park in Pittsburg, and looking at the view from the stadium that I saw on MLB.com and seen in the photograph on the right, Pittsburg looks like a pretty nice city. It appears that fans cross that yellow bridge from downtown to get to the park, which is kind of neat, and the ballpark itself looks pretty nice, too. As for the White Sox's North Side rival, the Chicago Cubs, they are tied with the Milwaukee Brewers for first place in the National League Central and are 6-4 over their last 10 games. Of course, the Cubs are famous for choking the last few weeks of the season, and so time will tell if they make the playoffs. As for my adopted hometown team, the Colorado Rockies, they currently have the worst record in baseball at 24-75 and have a very good chance of taking the title of worst season record in the history of Major League Baseball from the White Sox, who lost 121 games last year. Go Rockies!