Alexei Ramirez Grand Slam leads White Sox to Extraordinary Finish

by Sean Kane

One of my roommates had cooked dinner at an untimely moment tonight and she called me to say it was ready when Brian Seay, a Tigers’ pitcher from my boyhood home, Sarasota, FL, had just thrown ball four to Junior and loaded the bases with one out. Tricky thing is, the game wasn’t on TV. I don’t know why, I’m guessing because it wasn’t scheduled and with the rainout no one was going to blow off that quality Comcast programming at peak hours. (For the record: It was the Bears’ breakdown…that can’t wait!?! Lovie doesn’t mind, bump it back.) So, I was listening to Steve Stone on 670 hanging on every word. It was like the 40’s or some shit, drinking my ovaltine by the fireside, just add ESPN gamecast.

“Yeah, yeah…” I mumbled. I couldn’t bail on dinner. She cooked, I didn’t have to and I was starving. So, I bailed on Stonie.

I grabbed my laptop, though, to keep gamecast at the dinner table. I watched nervously, the laptop from across the room. I waited as the pitching change slowed the pace, cranked my heart and stopped any chance of conversation. Then as Alexei strolled to the plate, digitally, his picture scrolling into the batter’s box and numbers slowly appeared. I felt good. I trust Alexei, he won’t swing at bad pitches and he’s clutch. (I think it’s derived from his likeness to Reggie Miller.)

Then, the little white digital ball, sailed over the left field wall graphic and the score box jumped from 2 to 6. I screamed, “Fuck yeah, Lexi!” then, bolted, from my plate to the window to listen for fireworks.

I live ten blocks from The Cell, fireworks have signaled homers every time and trigger an instinctive fistpump because when the Sox get fireworks, we get wins. I didn’t hear any fireworks. Apparently, they were out…It felt strange.

Then, I repeated Hawk’s line, “You can put it on the boardddd…Yes!” which has signaled the only consistent spark the offense could find this year, but I didn’t get to hear that either. It was strange, too.

With the regular season over, all Sox fan staples, except a ball in the outfield, were not to be found. That’s cause there was nothing regular about this finish. Really, it’s been extraordinary.

It’s a miracle that the Sox are still alive. They have played like trash since the rainout weekend and brought me to my knees on Friday night against Cleveland when I cashed my raincheck. They left the faithful wondering if we would see another win at all this year, with momentum on the downswing. We fired up that momentum baseball with one swing of that bat.

You can live and die by that sword. When the bats went cold in the Metrodome, we couldn’t make a serious dent and got swept, but tonight Sox-ball put the deep freeze on a Detroit team who was out of it anyway, emotionally and by the numbers. They had one hit after that and checked out. That’s the thing about a team who hits like we do, we’re a little scary. If we get the right pieces in place you can’t do anything about it. We have starters that will take care of the hill and bats that are home run threats in spots 1 to 9. It’s hot and cold, up and down, love/hate with this year’s team.

With Alexei’s 6^th inning slam the Sox started planning their vengeance on the Twinkies and got me all hot and bothered, again. So, I’ll stay up late ironing my black t-shirt, for my date with Sox baseball at the Cell tomorrow. She’s a sweet but brutal girl. One who turned on me two weeks ago, with no explanation, after what seemed like a good run since April. You wanted to delete her from your phone and hoped that bitch missed you, while you played hard to get and watched football all weekend. Then she came crashing through the door in the sixth inning and I couldn’t resist. I wanted the Twins at home and the boys gave it to me. You got to love that.

[tags]chicago white sox, alexei ramirez, mlb, baseball[/tags]

Tags: alexei ramirez, baseball, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, minnesota twins, MLB

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