Congratulations to the world champion Chicago White Sox. Four very competitive games equaled, in this case, one lopsided World Series. In less than a week, Jermaine Dye, Bobby Jenks, Scott Podsednik, and company have negated the a history of a stingy owner, years of mediocrity, the "second-team" stigma in the Second City, baseball in shorts, and the Black Sox scandal. Eighty-eight years is penance long enough for the sins of a few rogue players. Last year, when the Boston Red Sox won after 86 years in the wilderness, my mind wandered to fellow New Englanders dead and gone; Mike Greenwell, Johnny Pesky, Tony Conigliaro, and other ghosts of Red Sox past; and my own years working at Fenway Park, Mecca of Baseball. The sight of Red Sox pennants and Johnny Damon posters atop graves while jogging through a Boston-area cemetary reenforced how much stronger generational and regional bonds are made by a mere baseball team. Chicago White Sox fans, undoubtedly, are feeling much of the same. You really don't know the sweetness of victory until you have tasted the bitterness of defeat.

Congratulations Pale hose fans. Jermaine Dye was a weak MVP selection...they should have given it to Ditka. For all you Cubbie backers.....maybe next year.

Some gravestones in the Chicago area have been decorated with Sox memoribilia, incl. the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, father of the current mayor.