Sox home opener more than just a game

The Opening Day freebie for Sox fans entering U.S. Cellular Field was a car flag -- your basic mobile badge of team loyalty.

Father and son Jerry and Chris Gibbs didn't really need one.

Three hours before Javier Vazquez fired the first pitch Monday afternoon, Chris Gibbs of Gurnee was busy in a nearby parking lot, staking an aluminum flag pole by his SUV's front fender and proudly raising two large White Sox banners.

"Opening Day, and you know what you're going to be doing," he said. "No work. You're going to be rooting for your team, tailgating … the whole shebang."

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For his dad, Opening Day's appeal transcends the game.

"It's like a renewal on life," said Jerry Gibbs of Waukegan. "I mean, this is a new year. What's happened in the past is done. Let's move forward."

Of course, not all fans were waxing that philosophically. Most, though, were definitely fired up for the first of another 81 games on the South Side.

That's what four straight Sox victories, sunny skies and mild temperatures will do for a team's followers. That, along with the hope-filled gut feeling that last year's Sox malaise has left the ballpark and this year will see a return to glory.

"They're hot," said Russ Fahrner of Fox Lake, taking in his 37th consecutive home opener. "We're going to win today, too."

So they did, the Sox rewarding Fahrner's faith as third baseman Joe Crede delivered a game-winning grand slam in the seventh inning.

But long before Crede's heroics, other fans found in Monday's home opener the fresh, minty new beginning they needed to remove the bad taste left by Chicago's other professional sports teams recently.

"Ever since the Bears bit the dust, I've been looking forward to this," said Joe Montgomery of Addison, who attended Monday's opener with his wife and two young sons Alec and Nicolas.

Montgomery's wife, Nicki, a "converted Cub fan," said switching allegiances a few years back wasn't that difficult.

"They weren't 'the lovable losers' back then," she said. "They were just 'the losers' for a while."

Plus, she said, taking a jab at her former team's ballpark, "you can't do this at Wrigley; you can't come out a few hours early and tailgate."

If it's hard to beat fun at the old U.S. Cellular, it's also tough to beat tradition.

"Forty-six years," declared Howard Jaffe, referring to his consecutive streak of Opening Day attendance.

Jaffe, of Libertyville, made his first Opening Day trip, to the old Comiskey Park, as a 9-year-old.

"There've been years," he said, "when I've had to come back down three or four times, because of snow or cold, just to keep the streak going."

Weather was no problem Monday, and fans took full advantage of spring conditions to grill brats and kabobs, play bags and drink beer before heading through the gates to root for Ozzie and crew.

For many, it's a family affair with deep roots. Tony Scalise of Barlett has been taking in Sox openers for about a decade. For the past three or four openers, he's enjoyed the company of his father, Tony, and two sisters. As the younger Scalise arranged brats on the grill, his father explained he grew up in the neighborhood -- 31st and Wells -- and that his wife organized a Jim Landis Fan Club way back in the day -- when the Go-Go White Sox won the American League pennant in 1959.

This year, the opener mixed plenty of tradition with a touch of the new.

The Sox's 2005 World Series championship entitled the ball club to build a commemorative reminder. Because face it, having waited 88 years between World Series titles last time, who knows when there'll next be a World Series ring ceremony on the South Side?

So, on Saturday, the Sox will unveil a monument at "Champions Plaza," on the ballpark's northwest side. A tarp will cover the monument until then, but fans got a chance Monday to examine the inscribed "legacy" sidewalk bricks they could buy to give themselves a personalized spot in the plaza.

Laura Gavin of Naperville invested in a brick last June -- a Father's Day gift for her husband, Tim.

"He left the information out on the kitchen counter," she laughed, "and I finally picked up on it."

On Monday, the Gavins joined scores of others, heads down, scouring the territory for their brick.

"We know the inscription because they gave us a duplicate to keep at home," Laura said. "It says 'No. 1 Sox Fans, the Tim Gavin Family.' "

"But," she said, laughing again, "a lot of other people used 'No. 1 Sox fan,' too."