1 Happy St

Kids who were born the year that Bobby Thigpen set the single-season saves record are starting their freshman year of college.

I remember 1990 like it was 18 years ago. It was the first summer of my lifetime that the White Sox were actually good (Follow-up note: I didn't include 1983 because I don't remember 1983, but to be fair, they were good in 1983), which meant a lot to me at the time because I was 11 years old. To an 11 year old like me, baseball is the most important part of your life outside of alcohol, cigarettes, and women. So here was my favorite team, battling a much better Oakland A's team for 1st place all summer long.

I recall only a few story lines from that season - Barry Jones being among the league leaders in wins at the All-Star break even though he wasn't even a starter (I'm sure I'm not even remembering this correctly), Carlton Fisk being their best player even though he was in his 40's, a really big guy joining the team in August who would absolutely crush the ball for 2 months (Frank Thomas), it being the last season at old Comiskey, and Bobby Thigpen saving just about every game they won. I don't remember much about Ozzie; maybe he wasn't all that crazy yet. Oh, I also remember my Uncle Joe coming over to our house one day wearing a t-shirt that had a drawing of a kid wearing a White Sox hat pissing on a Cubs hat. It was the first time I had seen this brand of humor, so I remember it going over real well. What a great shirt. Ha ha, a White Sox fan pissing on a Cubs hat. Good comedy.

Where was I? Oh yeah, alcohol and cigarettes. No wait, feeling old. Yeah so Bobby Thigpen saved 57 games that year. It was kind of a big deal I think because this was still in 1990 when people hadn't yet realized how stupid the save statistic was (and is). So 57 became the record that still stands today. Why do I bring this up? Because it's finally about to be broken. Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels, who has the dumbest nickname in all of baseball, has 54 saves as I type this with almost of month of games left. Barring a freak incident like a 29 year old White Sox fan pulling a Gillooly on his knee, he should break it some time next week or the week after, at which point a piece of my childhood will die.

But I suppose I'll look at the bright side. Right now there's an 11 year old Angels fan who is enjoying one hell of a season from his favorite team, and maybe 18 years from now, someone will be breaking K-Rod's record (I told you his nickname was dumb. Nowhere in his name is there a "K". Stupid, right?), and that current 11 year old Angels fan can bitch about how he's getting old.

And I'll be enjoying my late 40's. Late 40's are cool.