In 1959 the Chicago White Sox celebrated their pennant-clinching victory in Cleveland with sirens going off back home and 25,000 people rushing to Midway Airport to greet the conquering heroes in the middle of the morning.
This was just the appetizer, of course, to a feast Sox fans are hoping to enjoy at the end of October. They’ve known for months it was only a matter of when, not if, the Sox would capture the American League Central.
Their lead was too large and the division too weak to put up a real fight. That’s why there was no panic when the magic number decreased in slow motion over the last week thanks to a few uninspiring losses and a rain out in Detroit.