How and why did you become a Sox fan?

[TitoMB345]

Frank Thomas. I was always one of the bigger kids in little league, so I looked up to him. He was my sports Idol when I was a young ballplayer.

[clyons]

I was raised a Cub fan, but as a kid I loved baseball so much that I followed both teams. There were no lights at Wrigley back then, and night games at the old park, with that behemoth of a scoreboard belching fireworks after home runs, seemed so much cooler, especially as I got older.

 

In 1979 I met and became friends with a big Sox fan who is still my best friend today, and it was around 1981 when I switched for good. For some reason, I remember being really pissed off when the Cubs hired Preston Gomez as manager. That was also the time Reinsdorf and Einhorn bought the team and started making some positive changes. Fisk's opening day homer (granny?) set a big hook. The Winning Ugly team had me reeled in for good.

 

By 1984 I wasn't looking back. When the Cubs choked away the pennant to San Diego, I was laughing my ass off.

[JohnCangelosi]

Born on southisde, but main reason is my Dad. He grew up near the park and came from a long line of sox fans. Pretty much had no choice but to love the Sox and I'm glad that's the way things worked out!

[BigEdWalsh]

Oh, and one more thing, as silly as it sounds, I loved Andy the Clown. He was a fan in the mold of Fireman Ed. Someone who could rally the crowd without being a caricature of himself.

GOOOOOO YOOOOOOUUUUU WHIIIIIIIIITE SOOOOOOOOOOX!

LOL!! I always thought Andy the Clown was pretty cool too and my dad had a set of pipes to rival him. I loved when he would yell, "C'MON HERSHBERRRRRGERRRRRR!!!!!!!". That, and " MOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!".

[drowninginflame]

Grew up in the neighborhood. Could watch the fireworks from the front porch. That Soundtrack of summer would anyone grow up wanting to be like the guys on the field.

[Springfield Soxfan]

Like many others born into it. My dad worked for Olson rug and they had some distribution center on the southside and always took us to games.

[max power]

Tickets from cheap dad's work.

Frank Thomas.

Thought the cubs were lame and boring.

[flippedoutpunk]

Sox fan because of my dad, he really bought into the yuppies vs. the blue collar workers in chicago mentality the rivalry gave. Lived in the northside of Chicago the whole time ive been in this city.

[OilCan]

Our family used to live at 26th and Wallace St, just blocks away from Comiskey. Even when my Grandpa was a Cubs fan and I used to watch Cubs baseball with him, I remained a Sox fan. My first live Sox game was when I was 4, during the summer of 77, Sox v Tigers, and the Sox won.

[greg775]

LOL!! I always thought Andy the Clown was pretty cool too and my dad had a set of pipes to rival him. I loved when he would yell, "C'MON HERSHBERRRRRGERRRRRR!!!!!!!". That, and " MOOOOOOOOOOOSE!!!!!!!".

Has Andy passed away? He has to be pretty old. If he has I hope he finds my dad in heaven, if there is a heaven. That would be a neat meeting.

 

Tickets from cheap dad's work.

Frank Thomas.

Thought the cubs were lame and boring.

 

Hey, Max are you the person who said he'd leave the board if the Sox won that one game and you did indeed leave? I think it was you. You were a man of your word and left the rest of the season I believe.

[cabiness42]

Has Andy passed away? He has to be pretty old. If he has I hope he finds my dad in heaven, if there is a heaven. That would be a neat meeting.

 

He died in 1995.

[ZionrulZ]

In the late sixties, I was a HUGE Ernie Banks fan, so I followed the Cubzzz, even though my father, older brother, grandfather, uncle were Sox fans. One day I was hanging out with my big brother and some of his friends and they asked me if I was a Sox fan or a Cubzz fan. I answered "both!". They said, "you have to choose one or the other!". Since they were older than me, and I wanted to hang out with them, I said "SOX!"...and I never looked back (or wavered) from that day on.

[Paint it Black]

My father. But the weird thing to me is he grew up a Cubs fan. At that time he lived in Beecher and didn't have cable, so he was only able to watch the Cubs. When he got to high school he stopped watching baseball, but went to Disco Demolition because he loved the Loop and Dahl at that time. Moved to Milwaukee at age 19, moved back around age 21. Got back into baseball becaue of coworkers and became a White Sox fan for some reason.

 

I was born in 1987 and probably one of my oldest memories was watching the 1993 playoffs. I was in kindgergarden and my teacher was a Sox fan. Obviously I was obsessed with Frank Thomas. I loved baseball as a kid but didn't REALLY fall in love with it until 2005. Now it's pretty much all I consume, sports wise.

[Heads22]

Big Hurt

[chw42]

In the late sixties, I was a HUGE Ernie Banks fan, so I followed the Cubzzz, even though my father, older brother, grandfather, uncle were Sox fans. One day I was hanging out with my big brother and some of his friends and they asked me if I was a Sox fan or a Cubzz fan. I answered "both!". They said, "you have to choose one or the other!". Since they were older than me, and I wanted to hang out with them, I said "SOX!"...and I never looked back (or wavered) from that day on.

 

I've never heard anyone becoming a Sox fan based on influence from peers or peer pressure. That's usually how people become Cubs fans...

[bighurt4life]

Being born in Oregon, we don't have any pro sports teams other than the blazers, everyone else around here just adopts the seattle teams but I rebelled against that and had to go out of region to find teams to root for. Then I developed my first man crush with Frank Thomas as an 11 year old in 1992 and I've been a Sox guy ever since.

[zenryan]

Lived in Sarasota from 85-90 so I saw a lot of Spring Training games at Payne Park and Ed Smith.

 

 

[nickofypres]

In the 1990s I was a Cubs fan because that is whom my dad liked. We had always visited Chicago growing up and I had always heard the beauty and aura of Wrigley Field (had never gone until a few years ago).

 

As I got older and become more independent, my mom bought me White Sox shirts from the local Value City and it just kind of stuck.

[zirc]

I started off a Cubs fan when I was little. I was born on the north side, but moved to the western suburbs when i was 4, so I didn't really grow up in either territory. But in my t-ball league all the teams from the north half of Oak Park were named after national league teams, and we didn't get cable so until I went to a Sox game for the first time in 88 (when i was six) I didn't even know there was another baseball team in Chicago. I lived and died with that 89 Cubs team. Jerome Walton was my favorite player. My brother and I used to pretend to be Shawon Dunston and Ryne Sandberg turning double plays in the front yard. It didn't help that the Sox were pretty bad then.

 

But the 1990 team, and especially Bobby Thigpen going after the save record got me interested in the Sox. Then Frank Thomas showed up and started batting pitchers around like a cat with a mouse, and I was hooked.

 

So yeah, like everyone else, cos of Frank.

[PtownSoxfan]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

 

Grew up in St. Louis. Most of my family are/were Cardinal fans. Have current family that works at Busch Stadium. My grandpa is in the amateur wing of the Cards HOF. Never was a big fan of the team though. We got WGN pretty early on and I gravitated towards the Cubs & Sox when I was a kid. I really became a Soxfan around 91.. new park, Frank of course, Hawk & Wimpy, Blackjack, and to a 10 year old kid.. the coolest uniforms in the game. The Cubs just seemed old hat, boring and as I got older, their fans and the whole loveable loser mentality really turned me off and I became a full blown Sox fan and emersed myself in the game as a whole and the team itself.

 

Not sure why ive waited so long to post either, ive been following this board off and on (mostly on) for over 7 years now (didnt actually register until last year). Love it here.

Edited December 24, 2012 by PtownSoxfan

[justBLAZE]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

 

Grew up in St. Louis. Most of my family are/were Cardinal fans. Have current family that works at Busch Stadium. My grandpa is in the amateur wing of the Cards HOF. Never was a big fan of the team though. We got WGN pretty early on and I gravitated towards the Cubs & Sox when I was a kid. I really became a Soxfan around 91.. new park, Frank of course, Hawk & Wimpy, Blackjack, and to a 10 year old kid.. the coolest uniforms in the game. The Cubs just seemed old hat, boring and as I got older, their fans and the whole loveable loser mentality really turned me off and I became a full blown Sox fan and emersed myself in the game as a whole and the team itself.

 

Not sure why ive waited so long to post either, ive been following this board off and on (mostly on) for over 7 years now (didnt actually register until last year). Love it here.

 

Welcome! Please post more!

[Yoda]

Born and raised in the McKinley Park area. 33rd and Bell Ave to be exact so not too far from Comiskey. Watching Frank Thomas on WGN and then being able to hear and watch the fireworks from my second floor bedroom was priceless. I'm very proud to be a south sider!

[ottawa_sox]

I've never been to Chicago. I grew up in Toronto. But I've followed the Sox (and the Blackhawks) since 1959. My father has to get some of the credit. I'm not sure how much he liked the White Sox, but he hated the Yankees. I have fond memories us playing cribbage in a cottage in northern Ontario with a radio magically finding Bob Elson, clear as a bell. Seeing the Sox on TV in those days was a true rarity. The first game that I ever saw on TV had Early Wynn as the Sox starter. He hooked me. I couln't believe what he could make the baseball do. Many a night, I fell asleep with a transitor radio under my pillow. The nightly dog walk included going by the sandlot and using the backstop to supercharge my transistor's antenna. Now, with cable and pvr, I've seen all their games for the last 10 years. Life is good.

[hogan873]

I grew up outside of Pittsburgh and was a die hard Pirates fan. I was actually a die hard baseball fan, and I would watch any game that was on TV. We moved to North Carolina in 1987, but I remained a Pirates fan. I also started following the Braves, watching them on TBS on a little black and white TV in my bedroom. This was in the late 80's before they were a good team. Needless to say, my tune changed when they became a good team and beat the Pirates two years in a row in the NLCS. Even after watching the Pirates blow their chances in 1991 and 1992, I was still a fan.

 

Two things happened, though, in 1994. First, the Pirates traded/didn't re-sign most of their good players and went from yearly contender to a farm team in disguise. The other thing was the strike that ended the season. At that point I basically lost interest in baseball altogether. I had joined the Coast Guard in 1992, and I was living in Juneau, AK in 1994, and I had just moved to New London, CT in 1995. So, there really wasn't another team I started following. I transferred to Baltimore in 1997, and I went to a few Orioles games, but I still felt no attachment to any team or even the game.

 

I met my wife in Baltimore in a training class. She had travelled to Baltimore from Chicago to audit the class for the Department of Transportation. We had a long distance relationship until I was transferred to Chicago in 1999. I credit her for getting me back into baseball, as she was (and still is) a huge White Sox fan. I'm not sure what it is about the White Sox, but even as a transport and a relatively new fan, I feel like I've been a fan my whole life. I don't remember having this type of attachment to a team, even when I felt like I was a die hard Pirates fan.

 

Being a White Sox fan can be very frustrating (see 2006-2012), but there's not really anything else I'd rather be, especially in the months of April through October.

[SI1020]

We moved to Chicago in 1953 from Pennsylvania. At that time Chicago was a major jobs mecca. My father grew up a Pirates fan, but after a brief period of adjustment, he really took to his new hometown. He was and is a big sports fan and he adopted the White Sox as his new MLB rooting interest. I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe because they are an AL team and that wouldn't conflict with his rooting interest in the Pirates, maybe because he met Luis Aloma, a Sox relief pitcher in the early 50's, maybe because he had an aversion to the Cubs. I don't know, I suspect a combination of all three reasons. Whatever kind of father we men have a young boy in most cases gravitates to his dad and what his dad likes and does. Mine liked to watch the Sox on WGN or listen to them on the radio at home or in the car on WCFL 1000. Towards the end of first grade I took an interest in baseball. My dad taught me how to read a box score, they were a little different then, more intricate. My dad rooted for the Sox and so did I. The 1957 White Sox team will always be special in my heart because it was my first year following and rooting for the team. My dad and I have had some highs and real bad lows over the years but he bestowed on me a love of sports, particularly baseball and lifelong devotion to my favorite team through thick and thin, the Chicago White Sox.