Non-American White Sox Fans

[Points75]

Live in Canterbury, a city of around 40000 people an hour south east of London. Visited the US for the first time in 2001, landing in Chicago before visiting NYC, Boston and driving round the north east.

 

Started watching baseball on TV while in the Chicago hotel room, but the White Sox were on a road trip. The Cubs must have been playing at Wrigley, but the name sounded silly to me, so I didn't bother going to see them.

 

Have since been to games in Oakland, Washington, New York and Seattle, but not yet seen the White Sox play. Subscribe to ESPN America to watch as much baseball as possible in the summer months. Will visit the Cell at some point.

[ScottyDo]

Live in Canterbury, a city of around 40000 people an hour south east of London. Visited the US for the first time in 2001, landing in Chicago before visiting NYC, Boston and driving round the north east.

 

Started watching baseball on TV while in the Chicago hotel room, but the White Sox were on a road trip. The Cubs must have been playing at Wrigley, but the name sounded silly to me, so I didn't bother going to see them.

 

Have since been to games in Oakland, Washington, New York and Seattle, but not yet seen the White Sox play. Subscribe to ESPN America to watch as much baseball as possible in the summer months. Will visit the Cell at some point.

HA! Awesome. I'm sure White Sox is a much less silly name

 

Welcome to the board, and I am glad you find clean stockings so respectable!

Edited February 7, 2014 by ScottyDo

[southsider2k5]

Live in Canterbury, a city of around 40000 people an hour south east of London. Visited the US for the first time in 2001, landing in Chicago before visiting NYC, Boston and driving round the north east.

 

Started watching baseball on TV while in the Chicago hotel room, but the White Sox were on a road trip. The Cubs must have been playing at Wrigley, but the name sounded silly to me, so I didn't bother going to see them.

 

Have since been to games in Oakland, Washington, New York and Seattle, but not yet seen the White Sox play. Subscribe to ESPN America to watch as much baseball as possible in the summer months. Will visit the Cell at some point.

 

Welcome to Soxtalk!

[Leonard Washington]

Live in Canterbury, a city of around 40000 people an hour south east of London. Visited the US for the first time in 2001, landing in Chicago before visiting NYC, Boston and driving round the north east.

 

Started watching baseball on TV while in the Chicago hotel room, but the White Sox were on a road trip. The Cubs must have been playing at Wrigley, but the name sounded silly to me, so I didn't bother going to see them.

 

Have since been to games in Oakland, Washington, New York and Seattle, but not yet seen the White Sox play. Subscribe to ESPN America to watch as much baseball as possible in the summer months. Will visit the Cell at some point.

I was there in 2008. Nice town. Cool castle.

[Points75]

I was there in 2008. Nice town. Cool castle.

 

Yeah it's nice.

We've got castle ruins and a castle wall around parts of the city, a cathedral which serves as the HQ of the Church of England, it's 45 minutes by train to Central London and 15 minute drive to beaches. If only British weather offered anything other than constant drizzle...

[BPK]

Thought it'd be fun to have a thread for the non-American Sox fans, to share experiences of following the Pale Hose outside of the States.

 

I got into baseball and the White Sox through a mixture of insomnia and football (soccer). I always found myself awake at 4am when there was nothing happening in my time zone. Baseball had a reputation of being boring from what little I had discussed of it with friends and the couple of times I'd seen it I'd been fairly perplexed by the rules. However my nocturnalism forced my hand and I started watching more of it, not regularly though, and without a team there was no hook. This was in 2011 and my football team, Manchester United, were on a pre-season tour of America. I was watching MUTV and they showed club captain Gary Neville throwing the first pitch at the Cell (

). I watched the game that night and the Sox beat the A's 9-4 behind Mark Buehrle, with home-runs from Adam Dunn (hitting .178 at the time) and Paul Konerko (.318). I loved the way Buehrle pitched, and I was hooked.

 

Living in Ireland, there wasn't many places selling baseball stuff. My first Sox purchase was from eBay, a baseball signed by Adam Dunn. This was a mixture of economics (I was a poorly student and for aforementioned reasons Dunn stuff was dirt cheap) and feelings of pity for Dunn, who was getting booed at the time. I was actually a little disappointed when Dunn fell something like 4 plate appearances short of qualifying for the batting title and therefore officially the worst offensive season in modern baseball, it would have been a kind of morbidly cool tribute! I later got a second-hand Sox pinstripe jersey, on eBay too. Next on my wishlist for when I have a bit more money is this bad-boy: http://shop.mlb.com/product/index.jsp?productId=23867366

 

Watching the Sox is 99% internet streams, I used to get the odd game (usually versus the Yankees or Red Sox) on ESPN America, which came free with our TV package at home at the time, but not anymore. Very occasionally now when there's a Sox game on ESPN America and I'm in a bar which has it and nobody else is watching anything, I can get them to put it on. Unlike American football, there is little or no baseball following in Ireland. I'd say about 10-15% of my friends have an American football team, but the only baseball fans I know here were either born in America or have family there.

 

I keep in touch with baseball through the internet and podcasts (Baseball America, White Sox Weekly, Up And In (Baseball Prospectus, sadly discontinued), Effectively Wild (also Baseball Prospectus)). I've gotten really into the world of the draft, which doesn't happen in sports over here, and prospects, which is a much more interesting area in baseball than in sports over here. I'm also fascinated by concepts like service time, arbitration, free agency etc. which also don't apply. For example, my two main sports are football (soccer) and hurling (brilliant Irish game involving sticks, a small ball, and carnage). In football, straight swaps of players are rare and sides usually buy players for cash. Although players are frequently accused of greed, it'd be funny to see what it'd be if it was like it is in baseball, where as far as I can see the player usually takes the biggest contract, regardless of how close the team are to winning. In football, the best players aspire to be on the teams who can win soon, although often (but not always) they'll also be the teams paying most. In hurling, every player is amateur and plays for the county (equivalent of state) they are from. So Mike Trout would play for New Jersey for his whole career and also not be paid.

 

I haven't been to a game yet but I'll be starting a new college course in September, allowing me to get a student visa to the US for the summer of 2015 where hopefully I'll be able to get to a game or ten for the pennant-contending White Sox!

 

So, foreign White Sox fans, how did you get into baseball/the White Sox?

How do you follow the sport/watch the games?

Have you attended a game/do you hope to?

What's your experience like in general of following the Sox from abroad?

 

P.S. This board has also been a great help in following the White Sox, between this, Twitter and the excellent writing on SouthSideSox, all my needs are covered, and I'm grateful.

 

I'm pretty sure this is my favorite post that I've read on this board.

[Feeky Magee]

I'm pretty sure this is my favorite post that I've read on this board.

Thanks, that's very kind of you to say.