Big Win for Opener!

(April 2)

Short Take:  Fun time over in Cleveland

Welcome to the 21st century, and welcome too, to another great season of totally biased Sox coverage!

What was the best part of beating the Cleveland Indians to start the 2001 season?  Sox Fans, we have a lot of choices!

There was David Wells pitching out a jam in the first inning, leaving loud-mouth Kenny Lofton stranded at thirdbase after a leadoff single.  That was sweet!  

So too, was Bartolo Colon's performance.  Jumbo took the hill in the first inning with smoke blowing from his ears, throwing nothing but fastballs and blowing away Sox hitters.  The Cleveland crowd ate it up proving again after five consecutive division championship they still can't understand the difference between baseball and football.  They thought it was great until Bartolo inevitably slowed down and the Sox bats caught up.

A double and a single by Carlos Lee and Paul Konerko put the Sox ahead in the second inning.  Silly Bartolo forgot our young guys love fastballs!  In the fourth with Ray Durham on second, Bartolo chose to put Frank Thomas on firstbase.  Maybe he thought the next batter was Albert "never hit nuthin' when it counts" Belle.  Big Mistake!

Instead it was our Venezuelan hero, Magglio Ordonez who stuck Colon's 1-0 pitch so high and so deep into the left field seats, Lofton didn't even bother with his customary "lucky break, I shoulda got it" routine.  Ah, that was sweet, too.

Watching Bob Wickman impersonate a closer had Sox Fans rolling off their sofas, too.

There was the usual incredible Sox offense to savor.  Durham was 1 for 3 with a walk and scored twice, Jose Valentin had an rbi-double, and Frank Thomas was 1-2 with two walks and two runs scored.  What dolts like Rob Neyer would probably consider a weakness, the Sox offense efficiently churned out seven runs on nine hits.  Yeah, but we're only a second-best team, right Rob?

But the sweetest bit of this Sox victory probably won't be savored until Wednesday.  That's when the official attendance at Jacobs Field will be announced.  Unless by some miracle the depressed denizens manage to buy another 5,000 seats, the Indians' streak of 455 consecutive sellouts will end--in a game against the division champion Chicago White Sox.  They don't even have Wally Phillips to bail them out!

And they call us frontrunners?

After having this team rub our noses in it for five years, we Sox Fans find that the sweetest of all.