The day after the Lounge Ax show, we all congregated at John Henderson’s house, like we had when he was a student in Lawrence, to take part in a softball game and then a barbecue but Jim and I had a different plan. The White Sox were playing the Orioles in the last season at Comiskey and so we ditched the softball game and got on the subway down to the South Side. We tried to get Jeff and Gary to join us (Bill was not the least interested in sports) but they wanted to play in the softball game. I warned them, you haven’t played all season, you’re gonna be sore, but they wouldn’t budge.
Jim and I managed to score great seats, about 15 rows up, between home and first, and settled in for the game. In the second inning, lots of security suddenly appeared nearby and a golf cart whisked Baseball Commissioner, Fay Vincent to a front-row seat in our section, and Jim and I couldn’t have been happier. Commissioner Vincent became a bit of a folk hero to us Red Sox fans when he banned George Steinbrenner from baseball for life (later reinstated after Vincent left the office). He was definitely the last ‘cool’ commissioner and we loved him for loving baseball. For years, I had a treasured framed photo, taken by Jim and presented to me after the tour, of Fay being helped out of his golf cart, looking right into the camera at us. It was a sunny afternoon after a night of partying and so I actually fell asleep during the game, and when I awoke, the Commish was gone.
The game went extra innings with the visitors winning and, on the way out, we ran into Walt Hriniak, famous (to us) hitting coach for the Sox and Jim insisted on an autograph from the very shy coach, who reluctantly agreed. By the time we made it back to John’s house, the barbecue was in full swing. I was enjoying myself at the party but was drawn to a mysterious box in the living room, the first home computer that I had ever seen. I asked JH what it could do and he showed me how I could follow, pitch-by-pitch, the Red Sox game in Texas that night on the screen. Every time a pitch was thrown in Arlington, someone entered the result into a computer somewhere, and I could read about it a moment later in Chicago. I was amazed. In retrospect, it was really just an expensive telegraph machine but, at that point, I definitely felt like I was living in the future.
Eventually, the party broke up and Jim and I drifted off to a local dive bar that served Leinenkugels very cold and very cheap. We talked about the music business and his time in Salem 66 while we both admired a beautiful blonde gal across the bar. Years later, I bought _Exile in Guyville_ and swore I recognized Ms. Phair from her promo photos as that woman in the bar.
It was a magical day, the best of the tour (well, maybe second best), filled with friends, baseball, celebrity encounters, and topped off by some delicious beer. It’s pretty rare and wonderful to feel that at home in a city that you don’t even live in, and I put Chicago at the top of my mental list of cities that I would move to if I ever left Boston. Tomorrow: Angling for an endorsement in Battle Creek.
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