I had the equivalent of a 12-day sports-induced panic attack last fall.
Starting with a 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Sept. 17, the Toronto Blue Jays lost six times in seven games. They started that day with a five-game lead, plus the tiebreaker, on the New York Yankees, who were second in the American League East. A week later, they were tied. The Blue Jays would need to win out to clinch the division and earn a bye to avoid the Wild Card round.
That last weekend of the regular season, I drove from my home on the east side of Toronto to a suburb just north of the city, where my parents live. My brother or I make the trip at least once a week to make sure everything is in order for my dad, Mark, who has Parkinson’s Disease, and provide some help to my mom. When I arrived, my father was at the laptop checking a box score. He was not looking at the Jays’ stats, though.
He was looking at the box score of his formerly, and suddenly again, beloved Chicago White Sox. They entered their final series of the year with a pristine 58-101 record, going up against the 65-94 Washington Nationals. Huge implications. Believe me when I tell you this: As I got to the TV to turn on the Jays game as quickly as possible, he was paying rapt attention to the Sox-Nats game tracker. This was true diehard behaviour. (The Jays held on to win the division, needing the tiebreaker. Lest you be left hanging, the White Sox took two out of three in Washington.)
Some time between his retirement in 2017 from his long career as a lawyer and last year, my dad reengaged with his childhood love of the team on the South Side. He took his fandom up about five levels. In the process, he taught me something not just about sports or life or death, but a confluence of the three. If you love sports, hold on to them to the extent that you can, even when life gets complicated. If he could fully invest in a team for whom a 19-win improvement led to a miserable 60-win season, what excuse do I ever have in raising the white flag and checking out of a season for one of the teams I love?
To be clear, my dad never gave up on his love of the White Sox, whom he randomly chose as his favourite team as a seven-year-old kid in Chatham, Ont., in 1959 when Chicago won the AL pennant. That was their first World Series appearance in 40 years. He moved from Chatham, which is about 50 miles east of Detroit and the hometown of Baseball Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins, as he frequently told me, to Toronto a year later — 17 years before the Blue Jays played their first game. He never traded allegiances.
When I was growing up, he kept a Harold Baines baseball card attached to the sun visor of his 1984 Chevrolet Eurosport. He used to joke — I think — that he loved Baines, the White Sox designated hitter and future Hall of Famer, more than he loved me. For his birthday one year, we got him a new vanity license plate that read “SHY SOX.” (CHI SOX was not available in Ontario. Did fellow drivers think my dad had a passion for bashful hosiery all those years?)
Writer Eric Koreen, right, and his dad, Mark, a once-lapsed White Sox fan who has returned to the fold. (Danielle Perelman Photography courtesy of Eric Koreen)
As I look back, though, there were signs that his enthusiasm had waned. When I was 8, I thought it was really important to call him at his office on Aug. 10, 1993, to tell him that the White Sox had traded reliever Bobby Thigpen to the Philadelphia Phillies. Surely, my dad would want to know that the guy who recorded 57 saves in 1990, a league record that held up until 2008, was gone. Instead, he didn’t seem to care. In my dad’s defence, Thigpen was good for minus-0.6 wins above replacement that year.
More damningly, my brother and I had to wake him up to make sure he saw the final out of the 2005 World Series, when the White Sox swept the Houston Astros to win their first title since 1917 and, yes, of my dad’s lifetime. I honestly don’t remember his reaction. I think he was glad to see it, but maybe happier to go back to sleep.
There was a good reason. For most of his law career, my dad worked six days a week, running his own firm in the Bloor-West Village neighbourhood of Toronto. The city’s traffic is bad — think a touch better than Los Angeles, with infinitely worse weather. He generally got up around 5:30 a.m. so he could leave by 6 and drive across the city, beating the worst of it. He would usually get home more than 12 hours later.
My main memories of my dad as I went from tween to teen are of him being exhausted or napping the weekends away. In the process, he mostly lost touch with the teams he loved.
Looking back on it, he was obviously drained. Especially as I see him battle a degenerative disease, I wish he had found more time when he was healthier to travel, see friends and engage in hobbies, old and new. My dad did his best to look after his family, but I wonder if there was room for much joy.
These days, I can relate. Looking after aging parents, and helping them look after themselves, is tough work. The cliche about role reversal is true. I’ve become more of a nag, trying to get my parents to prioritize their health, than they ever were with me.
At the same time, my wife and I have been struggling with fertility issues for more than five years now. As far as going through life’s grand stages is concerned, this has been a double-whammy of pain and powerlessness.
Still, I’ve found my dad’s rekindled love for sports inspiring, if also curious, something I will try to relate to my children should I ever be so fortunate. He has started following the Chicago Bears again. He has opinions on quarterback Caleb Williams and everything. My brother got him a shirt commemorating the Midway Miracle, which recognizes a pair of wins over the Green Bay Packers last season. Thanks to my brother’s season tickets, my dad is going to see the Bears play the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium at the end of the year. Hey, at least the new Bills stadium has more protection against the elements than the old one.
He has gotten back into the Toronto Maple Leafs, singing the praises of Mitch Marner before he left the team last offseason. Marner proved him right by helping lead the Las Vegas Golden Knights to within two games of winning the Stanley Cup. He bought my uncle a Maple Leafs jersey for his 80th birthday, assuming everyone cares about the Leafs as much as he does. I’m not sure that is true, as Leafs fandom comes with stress and heartbreak that should lead to a shortened lifespan.
I think sports are helping keep my dad alive. My brother and I bought him the MLB Extra Innings package this year so he can watch all the White Sox games he wants. As of mid-May, he had missed just one game. (I’m not going to tell him about what happens on Fridays when a team is on the Apple TV game of the week. That’s a little gift I’m giving to myself.) Now I have to hear about the exploits of Colson Montgomery and Miguel Vargas, two players I would be blissfully unaware of right now if not for his passion.
Meanwhile, I’ve found it difficult to muster the same passion for the Blue Jays this season following the events of last fall, which I’m not yet prepared to discuss. It’s been a rocky first half for the Jays, with much of last year’s magic either gone or on the injured list.
Earlier this season, I was with my parents, helping clean up the house. The Blue Jays were playing a game nearing its conclusion, holding on to a tight lead. My dad continued to badger me to turn it back to the White Sox game, which was in the middle innings. I did everything short of cursing at my dad, yelling, “You can’t possibly be serious,” and “Your team is irrelevant” at him — never mind that the Jays and Sox had about the same record at the time.
Perhaps you think I should have let my dad watch his team. That would have been the kind thing to do, maybe. However, if my dad can enjoy a 102-loss season, I can stick it out as the defending American League champions try to regain their form.
Yes, I watched the Jays close out that win before changing the channel back to the White Sox game. If he doesn’t like it, he can blame himself.