Tell The Devil The White Sox Sent Ya, Metrodome

It was a storyline that was going to write itself. The White Sox were either going to lose their last game at the Metrodome and go out with a whimper or win and "exercise the demon" of the seventh oldest stadium in baseball before it's laid to rest.

Fortunately for the White Sox and my sanity, they chose to travel down a path they're quite unfamiliar with: winning in the Metrodome, winning late, actually touching Joe Nathan for the first time since, oh, I don't know, forever. Four runs in the ninth inning. Four!


I wish I could say yesterday's victory vindicated anything, but it really didn't. It's about 5% better knowing we were able to at least leave Minnesota yelling "FU!!!" but that's about the only solace there is.

Listening to the game on the Twins XM feed at work was pretty great, though. The announcers just sounded politely disturbed. Stuff like "well, golly*, we really didn't expect this to happen" and "what a tough, tough, ending."

* - no one ever said "golly"

Still, an unexpected ending to the worst story the White Sox have been a part of the last three years.

The post-game quotes were even a bit goofy, too...

"How crazy this thing is," said manager Ozzie Guillen, whose team went 2-7 here this year and 3-16 since the summer of 2007. "We figure out how to win in this place, and now we can't come here no more."

Let's not say things we can't take back.

"I'm not a machine," said (Joe) Nathan, who notched his fifth blown save in 40 chances.

Yes you are. You never lose. Ever. You are a machine. A white machine.

"We own this place!" - [Paul Konerko]

Yeah, he was joking, but that's probably the exact same thing I would have said.

For now? We say goodbye. As someone who really doesn't get too worked up by sports rivalries all that often -- Cubs stuff aside -- nothing got to me in these recent years as much as the Metrodome. And the garbage bag in right field. And the turf. And the stupid ceiling. Seriously, this is the top of the ceiling. A swastika. They were Nazis. And all the breaks they always seemed to get, whether it was by superior talent or just dumb luck.

At some point in 2007 or 2008, I hit a breaking point where I no longer watched or listened to Sox games at the Metrodome unless they were winning or batting while tied. If the game was tied and the Twins were up? Forget about. Having to watch any scenario that involved the Twins succeeding in that shit wreck of a stadium was -- and still is -- way too much to process.

Sometimes, when your enemy is down and stripped of all its power, there's an instinct of sympathy where you re-evaluate what made this person or thing your enemy in the first place. You sometimes ease up on your hatred as you feel goodwill fighting against your killer instinct. In a way, your heart softens because you know you've won the war.

Not so much this time. This is seriously the best non-Jay Cutler day of Chicago sports this summer.

So with the Metrodome looking like this...


...we need to prepare for a post-Metrodome world.

This means:

1) We can start not-hating white people anymore. Though I'm not ready to take back any of the things I said in the past. Actually, let's not even advocate liking white people. Let's just say hating is optional.

But you know what you need to do if you want playing time.

2) With the title of "worst stadium in baseball" soon to be vacated, there's already a stadium primed to replace the incumbent.


3) Outdoor baseball in Minnesota. Or, as Ozzie once foretold: "Let's see those motherfuckers hit when it's 20 degrees outside."

4) This is over.
It has to be. It has to be.

* * *

Metrodome? HE GONE!

Welcome: Target Field.

And though he's already been quoted enough, I can't help it -- I've gotta give last word to the only man who could sum it up this beautifully: