#236---CHA @ CLE, 6/3/1997

 

This was a very memorable game for me; a friend called late in the afternoon with the news that his dad had two extra tickets. And this wasn’t just any game; it was Albert Belle’s first game back in Cleveland after signing with the White Sox as a free agent. They were also better seats than I was accustomed to, set well back behind home plate under an overhang in seats that have now been removed Jacobs err Progressive Field. 

I remember taking my scorebook with me, but ended up keeping score in a free program garnered outside the ballpark. With the Tribe selling out every game and in a pre-smartphone era, there was apparently enough advertising dollars to support a market in such things. The score is impossible to follow here, but it was 9-5, White Sox. Dave Martinez (single, double, 2 homers), Frank Thomas (single, double, homer), and the Belle of the ball himself (2 doubles, homer) carried Chicago’s offense. Jim Thome has a walk and 2 homers for the Tribe.

The game was almost secondary to the sideshow of Belle’s return. I would like to think that even then I had a mature attitude towards “betrayal” by former hometown heroes who departed in free agency; unfortunately, I did not yet have sufficient resolve to avoid being swept up with the crowd. Soon I was chanting “Joey, Joey” and laughing at the monopoly money being dropped from the home run porch in left field as Belle stood in the outfield. What a shame when there was such a valid target for opprobrium standing on the field – Ozzie Guillen.