I’m a Chicago White Sox fan. I have been for most of my life. It’s not easy being us, We are often the butt of jokes and historically we’ve had our share of scandals and nationally embarrassing news. As past owner Bill Veeck said, many years ago:
If there is any justice in this world, to be a White Sox fan frees a man from any other form of penance.
I admit sometimes it feels that way and this season in particular had been extra hard on us southside fans from The Windy City. The losing, the firing of the front office (widely celebrated by us diehard fans), the ennui that has seemingly taken over the Clubhouse these past two years. It’s been a rough run. But… this past weekend things took a turn for the worse… much worse.
It’s been widely reported on a national level that this past Friday during the fourth inning of the game two fans were shot in the outfield bleachers. Fortunately the wounds were light One woman took damage to her leg but it wasn’t life threatening and she is recovering. The woman sitting beside her was merely “grazed” by the same bullet. People got security, the women declined medical attention and shortly thereafter exited the seating area. The police wanted to stop the game, but the Sox asked to continue when no immediate threat was discovered. They did cancel the post game concert with Vanilla Ice, Rob Base and Toni Loc (okay, NOW I’m embarrassed) so police could get access to the area.
Then the speculation began… How did this bullet get to the right-centerfield stands? Was it fired from outside the stadium on a parabolic arc? There had been reports of shots fired about ½-mile away around the time this happened. That would be bad, and one more reason to believe that the Sox truly do play in a “dangerous” part of town. Through the years that stereotype has been widely played up in the newspapers. It was actually worse when the Tribune owned the crosstown rival and “lovable loser” Cubs. Stories of bullet holes in the seats while New Comiskey (later US Cellular field and currently Greater Rate Field) was under construction appeared in the newspapers. Of course that part of town actually was much more dangerous at one time. The infamous Robert Taylor Home projects lined the Dan Ryan across the way and there was a lot of gang activity in those buildings. Those failures of past government were torn down a long time ago and the area is much better, but it’s still not a place of destination other than to watch the White Sox. Doesn’t stop the narrative anyway, after all… IT’S THE SOUTH SIDE AND “URBAN” PEOPLE LIVE NEARBY!
The Sox history of embarrassment doesn’t stop there. There were two highly publicized incidences of fans jumping out of the stands to attack people on the field. Once the Royals’ first base coach got beaten pretty badly. Another time a fan made the mistake of attacking umpire Laz Diaz who is an ex-Marine. Fortunately that fan did no damage and other than getting arrested didn’t end up getting his ass kicked either (though honestly he deserved it).
Of course there’s the infamous Disco Demolition riot from the late 70’s led by one of the original shock jocks, Steve Dahl, and of course, Prior to that the Sox were most famous for the Black Sox scandal for throwing the 1919 World Series. Yes, we’ve had our share of nationally embarrassing and downright ugly moments. As I said, it’s not easy being a Sox fan.
Still, this most recent incident involving bullets fired seemed to take things to a different level and many of us waited to find out how this had happened. After a couple of days the police ruled out the idea that the bullet came from outside the park, but as unlikely as that was, the alternative seemed even less likely. How did a gun go off and no one notice? How did it not get captured on video? How did the gun get past security with scanners and wands and security checking for exactly that kind of thing?!?!?
Well today we got the answer. The woman who was “grazed” apparently smuggled the gun in between the folds of her “belly fat”. Somehow there was an accidental discharge and the bullet winged her friend. Well there you go. This explains how people missed it. Her belly fat acted as flash suppressor and silencer all “rolled” into one. I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m not one to fat shame. I live in that glass house and have most of my life. But… a gun smuggled in using belly fat definitely takes things to another level. What kind of a raging, paranoid, jackass do you have to be to go to these levels just so you can always have a gun with you? Obviously they knew they would be scanned. Clearly they had a way to deflect suspicion so the could take the gun in with them. I can only speculate, but I assume they figured security wouldn’t push to hard to search a woman fat enough to smuggle a gun in using her belly and could claim she had a metal plate or some other excuse if the scanner pinged.
I really hope we learn this scumbag’s name. I hope for the rest of her life she’s known as the belly fat gun smuggler. I hope the city goes after her on criminal charges and the Sox sue her for the damage she’s done to their reputation. I wish the titillation and dark humor of this situation outweighed my disgust and contempt for her and with our country’s love for guns... Guns... GUNS! I wish somehow this could have been avoided so my team and my hometown didn’t have to be a laughing stock once again and that national news organizations wouldn’t be able to point at Chicago Southside Baseball as one more example of how dangerous and ugly Chicago is.
Of course it could have been… all it would have taken is one less raging, paranoid, jackass, belly-fat, gun smuggler deciding to risk the lives of everyone around them and leave the fucking gun at home. But hey… ‘Merica… Amirite?!?!?!?!