Willie Smith, Carlton Fisk — and other Opening Day memories

I threw out the ceremonial first pitch at White Sox opening day at Comiskey Park in 1977 — along with probably 20,000 or so other fans who threw styrofoam baseballs onto the field as part of a Bill Veeck promotion to start his second season of his second stint as owner of the White Sox. 

That 1977 home opener also was the unveiling of the first statue at Sox Park — Richie Zisk in right field. With the less-than-mobile Zisk in right and 31-year-old Ralph Garr in left, 22-year-old center fielder Chet Lemon chased down so many fly balls that season he set an Ameican League record for outfield putouts in a season — 512 — that might still stand today. 

The Sox beat the Red Sox 5-2 in that game, but I had to look that up. For some reason, it wasn’t one of those games that was seared in my memory — even though it kicked off a the memorable (but ultimately disappointing) season of the South Side Hit Men. 

The White Sox bashed their way to a 62-37 record and a 6 1/2-game lead over the Royals in the AL West after beating the Royals 5-4 in 10 innings in the first game of a double-header at Comiskey Park. Down 4-2 in the bottom of the 10th, Lemon’s two-run homer tied it and Garr’s RBI single won it, sending a crowd of 50,412 (the largest at Sox Park since the Dick Allen days) into delirium. 

It turned out to be the peak moment of that awesome summer. With a chance for a four-game sweep to go up 7 1/2 games on the Royals, the Sox lost 8-4 in Game 2. 

The delirium of Sox fans that season can’t be overstated. The Sox had not won a pennant or a division title since 1959 — not the longest drought in town, but still pretty lengthy. And with the beer flowing as usual at Comiskey Park, Sox games were kind of a season-long frat party. 

That the Sox joined the fun with curtain calls after home runs (not a standard practice in that day) and generally enjoying the moment instead of acting like they’d been there before — because they hadn’t — irked some opponents, especially the Royals, who the previous year had won the first division title in the franchise’s eight-year history. 

Royals outfielder Hal McRae called it “bush.” Outfielder Amos Otis took it a step further. “I’m not impressed with their fans, or their team, either,” he said after that doubleheader. “They’ve got a few guys who ca hit, but their defense is no good. I’m not impressed with their bullpen, and they can’t run the bases. We’ll catch them.” 

It was a precursor to Chiefs coach Guenther Cunningham calling Gary Crowton’s offense “razzle-dazzle” that wouldn’t last after the Bears beat the Chiefs in the 1999 season-opener at Soldier Field. And like Cunningham would be 22 years later, Otis was absolutely right. The Sox went 28-34 the rest of the way. The Royals went 46-17 to finish 102-60 and win the AL West by eight games over the Rangers and by 12 games over the third-place Sox (90-72). 

Be that as it may, Opening Day is always special, but still just one of 162. In football, an opener can be a real harbinger — like when the Bears, after surging to the playoffs in 2005, opened the 2006 season with a 26-0 rout of the Packers at Lambeau Field en route to a 13-3 season and a berth in the Super Bowl. 

Baseball doesn’t really have that, but it has produced some memorable Opening Days: 

• In 1969, Willie Smith hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the 11th inning to give the Cubs a 7-6 victory over the Phillies — the start of a glorious summer at Wrigley Field that, like the Sox in 1977, ended in disappointment. (It’s forgotten that the Cubs blew a 5-2 lead in the ninth inning of that game when Don Money hit a three-run homer off Fergie Jenkins). 

• In 1981, Carlton Fisk, in his first game with the White Sox after leaving the Red Sox, hit a three-run home run off Bob Stanley to give the White Sox a 3-2 lead en route to a 5-3 victory over the Red Sox at Fenway Park. 

• In 1971, Billy Williams hit a home run off Bob Gibson in the bottom of the 10th inning to give Fergie Jenkins and the Cubs a 2-1 victory over the Cardinals. (Two starting pitchers still in the game in the 10th inning — those were the days!)

• In 1994, Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes hit three home runs in his first three at-bats against Dwight Gooden (That always sounds a little more impressive than it actually was — Gooden was a shell of the historically dominant pitcher he was when he came up with the Mets in 1984-85. But still — three homers off any pitcher in the same game is still impressive). The Cubs lost, 12-8 — with Gooden still the winning pitcher.

• In 1991, Sammy Sosa hit two home runs and had five RBIs as the White Sox and Jack McDowell beat the Orioles 9-1 at Memorial Stadium. The Sox opened the season 6-0 — winning the first six games of a seven-game road trip to start the season. But the air quickly went out of the balloon in the home opener — the inauguaral game at new Comiskey Park — when the Sox and McDowell fell falt in a 16-0 (!) loss to the Tigers. 

• In 1996, Mark Grace singled off Trevor Hoffman in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Cubs a 5-4 victory over the Padres. That was also the day well-respected umpire John McSherry died at 51from a heart attack seven pitches into the Reds-Expos Opening-Day game in Cincinnati. 

I was writing a sidebar for the Sun-Times that day and mostly remember an awkward media exchange with Padres star Tony Gwynn. The media was there to ask Gwynn about McSherry. Gwynn, momentarily annoyed by the bigger than usual crowd hovering around his locker as he got dressed, spoke with great respect for McSherry. 

“He was the umpire, one of the best and most consistent,” Gwynn said. “You could always talk to him. If you thought a pitch was a little up or a little down, you could ask him about that. I always respected that.”