`Desperate’ for both teams
“Desperate Housewives” actor James Denton took in the pregame festivities, remarking that he grew up in Nashville but has taken to both the Cubs and White Sox since moving to Chicago in 1989.
“The White Sox were pretty good in the early ’90s with the old standbys like Ozzie [Guillen] and `One Dog’ [Lance Johnson] and I enjoyed Bo Jackson’s brief stay,” said Denton, who once served as a waiter at Harry Caray’s restaurant.
Asked if he could envision an episode of “Desperate Housewives” involving the Sox, Denton quipped: “I am sure that at some point, with there being so much turmoil on Wisteria Lane, I think we can prove that A.J. Pierzynski caused it.”
Something special for Dad
Don’t call Carlos Bernard a bandwagon-jumper. He freely admits he’s a Cubs fan.
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Bernard, a New Trier grad who plays Tony Almeida on Fox’s “24,” attended Saturday’s game with his dad, for whom he bought White Sox season tickets this year as a retirement gift. His father is a lifelong Sox fan.
“It’s been a dream season for him,” Bernard said, adding that he and his father are surprised the White Sox made it this far. Bernard called his dad when the Sox clinched a World Series berth over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim last weekend.
“His voice sounded like he had been crying,” Bernard said.
Bernard, who grew up going to games with his dad at the old Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field, didn’t get so emotional. That’s because his heart leans toward the Cubs.
He even wore a 1908 Cubs cap to Saturday’s game.
“I’m going to see how much beer is going to get dumped on me,” Bernard said.
Up to date at old ballgame
Peanuts, check. Cracker Jack, check. BlackBerry? Check.
U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was ready for World Series baseball.
The congressman had downloaded Sox facts, statistics and a scouting report on Houston pitchers into his BlackBerry.
With so much information at his fingertips, he joked about “a few bets I should probably make so I can put my kids through college.”
Making the rounds
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) stopped in the crowded suite of Linda Johnson Rice, president and CEO of Johnson Publishing Co., after the seventh-inning stretch.
“I’ll feel better after this game is over,” he said, shaking hands with the box’s occupants, who included Johnson Rice’s husband, Mel Farr, friend and Peoples Energy president Desiree Rogers, businessman Neal Zucker and businesswoman Estelle Walgreen.
“I’m sorry my hands are cold. I’ve sitting down with the masses,” Obama joked as he made the rounds.
Just, Woo, visiting, Woo
Uber-Cubs Fan Ronnie “Woo Woo” Wickers–subject of a documentary about Cubs fandom released this year–mingled with fans outside U.S. Cellular Field before heading north to Mother Hubbard’s to watch the game. Wickers was born and raised on the South Side.
“It’s baseball,” he said. “It brings people together.”
His heart’s in Texas
Nobody has issued an executive order yet, but a feeling persists that President Bush is pulling for the Astros to beat the White Sox.
“We have spent a lot of time at owners meetings together,” Astros chairman Drayton McLane said Saturday night before Game 1. “I know his sentiments.”
It’s rumored the president would like to catch a game in Houston.
If not, McLane can count on the president’s father, George H.W. Bush, whom he referred to as “41,” being there.
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