Customer Reviews

Sox and the City: A Fan's Love Affair with the White Sox from the Heartbreak of '67 to the Wizards of Oz

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the ultimate read for any loyal White Sox fan. Winning the world series was a dream come true for me, and no one shares the magic of that wonderful season like Richard Roeper in this great book. Brought back many special memories of growing up a true sox fan in a cubs town, with the ultimate finale, a world series winner for our beloved white sox.

timely & funny, as a long time Sox fan I could relate to many of the descriptions in Roeper's book. The book gives a different perspective from a so called non sportswriter or jock. I would highly recommend it for hard core Sox fans.

Give movie critic Richard Roeper "Two Thumbs Up" for this upbeat look at rooting for the White Sox in a city where the more-popular Cubs have the advantage. Roeper describes his lifelong attachment to the Sox, recalling past baseball games, seasons, players, etc. He shows that the underdog White Sox typically draw smaller crowds and less media to their plainer arena on the city's non-glamorous South Side - add losing seasons to that mix and you can see why the Sox nearly moved to Milwaukee (1968), Seattle (1975), Denver (1980) and Florida (1988). Ironically, these hardships and the fortitude of Sox fans to endure them are rarely mentioned by a national media that fixates on the big-money Cubs and other glamour teams. Roeper concludes by describing part of the magical 2005 season, when the White Sox finally broke through and won the World Series - their first title in 88 years! That triumph cheered Chicago's long-suffering fans and attracted much-desired national attention.

This lively and often humorous narrative could have been longer than 197 fast-reading pages. I felt the author underestimated how many people in Chicago root hard for both teams, but this is still an entertaining read for baseball fans here and across the nation.

From one White Sox fan to another, Roeper details his love of the White Sox and of baseball. His wry sense of humor takes you from his childhood in the 1960s through the championship season of 2005. It's part memoir, part Sox history, and part baseball nostalgia. You don't have to be a Sox fan to enjoy this book - and you can't help but appreciate the movie and television trivia scattered throughout.

As a lifelong Chicagoan and South Side partisan I knew I'd enjoy the subject matter. Richard Roeper writes in an extremely accessible and guy-down-the-block way that made the whole book feel like a couple of friends talking Sox over beers, only a lot more clever and funny. Open a brewskie and have fun.

Thank goodness the White Sox have southside Chicago native Richard Roeper as a fan! The Cubs and other more popular MLB teams have a much longer roster of both author/fans (e.g. Stephen King and the Red Sox) and A-list celebrity/fans (of which the White Sox have none - sorry Jerry Springer, you're B-list). But the White Sox, with their long, interesting history and their amazing 2005 World Series run, needed someone to step up to the plate and deliver what the fan base needs: a book documenting what it means to be a White Sox fan in the four decades up to 2005. Roeper delivers a solid home run, albeit not a grand slam.

Roeper deftly interweaves three main storylines in "Sox and the City": the highlights of the past 40 years of Sox history; Roeper's own personal experiences as a fan attending more than 1000 Sox games; and the highlights of the 2005 season and World Series run. Along the way Roeper provides a personal, often humorous view of the main topics in Sox history: the different Sox teams that have been assembled over the years; what it means to be a Sox fan in what will always (unless the demographics of Chicago change radically) be a Cubs town, including especially the Sox/Cubs rivalry among the fans (which, because of geography is more passionate - at least on the Sox side - than any other intercity major league rivalry); Harry Caray's move from the Sox to the Cubs; Bill Veeck's attempts to generate excitement (and bring in paying fans) on the southside; Disco Demolition Night; the move from Comiskey to the Cell; and much more.

There is so much White Sox history that it is impossible to capture it all in a single volume, but Roeper hits all the highlights. His prose is very accessible, humorous, and direct. "Sox and the City" is likely to become the definitive guide to what it means to be a White Sox fan in the present day.

Why only four stars? Roeper's done an admirable job in all areas of the book except two: explaining precisely what made the 2005 team different than all other White Sox teams, and capturing the excitement and impact of the Sox's 2005 World Series victory on the city of Chicago. Perhaps the latter is an impossible task to translate into words - you had to be there.

All literate White Sox fans should read this book.

Fantastic recap of decades of Sox lore! This book was a quick and interesting read, containing trivia, stats, and facts all interwoven with personal anecdotes and memories. Terrific for new or old fans - a must have for all who know and love the Sox!

"Sox and the City" is a great read for any baseball lover, but particularly White Sox fans. They say that as a baseball fan you are wedded to one team for life, and live and die with them each season. Or to paraphrase one of those east coast baseball fans, baseball is not life or death, but the [White] Sox are!

"Sox and the City" will most interest Chicagosns, of course. But all baseball fans might enjoy it. After all, being a White Sox fan in a city with more than one team, and an ancient generational rivalry (I won't name that OTHER team) is an experience few living baseball fans still know. the annual highs and lows (and finally triumph) that made the suffering all worth it. Only perhaps New Yorkers share the experience (and even the New York Mets are stand-ins for the old Yankees-Dodgers-Giants rivalry).

If you love baseball, pick this one up!

SOX AND THE CITY IS WRITTEN BY RICHARD ROEPER WHO IS ALSO A MOVIE CRITIC ALONG WITH ROGER EBERT IN CHICAGO AND THEY HAVE A SYNDICATED TV SHOW. I REALLY LOVED THIS BOOK. I AM NOT A SOX FAN BUT AN INDIANS FAN AND I KNOW MANY MANY SEASONS HAVE PASSED SINCE A WORLD SERIES VICTORY. ROPER BRINGS BACK MUCH NOSTALGIA FROM BASEBALL IN THE 1960'S TO PRESENT DAY. I REALLY ENJOYED THE SEGMENTS ABOUT THE 1967 TEAM AND DICK ALLEN. I ESPECIALLY RECOMMEND THIS FOR ALL SOX FANS AND EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT, THIS IS AN EXCELLENT READ FOR ALL BASEBALL FANS. HE DOES A GREAT JOB DESCRIBING IN DETAIL HOW THE 2005 SEASON WENT WITH SOME GREAT BEHIND THE SCENES STORIES. I THINK THE ONE MAIN THING I ENJOYED MOST WAS HIS EXPERIENCES FOLLOWING THE SOX AS A CHILD WHEN WE ARE YOUNG AND NAIVE AND HOPE IS ETERNAL. A MUST READ.

Roeper writes very well for a journalist (ha-ha), and this book was both funny and captured the essence of being a White Sox fan. He takes you through his personal experience of being fan from his childhood in the 1960s to attending the World Series in 2005. The book would be a fun read even if you were not a White Sox fan as Roeper includes a lot of jokes about pop culture such as movies and music, and many of the stories of being a fan are universal regardless of the team.