As I grow older, I find myself reminiscing on old memories from my childhood that I shared with my late father. I likely take after him in more ways than I realize, but one way I am acutely aware of is that he and I are both unflinching optimists. I'd like to think I always see the good in situations, lights at the end of tunnels regardless of the length, and roll with the punches when things go awry. The optimism that drives me is the reason I have tarot tattooed on my arm -- The Tower and The Magician to signal rebirth from catastrophe -- and tend to leap before I think as I believe every situation has a good ending, in one way or another. Optimism, naïveté, arrogance, or whatever you want to call it, is a quality I'm happy to use as a guiding principle.

One of the memories that has come flooding back often recently involves me sitting with my Dad in his office, watching Game 2 of the 2005 World Series between the White Sox and the Astros. Despite my Dad not being much of a baseball person, generally, the entire Chicagoland area was buzzing due to the White Sox' dominant postseason run up to this point. Coming off of their legendary four complete game sweep of the Angels in the ALCS, I am sure things felt different for my Dad who saw Chicago-based sports heartbreak after Chicago-based sports heartbreak. This was the first championship he could taste as a fan since the 1985 Bears made their Super Bowl run that Chicagoians still regularly reminisce over. Houston was up 4-2 past the seventh inning stretch, looking poised to tie the series at one apiece. Never in doubt in his mind, my Dad watched throughout the Astros' lead waiting for when the Sox would strike back. Then, batter by batter, the bases slowly became loaded until Paul Konerko came up to bat. With one swing, the entire state of the game changed -- 4-6, Sox, a score that would eventually become a 6-7 Game 2 win which was a jewel in the crown of the 4-0 series sweep. I still remember my Dad explaining what a "grand slam" was to me, a 5 year old kid getting his first taste of the sport that would eventually become his life's goal to work within.

The World Series win turned into my dad and I attending a few more Sox games, thanks to one of his coworkers having an in to free tickets. My first time at what would become my favorite place in Chicago, my first taste of playoff baseball, various games between enjoying my time with my family while I had it and witnessing who would become one of my favorite players do his thing on the mound: Mark Buehrle.

Nearly 15 years later, in 2021, Buehrle had the honor of being on the final step before baseball immortality: the Hall of Fame ballot. Every December, baseball writers all around the US vote on who is worthy of entering the hallowed Hall of Fame. Mark Buehrle, unfortunately, is not a hall of famer by metrics that baseball writers look for -- he was never among the superstar best players of his era (only received Cy Young votes once, in 2005) despite his perfect game, 14 straight seasons of 200+ innings pitched, four consecutive gold gloves, and remarkable consistency. However, Buehrle has managed to hang around -- players that garner below 5% of the vote in a given year fall off the ballot, and Buehrle has consistently gathered around 8 to 11 percent of the vote. Not particularly close to the 75% required to be enshrined in the hall, but enough to stay on. Buehrle's Hall of Fame case is well spoken by MLB's Paul Casella in an article written last year, which is highlighted by his consistency and sharp peaks as opposed to the sustained star power or overt "greatness" more typical candidates for the hall possess.

Buehrle is, unfortunately, likely not a hall of famer. However, he is still enshrined in the south side of Chicago where so many bright memories of his were made -- the perfect game, his no-hitter a few years prior, the wicked defensive glove flip -- within the walls of Rate Field. Announced at the beginning of this year, Mark Buehrle would have a statue of him unveiled on July 11th, to rest at Rate Field beside other White Sox greats from the team's century-plus history. I nearly immediately bought tickets, and it happened to fall on a day my Mom was in town for a wedding. The usually empty stadium was buzzing with fans, a feeling I know from other stadiums but is typically unfamiliar within my own. Most of the traffic, of course, hummed around the newly unveiled statue right above Section 105. Seeing a statue of one of my favorite players in person, alongside my Mom and with my Dad's ashes around my neck in the form of a necklace I always wear, made me begin to tear up -- a deeply satisfying "full circle" moment. The game itself went into extras, with the Sox walking it off in the 11th in cinematic fashion thanks to a dramatic pitching performance by Mike Vasil in the rain.

I planned to write a stream of consciousness about Mark Buehrle for my site before the fact he was getting a statue was even announced, full of the stats and numbers highlighting his consistency and peaks that people that read my writing are used to. However, the statue unveiling threw an emotional wrench into this -- my ballad for Buehrle is now a link to one of my greatest role models who is no longer with us, cherished memories of the late 2000s White Sox, and a pitcher that is without doubt within my personal Hall of Fame. The optimistic 5 year old kid watching Game 2 of the World Series has turned into the consistently optimistic 25 year old guy standing for a picture with a statue that represents a remarkably consistent MLB career.

The statue unveiling was my favorite baseball game I have ever been to, and I doubt this will change any time soon. Thank you, Mark Buehrle, and thank you, Dad.