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“I don’t understand, mom,” said 6-year-old Aaron Sillman to his mother. “You said the White Sox were dog poop, like the Tigers. But worse, like Tigers diarrhea.”
Joelle Sillman didn’t have a good answer.
“I mean, I barely remember yesterday, much less when they won the World Series with A.J. (Pierzynski),” said the Farmington woman. “How do you tell a kid about something so impossible? May as well tell him Spider-Man is real and his new dad.”
Other local families are dealing with similar concerns.
“Ellen is panicking and having night terrors,” said Julie O’Doyle, discussing her 9-year-old daughter’s recent troubles. “She has zero idea about Ozzie Guillen or Nick Blackburn or Game 163. Why would she? How do you talk to a child about the White Sox being good? It’s horrifying. Adults are scared. I’m scared.”
Baseball trauma experts say this is not uncommon.
“The first thing I tell troubled parents is that the Chicago White Sox, while absolutely worthy of your disgust and derision, have been good before,” said John Bonnes, a Minneapolis man with a website and frequent attendee of Twins games in the late ‘90s. “They’re usually a terrible team, like the Mets yet somehow worse. But they will occasionally put out a quality product at whatever dumb name their stadium has this year. When kids discover the sad clown is dangerous? It can test any family.”
Will Ostrander can confirm this. His nephew Xander was troubled by something he saw about the White Sox on the internet.
“Xander loves baseball, and he loves the Twins, so he’s used to being worried about how Cleveland is doing. He was futzing around on my sister’s phone the other day and saw some jerk talking about how Chicago was a new threat in the AL Central. ‘Uncle Will, what is that? It sounds scary.’ How do you prepare for that? How do you respond?”
Bonnes said there is no pat answer.
“My best advice it to tell them you love them, regardless of what the next day may bring. And that the Twins should sign at least two starting pitchers so we can all sleep better. Maybe three.”
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