Breaking Bread with Bread

What is (personally) the most memorable moment of your favorite team since you’ve been alive? Were you there for it? Who were you with? Was it the regular season or the playoffs? Was it memorable enough to where you can relate it to the largest domestic attack on US soil like Joakim Noah would? – As a matter of fact, I can.

Before we dive in to my favorite moment, let’s Tarantino it and go back to the beginning.

While there’s 6 other aliases on this site, My friends actually call me Bread. This always sucks to say but I gave myself the nickname 16 years ago. I saved $8 to buy a 1-month Xbox Live subscription to play with who would become my main friend group today. I was ecstatic the name wasn’t taken and spent some time writing it on strips of looseleaf paper. This was so I could hand out the screen name at school the next day so people could add me. Before you knew it, men, women, and parents called me “Bread.” That’s it. I’m one to make short stories long, so let’s get to the good stuff.

My name is Bread and I am a White Sox fan.

“Hi- Bread”

Speaking for all White Sox fans here, admitting to being a fan in 2025 gets the same response as when you assume someone’s grandma is still alive, then they’re not, and you have to say, “Oh sorry I didn’t know.” I’ll save that topic for my next blog though because the fandom never used to be this way, but it can be recovered. Unfortunately, your grandmother is gone though.

Going back to A.A. reference above, us fans all need an intervention as to why we’re fans, but I think I have a cool story as to why I am a fan in the first place. Back in the late 1800s, my family from Ireland put everything in this chest, took a boat to the US, then moved to what would become Bridgeport, opened a bar and lived above it. The team is in my DNA at this point. Considering they’ve made the playoffs 11 times in 124 years, I have really shitty DNA. 

My entire sports upbringing was the White Sox and MLB lore. My dad became fatigued of chasing the 80s Bears and 90s Bulls highs, but noticed my infatuation with the 3 hour slow moving sport which reignited his fandom. To this day, he still watches most of the games even though we have guys like Chuckie Robinson behind the dish. Like I said, it’s in our DNA.

Sidenote- my dad was there to see the Bulls win the finals twice. Allegedly I was there for one of them but he tells me he doesn’t remember. Before I get tomatoes and a shoe thrown at me, it was a music/theater family before I came about.

Anyway, as a core childhood memory, I pulled a Jerry Manuel card in 2003 and my dad asked me, as a 5 year old, if I wanted to keep it or throw it in the trash. That made me see that he cared about the poor management of the team, and I was officially hooked on the White Sox.

Now let’s go back to the beginning of this blog. What moment is memorable enough to where it gives me temporary synesthesia just by thinking about it? The moment where I can still hear the announcers voice in my head, – what is my Joakim Noah moment? Most White Sox fans would say the Konerko/Scotty Pods game because that’s our Holy Grail, nothing will top it in our lifetime and I’m sure of it. Ask BLNT Blockbuster, guy is still chasing that high from being there.

For me- it’s the Tatahito Iguchi SNB game. It was a summer night in 2006, down 9-2 to the then NL Champion Astros. Iguchi hit a three run shot to cut the deficit, then in the bottom of the ninth, he hit a 2-out grand slam on a 3-2 count to send the game to extras. Even though they lost, I felt baseball on a deeper level and what it meant to be a fan. I’m not trying to be different by selecting this game either. To me, moments can be looked at face value, or how it sits with each individual fan on a personal level. That’s where mine comes from. After that game, 8-year old Bread would go to Whitesox.com and go to the “Top Plays Archive” and watch the moments over and over again. It was like when you find a new song you like and restart it before it finishes. When I wasn’t watching games, I would live in the Top Plays Archive.

If you looked even more into it, the White Sox just missed the playoffs that year despite having 6 all stars. The stacked Tigers and Twins, or the “Twinkies” as Hawk Harrelson would call them actually caused my hairline to recede as an 8 year old. The AL Central used to always be respected. Even though they were my enemies, players in the Central to me were likable enough to respect their game. Hell, I could write a whole blog glazing Grady Sizemore, Justin Verlander, Mike Sweeney, Travis Hafner, Miguel Cabrera, Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter, Michael Cuddyer, Pudge, Curtis Granderson, Dmitri Young, CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, the list goes on.

Sidenote: Nick Punto and Mark Teahan used to play the White Sox as if they were 2015 Daniel Murphy. Hate them to this day.

Falling just short is how the White Sox roll. Here’s how I feel about being mediocre or in my case, historically bad. Minus the historically bad part, the following applies to every Chicago fan and their team: Fans in Chicago are actual fans and not customers, and despite how mediocre things are now, just remember that losing is for losers, and losing is just an illusion to winners. Whether the success comes next year, in 5 years, or in 25 years, remember that you were there for it all, thick and thin.

It was nice to meet you all, and be on the lookout for my debrief of Sox Fest.. for how backed in the corner they were, they came out swinging. See you soon,

Bread.