`Keep it. That’s good luck.’

On Wednesday evening, my brother Phil and I are in line outside Rate Field on Chicago’s South Side, there to see the Chicago White Sox play the New York Yankees.

He gestures to something on the ground in front of me.

“Is that yours?”

I take a closer look, see it’s a one-dollar bill, and pick it up. I ponder tapping the shoulder of the woman in front of me—I have no way of knowing, but maybe she had just dropped it? Phil senses my hesitation.

“Keep it,” he said. “That’s good luck!”

He’s right; if it was a substantial sum, I’d have made some inquiries. As-is, pocketing the modest George Washington feels routine, almost like picking up litter.

Just as I’d done two years ago when I took Phil to a Sox game against the Yankees, I’d purchased the cheapest seats—Section 509’s practically across the border in Indiana. As we make our way onto the concourse, I tell Phil, “I view our seats as a suggestion. Let’s see what we can get close by.”

This is a fairly regular lifelong practice of mine—simple to do solo, a bit harder with a companion, and increasingly fraught with three or more people.

Phil’s game to play along. In fact, his nonchalance exceeds mine. Although I’m versed in the art of seeking forgiveness and not permission to sit in primer-than-I-paid-for stadium seats, for decades my bro’s entire lifestyle was marked by finding unusual, unorthodox and/or unauthorized places to camp out.

Compared to the whole wide world, finding the nooks and crannies in this venue is quite literally another day in the park for Phil.

It’s a piece of cake for us to casually saunter down the steps and find a cluster of open seats in the 100-level along the third-base side. With the dollar bill tucked in my cargo shorts pocket, our luck has shown up right away.

It’s not as if we can hear the players’ dugout banter—we’re not that close, maybe 25 rows back—but we’re getting a solid return on our investment. We flop down, sip our water, take in the sights.

After a few minutes, I turn to Phil and mention this is the same side of the park where we sat two years ago when the Yankees came to town. “Only,” I add, tilting my head toward the most distant reaches high above us, “we were way up there.”

“We came here for a game?” Phil replies.

“Yeah, you know, we sat with (our nephew) Brennan and his friends and we met the old manager on the way out,” I reply, referring to our impromptu post-game encounter with longtime Sox manager Tony LaRussa.

Phil doesn’t say anything. He seems to have no recollection of that evening, which was the focus of this column I wrote at the time1.

I let the topic drop, no desire to bring Phil back to those years of his daily grind of alcohol and heroin/fentanyl consumption. It’s understandable, given his former lifestyle, that he doesn’t remember that night.

A month later, he would have his third overdose-reversed-by-Narcan near-death experience—the “bottom” that I’d long prayed would happen without doubling as death.

Going on close to 700 days later, he’s left that Russian roulette routine behind.

Back in 2024, the White Sox were on their way to the worst record in modern Major League baseball history. In July and August, when we saw them crush the Yankees, 12-2, they managed a mere 7 wins against 44 losses.

This year, the Sox are in first place in their division and have a strong shot at making the playoffs. The team has gone through a dramatic overhaul; only one starter from that game two Augusts ago is on the team’s roster now.

In much the same way, Phil’s transformed into a new person. Two years ago, throughout the contest he sipped on a vodka-laced concoction that he smuggled past security (below).

Share

I’m just happy he’s had the great luck not only to still be alive, but to be in his right mind, to have day-to-day stability, to have maintained his blunt humor. When we get together, every week or two, it’s usually centered on shopping for groceries and watching a movie he’s borrowed from the library.

Tonight, we’re blessed with fresh air, mild weather (75 degrees Fahrenheit and clear, according to the box score) and seats that are a few notches above our investment.

Fifteen minutes of pre-game, including the ceremonial opening pitch and the national anthem, ensue. At one point, I notice two Sox players—outfielder Sam Antonacci and third baseman Miguel Vargas—are each on one knee, huddled as they lean on one another for well over a full minute.

“Looks like they might be praying,” I say.

Phil shrugs, a master of not saying much.

It’s a brutal first inning for the White Sox. The Yankees go up, 4-0, after a three-run home run by rookie/veritable hulk Spencer Jones (6-foot-7, 240 pounds) who socks an opposite-field home run to left field.

The Sox go down feebly in the bottom of the frame, as New York’s Cam Schlittler demonstrates why he’s in the conversation as the league’s top pitcher. Looks like it could be a long night for the home team.

On the bright side, the coast has remained clear for us in these sweet seats. Alas, out of the blue, a couple of guys show up: “These are ours,” one simply says.

I refrain from quipping that we had just been keeping the seats warm for them—best if we just relocate quickly, seamlessly, and not attract any usher’s attention.

Within 15 seconds, we’ve settled in a section over, along a row of about 10 empty seats. Look at that: we’re even closer now. How lucky.

And for a few innings, all is good—I am tempted to think we’ve found a permanent home for the balance of the contest. It’s the third inning, after all, and who shows up that late to a game? Turns out, one correct answer on this evening is “a young couple, with the mom holding an infant child.”

We shuffle to the right a few seats and she says we’ll be OK until the rest of her family arrives. Oh, great.

We hold out hope that she’s bluffing, or mistaken…but about 15 minutes later, here they come, to our left. We pop up, exiting right, and ascend the steps to the concourse; we’re officially nomads now.

We decide to relocate near the left field foul pole, on the edge of the bleachers. I’m careful to confirm with a young dude that the two seats nearest him haven’t been occupied the whole game.

We settle in for five seconds—count ‘em, five!—when two older guys (well, about as old as us) come to claim these very two seats. This isn’t trending very well. UST (Units of Squatting Time) have deteriorated from “innings” to “seconds.”

Phil and I are back on our feet and after sizing up the situation and keeping an eye on the action, we figure we might as well check out our actual seats. It’s a 10-minute trek, our journey aided by numerous screens that keep us current on the game, plus an elevator that propels us to the top level.

When we finally arrive, around 7:45 p.m., a steady cool breeze rewards our effort. It’s not only a different part of the stadium, but an entirely different season up here.

That’s good, because in addition to his aching knees, Phil’s perspiring pretty heavily—he no longer walks the estimated eight miles he trekked daily when he was at the peak of his on-the-street life. It’s no coincidence that stopped when the booze and drugs stopped: Phil no longer needs to fund those addictions.

Technically, we’re about 10 rows closer than our actual seats but in these hinterlands, nobody’s particularly concerned about that level of precision. The row is open in front of us, and that gives us both an opportunity to stretch our legs a bit.

Behind us are eight or 10 young men and women dressed up in Harry Potter-inspired costumes—that’s the evening’s theme—but after another hour, it’s the Yankees whose spell continues to bedevil the White Sox. After six innings, the score remains 4-0, with Schlittler dominating. He’s surrendered only one broken-bat base hit.

The Sox push across one run in the seventh inning, knocking Schlittler out in the process. As the middle of the eighth inning arrives, it would be fair to say that the game has been a bit of a snooze—hardly any White Sox base runners, lots of strikeouts, and no hint that we’re in for a cliffhanger.

Phil broaches his next move: I don’t need to come with him, but he’s looking to go home. It’s only two train stops away, he notes, but he wants to get out in front of the crowd.

“You won’t be upset if I go?” he asks.

In the context of all he’s been through and all we’ve been through together over the years, his question is endearing and tender. I’m well past the point of being upset about anything in our relationship.

Besides, he’s not really a baseball fan, anyway, so his decision is rational. And unlike the years when he had no home—when he slept on trains all night, hunkered down in the woods or crashed in hundreds of other on-the-edge spots—he’s actually had an apartment of his own the past five years.

Mindful of how far he’s come, I reassure Phil that I’m fine to watch the rest of the game on my own. He wastes no time in unspooling himself from the seat, then slowly, carefully making his exit.

A few minutes later, I’ve moved a few sections closer to the plate. I’m still pretty far down the right field line, still in the 500 level nosebleeds, just trying to scope out a few other angles.

I’m in one of those areas where people can stand—it’s set a little away from the steps, so ushers don’t shoo us away. There’s a Sox player on base and I’m behind a father and young-adult son as Antonacci—one of the pregame prayer guys—hits what looks to be a routine pop fly right down the first base line.

Only it keeps floating, floating. The Yankee right fielder scrambles to the fence, trying to get under the ball. Its arc goes deeper, deeper, finally descending a few feet beyond the fence, just inside the foul pole.

It’s as mathematically modest of a home run as one can secure in this place, which erupts with cheers as fireworks boom and illuminate the sky. It’s now 4-3, Yankees, and when Munetaka Murakami steps to the plate, there’s a lingering buzz.

The Japanese rookie golfs the first pitch—I don’t know he reaches it, the ball is so low—and the ball lands just over the fence in left-centerfield. More fireworks, more bedlam. We’re all tied up.

I’m high-fiving father-and-son, new members of my temporary extended Sox-fan family. My mind turns to Phil—is he even outside the stadium yet?

Phil: Shit.

Me: back 2 back homers

Phil: I heard

A half-hour later, Phil’s back in his apartment. Meantime, the game refuses to end, this risen-from-ashes Sox team doing so many of the little things required to win consistently.

I’ve moved behind home plate, but nearly as far back as you can get, in front of just one solitary guy who’s staked out the last row.

Maybe 25 feet to my left is another Sox fan in his undershirt who’s intermittently twirling his regular shirt around—he’s got his own, more modest twist on the “tarps off” shirt-waving antics sweeping the nation.

We high-five when Sox pitcher Jordan Hicks gets out of a bases-load jam and keeps the Yankees from scoring. When the Sox finally win the game in the 12^th inning, we smack palms again as we bellow in delight with thousands more.

Would it have been fun to celebrate this moment with Phil? No doubt.

But we’d already had our own, more subdued celebration, starting near the stadium entrance. Much had transpired, on and off the field, in the four hours since Phil spotted that dollar bill.

“Keep it,” he’d instructed at the outset of this nomadic night. “That’s good luck!”