By Dave Van Dyck, Chicago Tribune –
CHICAGO — As if upset at being upstaged in their own city, the Cubs and White Sox put diplomacy to rest for an afternoon as their North-South feud turned into a mini-beanball war.
Amid threats of NATO protest disruptions and rumors of a visit from President Barack Obama, the Cubs and Sox played hardball on a beautiful sunny day.
(PHOTO: Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood acknowledges the crowd in the eighth inning against the Chicago White Sox at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, on Friday, May 18, 2012. After striking out the only batter he faced in the inning, Wood left the mound and announced his retirement after a 13-year career.)
And, boy, did they play, although it was witnessed by only 34,937, the smallest crowd in the 16 years of the City Series.
Those who did attend received an enormously entertaining respite from the weekend’s other events from the retirement of Cub icon Kerry Wood, to the beaning of Sox captain Paul Konerko to the ejection of Cub manager Dale Sveum.
Oh, and the White Sox won 3-2 on Gordon Beckham’s eighth-inning home run to complete one of the most interesting games of the 85 played between the clubs.
The South Siders have won 16 of the last 22 games and have a 46-39 overall lead, with Game 2 on tap Saturday night.
But it will be nearly impossible to top the drama created Friday, as the Cubs and Sox tried to one-up each other.
“It was more than the typical game. It seemed like there was a lot of stuff going on,” Beckham said in the understatement of the day.
The “stuff” started in the first inning, when Konerko deposited a Jeff Samardzija pitch into the left field bleachers with Beckham on board and the Cubs came right back with one run on Starlin Castro’s sacrifice fly.
By the third inning, it became apparent this would not be a “typical game.”
A Samardzija pitch smacked Konerko in the area around his left eye and he walked off the field holding a towel to his face. Although he was sent to a hospital for further evaluation, Konerko officially suffered a laceration and swelling around the eye and his status for Saturday is questionable.
“It was a ball that got away,” Samardzija said. “If I could take it back, I would.”
Sox pitcher Philip Humber retaliated one inning later, throwing a pitch behind the head of Cubs’ first baseman Bryan LaHair.
That drew a warning from umpires and the ire of the Cubs, who felt the high pitch went way past baseball protocol.
“That one just got away from me,” Humber said with a straight face. “It’s just one of those things that happens during the game.”
One inning after that, Sveum earned his second ejection of the season after an animated heated conversation with umpire Marty Foster. The disputed play came when David DeJesus tried to stretch a single into a double. He appeared to make it safely, but was tagged out as Beckham’s diving, tumbling tag pushed him off the base.
“As far as I know, you can’t shove people off the base,” Sveum said. “Otherwise people would be doing it all the time. Unfortunately we lost a guy at second base … and it was a big play at that part of the game.”
Humber and Samardzija then kept the duel clean, and very good, until the Cubs tied it in the seventh inning when Samardzija got his first hit and RBI of the season.
Then came the eighth inning when Beckham kept up his mysterious magic against the Cubs when he knocked a ball into the bleachers. Hitting just .197 entering the game, Beckham stretched his hitting streak against the North Siders to eight and is hitting .370 lifetime against them.
When Samardzija walked the next hitter, Wood was summoned for one final fling before he announced his retirement officially after the game.
Fittingly for the one-time phenom called Kid K, he struck out Dayan Viciedo and then doffed his cap as he headed toward the dugout and one last curtain call.
“It’s just time,” Wood said. “It was a grind getting ready every day.”
All that was left was for Addison Reed — a hard-throwing rookie version of Wood — to save the game for winner Matt Thornton.
And for the two teams to plot even more ways of creating their own headlines for the rest of the weekend.
