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(soft jazz piano riff fades under the slow drawl…)
Wellll, good evenin’... hellooooooo to all of you out there in radioland, or perhaps here in the twilight, driving through the industrial corridors of Joliet or the lonely stretches of the Eisenhower Expressway… The Mets, the Knicks… no wait, the Blackhawks — yes, the Chicago Blackhawks, and yes, hockey is still being played in October — have done the unthinkable.
Now, for those of you just tuning in from another galaxy or perhaps leaving a matinee in Oak Lawn, let me recap what was — and I say was with a long, lingering sigh — a 6-0 Dallas lead. Yes, six to nothing. That’s not a typo. Not a numerical error. Not a mirage in the dusty windows of Union Station. That was the score… and then came the ghosts.
Connor Bedard — whose name, by the way, sounds like the kid you ask to water your plants when you’re on vacation — turned into a postseason poltergeist. A specter. A phantom in red and black. Three hits. A home run. Two triples. Four RBIs. Three runs scored. He floated around the bases like fog through the Loop on a November morning. And somewhere, Stan Mikita must’ve been smiling from the clouds.
Nick Foligno? Welllll… two home runs. Four RBIs. And he did it with a swing that looked like it came out of a sandlot in Cicero.
Now… I was just sipping a tepid decaf, thinking about that 5-run third inning by Dallas — the Stars piling it on, looking every bit the team from the state that gave us oil, barbecue, and political discomfort — and I had all but mailed in the game. But wouldn’t you know it… Chicago woke up. In the fourth, a little tap here, a poke there, a tremble through the crowd… and then that seventh inning, the ghost inning, the inning that never ends.
Foligno, again, with the exclamation point off Cespedes — not the outfielder, no — and suddenly it’s 8-7. Eight to seven, ladies and gentlemen. Like a slow boil that becomes a tempest, a forgotten pot on a stovetop rattling itself into legend.
And yes… yes, the bullpen… the Borsellinos and Riveras of the world held on, barely, like a zipper on an old winter coat. They got it done. They bent but didn’t break. They gave the home fans what they wanted.
To those of you stuck in traffic… waiting at O’Hare… wondering if it’s still possible to feel joy in October… this was a game for you.
Final score again: Blackhawks 8, Stars 7. A comeback, a resurrection… a sermon on skates.
I’m Steve Somers, and as always…
(soft jazz riff returns…)
… I’ll see you… on the other side of the glass.
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