Brothers navigate White Sox emotional roller coaster. A game at Rate Field ‘makes us feel connected’

Daniel Zoric and his younger brother, Charlie, were bound by their White Sox fandom before they shared the same air.

Daniel, 24, has been a fan for as long as he walked this earth. But 20-year-old Charlie’s fandom began before he was born. When their mom was pregnant with Charlie, she attended Game 2 of the 2005 World Series between the Sox and Houston Astros.

“It’s always been like a running joke in our family that [Charlie’s] been to a World Series game and I haven’t,” Daniel said.

“I tease him about it every chance I get,” said Charlie with a wide grin.

The brothers attended their first Sox postseason game together Thursday night, and though the team fell to the Cleveland Guardians 9-5 to send the series to a decisive winner-take-all game in Cleveland Saturday night, Daniel and Charlie forged memories that they’ll carry together for years.

They’ve lost count of how many hours they’ve spent at Sox games side by side, but Thursday was the first Sox postseason game that they attended together.

Daniel and Charlie grew up on baseball fields, whether it was at Sox home games through their parents’ shared love for the team or at Daniel’s organized baseball games.

The brothers, driving in from Western Springs, wanted to bask in the postseason festivities Thursday, starting with a tailgate in Lot C in front of their Mazda CX-5 over four hours before game time.

While a select few fans, including Daniel, were slightly nervous going into Thursday night’s game, a vast majority were confident, including Charlie.

“I think the team can do it given how easy it was [in] their first two games away,” Charlie said. “They had to lose a game at some point, it may as well be when they’re playing people they’ve played in their division, instead of playing the Rays.”

Daniel believed the Sox playing a division rival they’d seen several times this season was a potential weakness.

“They know us better than anyone else,” that’s my only concern,” Daniel said.

“I’m a little nervous but I have faith,” Daniel added, before Charlie immediately jumped in declaring that he “had no nerves.”

The brothers passed time by talking about sports and bets.

“This will pay for our tickets,” Daniel, who paid $100 for tickets near left field, said as he fist-bumped his brother after spending several minutes talking about a bet he wanted to place. After entering the stadium, the brothers took a lap around the stadium’s concourse — a tradition they typically do when at Sox games.

After years of playful jabs about Charlie’s “World Series appearance,” Daniel playfully fired back at his brother during the first inning.

“So far, way better atmosphere than yesterday, I mean you don’t know that, but I do,” Daniel told Charlie.

By the end of the third inning, Daniel and Charlie were singing, cheering and, Charlie said, “feeling electric,” after the Sox jumped to an early 2-0 lead. Daniel was constantly texting his dad about how the game was going.

When asked what the emotions have been like since the first pitch, Daniel gestured in the motion of a roller coaster.

“Up and down the whole time,” he said as the game moved toward the middle innings.

By the bottom of the sixth, Daniel and Charlie’s demeanor — along with much of the Sox faithful — had drastically changed after Cleveland scored six times to go up 9-4.

“We still got a shot,” the brothers said, not nearly as enthusiastic as they were earlier in the game. “There’s still a lot of baseball left.”

By the end of the eighth, the brothers had seen enough and decided it was time to leave.

After the Sox appeared to threaten a rally in the ninth inning, Daniel scrambled to turn the game on over the radio as Rate Field grew farther in his rear view mirror.

When a lineout to left field ended the game, he quickly switched the station off.

“The hope was there,” Daniel said between laughs.

Despite the deflating loss, Daniel and Charlie had a good laugh over biting into the wrappers of the Jimmy John sandwiches they had saved for hours.

Win or lose, the two agreed that their love for the team keeps their bond close.

“It makes us feel — ” Daniel said and Charlie interjected “connected.”