CHICAGO — Can the Cubs and White Sox reprise the magical summer of 1977?

We’re still a week away from Memorial Day, the first real mile-marker of the marathon baseball season.

But both teams are early contenders, and Cubs and Sox fans who packed Rate Field for the opening round of the City Series seem poised for a summerlong party, at least if the endless vaping in the parking lot and bleachers is any indication.

Sunday’s rubber game at the Riot, er, the Rate, turned into an epic chapter of the 29-year-old Crosstown rivalry. Tristan Peters’ three-run home run in the eighth gave the Sox a 7-4 lead, before Michael Conforto’s three-run home run in the ninth tied it, before the Cubs took a lead in the 10th, before Edgar Quero’s two-run shot handed the Sox a wild 9-8 win.

If you tried to script it, you probably couldn’t have come up with an ending quite like this one.

“Just a good day to be a White Sox,” starter Erick Fedde said. “Personally, I’m walking around the city and sometimes you run into people and they’re like ‘Give it to the Cubs this weekend.’ You feel that, the atmosphere. These games mean a lot to people in the city, and it’s good to come out with a series win.”

After three straight 100-plus loss seasons, the Sox not only look like they’ve turned a corner in the rebuild, but also might be bona fide contenders in a watered-down American League Central. This is not Memorex.

“Once you start winning and stuff, it’s like, all right, this is real, it’s not fake,” shortstop Colson Montgomery said. “I think what we have going on here is real.”

The Cubs, who dropped their third-straight series after a 20-3 stretch, remain in first place in the National League Central and face the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday at Wrigley Field with a 15-game home win streak on the line. A tough loss, perhaps, but the Cubs tipped their caps to the Sox after the City Series ended.

“They were kind of just all up in our stuff all series,” Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong said. “First game they were just fighting and yesterday they came out swinging and made a lot of stuff happen. But it’s fun playing against a young team like that. I feel like I can relate to a lot of those guys. I appreciate how a lot of them play. It’s a good ballclub playing good baseball. It’s good for the city that they got two good teams going, having a lot of success this year.”

Crow-Armstrong was the most booed Cubs player all weekend, and got into a vocal discussion with a Sox fan who heckled him after he failed to make a catch on Miguel Vargas’ game-tying double in the fifth.

“Some lady just decided to start talking s−−−, and I felt the need to say it back,” he said.

Just another Crosstown thing. Ask Sammy Sosa how he was treated in the 90s.

None of the Cubs or Sox players were around in ’77, when the two teams and the traveling King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum made it a summer like no other. Ask your Boomer grandparents about that crazy time when both teams resided in first place for weeks before both collapsed at the end.

That’s why no one ever tells stories about the “Fall of ’77.”

Still, for one moment in time, Chicago was heaven on earth, at least baseball-wise.

For the ’77 Cubs, the high point was a 16-15, 13-inning win over the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field on July 28 after trailing 6-0 in the first and tying the game in the bottom of the ninth and 12th innings. A front page headline in the Chicago Tribune read: “Visions of a Cub pennant dance in their heads.” A reporter interviewed fans at Ray’s Bleachers, which is now Murphy’s Bleachers, so you can understand if their vision was a little blurry.

The ’77 Sox are fondly remembered as “the South Side Hit Men,” and it was the beginning of organist Nancy Faust playing “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” the song taunting the opposing team’s pitcher when he was removed from the game. Harry Caray was the ringleader, and the Sox players took curtain calls after home runs, making every win feel like a playoff game.

Sox announcer John Schriffen even sang the “Na Na” tune in both Friday and Saturday’s games, though it came back to bite him Friday when the Cubs bounced back for a 10-5 win.

Was it too soon? Maybe the magic wand got to him.

That’s the wand Sox reliever Mike Vasil waved at slugger Munetaka Murakami on Saturday before the first of Murakami’s two home runs. It might have been an omen that something special could be brewing, or that Vasil was just nuts. Both of those theories could be true.

I told Vasil he could sell the wand on eBay for big bucks, but he said he’d hold onto it all season.

“Maybe I’ll put it in a nice glass case and put it in my house some day,” he said.

Teammate Jordan Leasure bought the magic wand for Vasil, who is rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and trying to help out in any way he can. Vasil also has a costume, with a magician’s scarf, but said he only wears it in the clubhouse after wins.

“For me, being a part of this magical season, it’s been really, really special,” he said. “And I take pride in trying to be the best teammate I can be every day … When the game starts, I’m here to serve everybody else.”

Sox manager Will Venable, who is as low-key as a cat napping in the sun on a windowsill, encourages the dugout wizardry and assorted shenanigans.

“I’m locked in, but it’s hard not to see some of it,” Venable said of the magic wanding. “But it’s exciting. It’s one of those things for me, when good things happen, that’s great. But to me, it’s the way they continue to have that same spirit when maybe things aren’t going well or when we lose. That’s what makes me proud of the group.”

Like the ’77 “Hit Men,” this year’s Sox team is made up of role players making big contributions, kids trying to hang in the majors and a core of power hitters that helps make up for its up-and-down pitching and defense.

Murakami, Montgomery and Vargas are all on track to hit 30-plus home runs, which would be the fourth time in franchise history three players have done so: For the record, the list is, 2006: Jermaine Dye (44), Jim Thome (42), Paul Konerko (35) and Joe Crede (30); 2008: Carlos Quentin (36), Dye (34) and Thome (34); 2004: Konerko (41), Carlos Lee (31)and José Valentín (30).

What the Sox desperately need is the return of catcher Kyle Teel, who is rehabbing a right hamstring strain at Triple-A Charlotte. Teel sat out Sunday with right knee soreness from tweaking it Saturday night, but his return is unknown. The Sox catching is thin without Teel, though Quero, who came in hitting .151 with 7 RBI, homered with 3 RBI on what he called a tie for the biggest day of his career. The other day was his major-league debut.

“Hopefully I hit another one in the World Series like that — Game 7 to win the ballgame,” Quero said. “That’s it.”

A month ago, that would’ve been crazy talk. But that was before the magic wand.

Nothing seems crazy anymore.

____

©2026 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.