With Hanni, and umpired doesn't need instant replay.

I dressed up for Halloween this year, and Hanni led me outside to find out if friends could guess what I was. First guess: a waiter. I held out my arm, showed him the baseball in my palm. “Ozzie Guillen?” To be honest, few people noticed I was wearing a costume. Guess they figured I always walk down the street dressed in black with a pillow stuffed under my shirt.

The pillow was supposed to be my chest protector. I was a blind baseball umpire. Oh, well. I guess American sports fans are focusing on football. Not me. I am thoroughly enjoying this year’s World Series, cheering like mad for the San Francisco Giants. My reasons:

• I’m a sucker for any team with a guy named Edgar on it.
• Juan Uribe and Aaron Rowand are on the Giants.
• Tony Bennett sang the national anthem in San Francisco for game one.

Some explanations. My dad’s name was Edgar, and you’d be surprised how few players have that name. I rooted for the Seattle Mariners when Edgar Martinez played there, and I’ve followed Edgar Renteria from the Marlins to the Cardinals to the Red Sox to the Braves and now, to the Giants. With any luck, Kansas City minor league pitcher Edgar Osuna will start for the Royals next spring and I can root for him, too. Except when the Royals play the White Sox, of course.

As for Juan Uribe and Aaron Rowand, they were both on my beloved 2005 World Champion White Sox team. And Tony Bennett? He needs no explanation.

Another plus about this World Series? I get to listen to a lot of baseball organ music. After Nancy Faust’s retirement from the White Sox this year, fewer than half the major league ballclubs still have live organists. The Rangers and the Giants are among the happy few. They still do.

That's Rollie at his Yamaha.

During all the hoopla over Nancy Faust’s retirement, there was a lot made of the fact she’d only missed five scheduled dates. All five days happened 27 years ago, when her son Eric was born. Not much was made of the organist who took her place. But guess what? The organist she sub-contracted to is blind!

Nancy gave me Rollie Hudson’s contact info, and last week he and I talked over the phone about those magical days in 1983. He said a White Sox director gave him cues over a headset, and he also used a transistor radio to keep track of the games while he played. “And I always had either — well, both at times– my wife Shirley or one of my children there on the bench with me to cue me, too,” he said, explaining it was especially important to know when the pitcher was on the mound. “They had a rule that when the pitcher came to position, I must stop. That’s very important, so that we don’t destroy his concentration or that of the batter as well.”

Rollie and his wife have been married for 47 years, and after all these years he still refers to his beloved Shirley as his “bride.” They live in Arizona now, and while he enjoys performing as a church organist In Scottsdale, he says it’s nothing like playing the organ at a baseball game. “I compare it to what it must be like driving a huge truck,” he said. ”I felt so much power, being able to make 34,000 people respond when I played ‘Charge!’”

That's Nancy Faust with Rollie and Shirley Hudson.

When I asked Nancy why she’d chosen Rollie Hudson, a man who was blind from birth, to be her replacement, she just shrugged and said, “His playing style was close to mine.” She was confident the headset director could prompt Rollie, just like they prompted her. Most important: “He has a great ear, and no need to refer to sheet music.”

This sweet Letter to the Editor appeared in last Sunday’s Chicago Tribune.

Love of life

I enjoyed Beth Finke’s essay about Nancy Faust (“As the pipe organ melodies fade away,” Commentary, Sept. 28). Nancy must have been flattered to hear such praise from someone who relies on her music to stay in the game. Nancy was able to make little editorial comments through her music, using her intelligence, her wit and her sense of irony. After reading Beth’s piece, my friends and I reminisced about our favorite Nancy tunes. This piece brought up memories for all of us who spend time at White Sox park. Perhaps more important, Beth’s story brings us into her world.
Here’s a woman who is a great baseball fan and, as an adult, loses her sight. She doesn’t let this keep her from enjoying the things she loves. I suspect her ballgame may be much richer using the sounds of the Cell than those of us with all our sight and hearing.

Beth’s experiences provide such an opportunity for learning the coping skills and adaptability needed by the blind. I also learned more about bravery and love of life.

– Susan Ohde, Chicago

There were so many fans surrounding Nancy Faust’s booth at her final game yesterday that the White Sox had to provide a bouncer. “She’ll visit with fans and sign autographs after the game,” he told us.

Nancy graciously took time out on her last day to talk with me (and Hanni, of course).

“But she specifically asked us to stop by”

“Are you a friend of hers?”

I hesitated. Thought about it for a few seconds. “Yes,” I finally said, confident in my answer. “I am.”

The bouncer asked my name, checked in with Nancy, came back and opened the door for us. We were there long enough for me to almost knock over her container of popcorn, give her a kiss on the cheek, listen to her flip around to the keyboard and do a quick “Charge!” cheer, compare Nancy’s retirement with Hanni’s upcoming retirement, talk about keeping in touch and then finally exchange one last kiss goodbye. Hanni and I exited to a quick chorus of “How Much is that Doggie in the Window.” I didn’t cry. I beamed.

Not sure how many White Sox games I’ll be going to next year. Staying home to listen on the radio wouldn’t be meant as a protest against the White Sox, it’s just that deciphering her tunes at the park was a huge part of the fun of going to games.

The Indians have an outfielder named Trevor Crow. You can guess what Nancy played when he was up yesterday, can’t you? The Beatles. “Blackbird.” Natch. And her final tune? Jackson Five’s “Never Can Say Goodbye.”

Here’s an update on some of the women I’ve mentioned in recent blog posts.

Flo saw a nurse at her post-operative visit Thursday (the wonderful Janet drove her, of course!) and everything looks good. Her wounds are healing well, and (most important to Flo) some of the hair on her head is already starting to grow back.

What an honor--Nancy took time away from her keyboards to comment on my blog.

Sandra Murillo is doing so well at University of Illinois that she started volunteering to assist with ESL classes for Urbana Adult Education. Until last week, that is, when an email from the ESL program landed in Sandra’s advisor’s in box. The note said the program was “concerned” that Sandra was “not getting what she needed” out of her volunteer work. The note suggested other places for her to volunteer, all of them places that work with people who have disabilities. Sandra says she respects the disability field, but that wasn’t what she had in mind when she decided to volunteer. She’ll continue volunteering, but now she’ll mentor Latino students at Urbana Middle School instead. Link to Sandra’s blog to follow her progress – interesting stuff!

Hanna Bratman was in the audience with her son during my debut at the disability cabaret. “My son was hoping to talk to you afterwards,” she wrote in an email message. “he wanted to tell you how good you looked.” Dang. Sorry I missed them.

Francine Rich, the wonderful wise woman who published Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound, was so taken by the excerpt of Hanna’s writing (published here last August) that she offered to assemble Hanna’s many, many personal essays into a publishable format. Stay tuned, someday soon we may all be vying for a good spot in line at Hanna’s booksigning.

My sister Bev is home safe & sound (gee, what a great title for a book!) from South Korea. She never did have to eat raw horse, but her son Brian surprised her with a mystery meat one night: pig intestine stuffed with noodles. “I told the waitress to hold the rectum,” he wrote in a comment to my blog about his mom and dad’s trip. “Seriously. No joke. They eat rectums here.”

On that happy note, I’ll end this post and try to come up with some good song requests. Need to be ready when I visit my blog-reading pal Nancy Faust at the final White Sox game tomorrow, doncha know.

Hanni and I were early enough to get the Nancy Faust bobblehead/hands.

All your positive comments to my post about Nancy Faust Day at White Sox Park made me think. Hey, maybe the Chicago Tribune would like to publish a blind woman’s view on Nancy Faust’s departure. After rewriting it a bit, I sent the piece off to the Tribune along with a photo of Hanni, me and our bobble-head Nancy Faust doll at the game.

Well, the Tribune couldn’t use the photo, but they published the essay — As the pipe organ melodies fade away ran in today’s paper. The essay reads pretty much like the blog post, except I had to take out the direct quotes from my memoir, Long Time, No See. You’re not allowed to self-promote in a Tribune op-ed piece!

Your comments to my Safe & Sound blog really do help me figure out which of my posts have struck a chord and might be worth sending out to other publications. Thanks for reading, and for commenting. And if you missed seeing the fruits of your labor in print, never fear: you can read the Chicago Tribune piece online here.