Suddenly, It Was White : They Didn’t Have the Foggiest Notion of What Was Happening Out There

The crowd suddenly gave a rousing cheer, which was quite a sensation, for while I could hear their roar, I couldn’t see them. But then I couldn’t see much of anything. It was as though I were wrapped up in a white blanket. All I could see was white. White sky. White ground. White air.

Me and a couple of security cops were standing behind the Chicago Bears’ bench early in the fourth quarter Saturday at Soldier Field. In front of us, players began raising their hands, signaling a touchdown. Euphoria prevailed on the sideline. Behind us, back there in the great unknown, fans were shouting “Touchdown! Touchdown!” Disembodied voices.

Me and the security cops looked at each other; we were strangers, but, suddenly, partners in a moment of sheer absurdity. We couldn’t see a thing. “What was it? What was it?” we shouted to Maurice Douglass, a Bear safety standing 5 feet away. He turned from looking at the field and smiled at us through the fog. He wasn’t sure himself.

“Long run, I think,” he said. “Pushed out of bounds.”

Dave Duerson, another Bear standing nearby, supplied further information. “Six-yard-line,” he told us. As if we might not understand, he held up all the fingers on his right hand and one on his left. Six. The 6-yard line. The Bears were on the 6.

“The 6 ain’t bad,” said one of the security cops.

“Not bad,” I said.

I wanted him to like me. I wasn’t supposed to be on the field.

Then, like God booming from the heavens, the public address announcer spoke. All of us--players, fans, reporters and security cops--listened to him. “First down Bears at the 13,” he said. The crowd cheered. Duerson raised a fist, unfazed that his reporting had been inaccurate. The security cop nodded. “Still not bad,” he said.

“Not bad,” I said.

I had come down from the press box early in the third quarter to watch the Bears-Eagles playoff game from the sidelines. A dense fog had rolled in off Lake Michigan late in the first half. At first, I thought a sky box above the south end zone had caught on fire. It appeared smoke was billowing across the field. But it was fog. Within minutes, a clear blue sky had been completely obscured by a white-out. The weather service said to get used to it.

Although the players said later it had not bothered them, from the press box, all I could see was white. I couldn’t see the field. I couldn’t see the scoreboard. I couldn’t see anything. Neither could the fans. They stood around and listened on radio and cheered at random moments. It looked like a giant cocktail party. The people in the press box watched on television, where the view was a little better, but not much. I decided to sally forth.

Without the proper passes, an illegal alien on the sidelines, I roamed the muddy field. I tried to follow the game. Mostly, I was unable to see beyond 15 yards. Occasionally, I saw vague outlines of players drifting lazily through the white atmosphere, as if they were characters in a dream sequence. Doggedly, I tried to follow the game.

“Was that a pass or a run?” I asked an NFL Films cameraman.

“Punt,” he said.

I tried the other side of the field. No better.

“Did he go all the way,” I asked a man in a suit.

“All the way where?” he said.

Sometimes the fog lifted a bit and I could see beyond 15 yards. Once, I saw the Eagles run a nifty double reverse, quarterback to halfback to end. I saw all handoffs, plain as day. Looked like a good play. But then the player running with the ball disappeared into a fog bank near the other sideline.

“What happened? What happened?” I said to no one in particular.

“The play ended,” someone said.

And so it went. At the end of every play, we all waited for the public address announcer. Players. Fans. Reporters. Security cops. Suddenly, the public address announcer was the most important man in our universe. He was president. He was king.

“It was like it was 30 years ago and we were sitting around listening on radio,” Dante Jones, a Bears linebacker, said after the Bears’ 20-12 victory. “They ran a play and no one cheered. It was like there was no crowd. Like we were out there playing in a vacuum. Then the announcer said what had happened and everyone yelled. Weird. Very weird.”

The announcer tried his best to make it like a radio broadcast. He gave a running commentary: “Cunningham is back. He waits. He waits. He’s running to his right. He’s running. He throws. . . . “

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four seconds. We all held our breath.

”. . . incomplete.”

We all sighed.

Talk about the blind leading the blind.

I would analyze the game for you, but unfortunately, I didn’t see it. I do know the best team still won, although the Eagles squandered enough opportunities to assure themselves a fitful off-season. The fans left without seeing much, but they still hooted as if they had and still called Buddy Ryan all sorts of unprintables as he left the field. Coaches and players assured us it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

“Looked like a regular game to me; Everything’s a big fog,” Jim McMahon said.

Duerson was asked if the game should have been postponed, as some were suggesting. He shook his head. “You know what they say: Neither rain nor snow nor sleet. . . . “ He stopped there, cocking his head to the side for a moment. “Guess we need a new rhyme after all this, huh?”