White Sox provide a happy day for Jerry Reinsdorf, fans in extra-inning home-opening win over Blue Jays

A few months into his 10th decade on the planet, Jerry Reinsdorf had one of his better days as owner of the White Sox. So did the fans of his team, which has spent far too much time on the dark side of the moon in recent years.

First, the 90-year-old Reinsdorf made Ozzie Guillen cry. Then his team, returning home after a dreadful 1-5 start in which they’d allowed a major-league high 52 runs, gave him reason to smile.

The tears came on TV early Friday afternoon, when Guillen was told during a live broadcast on CHSN that Reinsdorf had given his blessing to retire Guillen’s No. 13 White Sox jersey.

“I told him I was happy to make him cry,’’ Reinsdorf said of honoring Guillen, who played and managed on the South Side beginning in 1985 before becoming the cult figure he is today.

The smiles came in the aftermath of Friday’s home opener, Reinsdorf’s 46th as chairman of the team, the White Sox winning, 5-4, over Toronto after a head-spinning 10th inning which nearly made new Japanese player Munetaka Murakami’s day end in embarrassment, when he was pulled inches off the first-base bag by a wide throw from third baseman Miguel Vargas.

The White Sox challenged the call on what would have been an inning-ending play, but replays upheld the safe call by first-base umpire Junior Valentine. Vargas was charged with a throwing error, and ghost runner Davis Schneider scored the tying run.

The Sox then staged a face-saving — and game-winning — rally in the bottom of the 10th, scoring twice on a daring two-out bunt that traveled the length of a pool cue, followed by a walkoff delivered by a former Savannah Banana.

Canada-born Tristan Peters, whose continued employment as a ballplayer once depended in part on his skill as a line dancer for the Bananas, stroked his game-winning liner into right field off Jays closer Jeff Hoffman, then was chased into short center field by a pack of delirious teammates.

“I think they lifted me by the jersey,’’ said Peters, “and it ripped a few buttons off, but I don’t know how I ended up [shirtless].’’

Peters spent 17 games with an early incarnation of the Bananas before being drafted by the Brewers on the seventh round in 2021. The Sox purchased him from the Rays in December, he had a good spring in Arizona, and with Brooks Baldwin out with a sprained elbow, won a spot, at least temporarily, in the Sox outfield.

Peters, one of 13 new players on the Sox roster, came into this season with a dozen big-league at-bats, going hitless in four games. A week into his first season with the White Sox, he can claim a walkoff in the home opener.

“I mean, this has got to be at the top,’’ he said. “This is just one of the coolest things. I mean I’ve been playing every day so far since Opening Day, which has been great. I mean, just getting my at-bats, seeing pitching at the big-league level, it’s awesome. I’m just trying to be consistent.’’

The man who provided the bunt was the well-traveled Derek Hill, a former No. 1 draft choice by Detroit a dozen years ago who is on his sixth big-league team in the last four seasons. In the midst of all his travels, Hill has made sure to pack his well-honed ability to bunt.

Clearly, a two-out bunt in extra innings with your team down by a run is not a high-percentage play. But the Jays had just lost their catcher, Alejandro Kirk, when he was struck in the thumb on his catching hand by a foul tip, and Ernie Clement, who had just been shifted to third, was playing back. All that registered with Hill and manager Will Venable, who decided to go for it.

Hill dropped his bunt down the third-base line, just a few feet from the plate. But backup catcher Tyler Heineman, rushed into the game to replace Kirk, threw the ball into right field. Ghost runner Vargas scored the tying run, and Hill dashed across the plate on Peters’ hit.

“The opportunity presented itself,’’ Hill said, “and thank God we knocked it out” — he caught himself — “not knocked it out, but dropped it in the park. How far? Six feet, maybe.’’

Far enough to allow Reinsdorf to depart a happy man, along with 33,171 who had come in search of something to cheer about.

Reinsdorf has not done interviews in years, but briefly chatted with an ink-stained acquaintance who said he last spoke with the owner in a champagne-soaked clubhouse in 2005, the last time the Sox won the Series,

“A long time ago,’’ Reinsdorf said. “But it seems like yesterday.

“We need better pitching. The rest of the ballclub is OK, but we need pitching, And we need some wins.’’

And the South Side congregation said: Amen.