112-year-old White Sox fan attends first baseball game

He saw the Go-Go Sox take the American League pennant in 1959 and watched Chicago sweep the Houston Astros in the 2005 World Series.

Crawford saw all of that from afar. Until Thursday, he had never attended a White Sox game.

Crawford watched the Sox lose to the Kansas City Royals, but he was thrilled to be there. His trip to the South Side of Chicago from his home in the suburban village of Lansing was made possible by community activist Andrew Holmes, the Chicago Tribune reported.

“(Crawford) remembers briefly and talked about when they won the championship way back then,” Holmes told the newspaper. “He said baseball has changed, but he’s been a White Sox fan all the way.”

Holmes is the executive director of Club 100, which picks up centenarians in the Chicago area by limousine and takes them to a banquet and gala every year, the Tribune reported.

Once he arrived at Guaranteed Rate Field, Crawford received the red carpet treatment. He was wheeled out onto the field, where he was presented with a "112 Crawford" jersey by Chicago's newest Hall of Famer, Harold Baines, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

"It was an honor for me to meet him," Baines told WMAQ. "It's incredible to first even be 112 then to be a White Sox fan on top of that (was amazing)."

"I'm so happy to be here," Crawford told the Sun-Times.

"This meant so much to him," Shelia Huff, activities director of the Tri-State Village Nursing & Rehab Center in Lansing where Crawford lives, told the Northwest Indiana Times. "He's been a fan of the White Sox since he first came to Chicago when he was very young in age."