Smarter fans than I could see this one coming from a mile away: Jim Thome's 500th career home run, landing right smack on Jim Thome Bobblehead Day.

But you can't blame the cynical ones; after all, the 2007 season has been one life-lesson cliché after another. As White Sox fans are busy not counting our chickens or looking at gift horses, 2007 turns from expectation to incredulousness to denial to anger. We've come to welcome old friend, Disappointment, and greet joy at the door with a wary eye as the days grow shorter.

Enter Mr. Incredible, emerging from a cornfield in right-center, carrying a bat named "Wonderboy," and bringing sunshine back onto a field cast with whispers and shadows as the preeminent slugger and good guy in baseball. Back when the frosts of April and May were waved off the confidence that a summer full of smoking sausages and sizzling lawns were still to come, a cranky hammy and balky back had turned when into if with regard to JT's 500. Now, as the sun again played hard to get, Thome had cracked Wonderboy back out of the bassoon case and started hitting homers at an every-other-day clip.

The only intrigue Thome left the faithful was whether he could belt No. 500 in chilly Chicago -- and woe was us, because an 0-fer for the Angels series wasn't inspiring confidence.

Nor was the White Sox play. The only thing worse than losing like our Chicago 9 did on Saturday night was knowing that the Angels, who we'd hollowed out in the ALCS just two years earlier, now were more expert practitioners of Grinder Ball than Ozzie & Co.

Sunday's game began as an agonizing repeat of so many of 2007 past: Gutsy pitching, clutch hitting, clever baserunning, small-ball deviousness -- all by the other team. It wasn't gazing at a cupful of lager half-full to say that the Sox chances of a series win were slim -- L.A.'s seventh inning turned three singles, an error, and a walk into four runs. When dust settled, the Jumbotron read 7-1, bad guys. Some of the once-bright and bubbly 29,010 -- chins up fellas, it has been a long year -- had packed up their bobbleheads and shuffled off for home.

But then, like a bolt out of 2005, the Sox fought back. Joe Saunders, he of the two-hitter through six, is lifted (memo to myself: send thank-you to Mike Scioscia) and Ozzie's kids corps goes to work: Danny Richar, Andy Gonzalez and Toby Hall single; Jerry Owens taps out -- but his wheels prevent a double play -- then swipes second; and Josh Fields pulls a flipside Roy Hobbs, cracking a three-run dinger. L.A.'s crooked number is met, and despite Thome whiffing for the second out to render him 0-for-11 on the weekend, the Halos are within reach.

In the eighth, we shout to the heavens for a rally that ensures the 'W,' and a final shot at Jim spanking the ugly 499 in right into 500. With Nancy Faust giving the rock and roll deejay a day off and laying out a Hava Nagila rally-starter, a high-socked, open-stanced, reborn Juan Uribe coaxes a four-pitch walk, and then the closest thing to Alfonso Soriano without the blue PJs, Richar, golfs his fifth homer to pull the good guys into a tie. (Can we stop acting so surprised this kid's got pop? A full season of ABs would put him at 20 homers, which may not make him Joe Morgan, but he ain't Julio Cruz, either.) In the dugout, Uribe and Richar bust out their Feed the Chicken handshake, rusty and mechanical from lack of highlights providing opportunity to practice, while in the seats we celebrate an amazing comeback -- and another set of swings for Mr. Incredible.

Come the ninth we're begging for Bobby Jenks but Ozzie sticks with Mike MacDougal, who's caught in a love-hate relationship with the strike zone, addicted to putting guys on, then erasing them with double plays. The heart rate's spiked, but heading into last at-bats, we're tied, and Jimmy's on deck.

Once Darin Erstad slaps a hard single off his former mates to set the frame in motion, all custom and decorum is off. If it's possible to will a win -- and those who lived through 2005 know more than any that it is -- we're going to send that ball flying over the wall using all the spare cheers we've been denied this season. Jim steps to the plate in shadows, but we're still out in the sun, standing, screaming, chanting, and if you shut your eyes, you swear you can hear the theme to "The Natural" flow in.

With the count 3-2, it's clear rookie Dustin Moseley, rocking his best Kent Tekulve in the Halos' bright red retros, wants to hide from this confrontation, twice tossing weakly to first. Then he offers a pitch that is sent out screaming to center -- oh, hours later you can still almost feel the brutal contact -- the kind of shot that makes Hawk Harrelson hoarse.

The cold winds of October 2005 cut the power of our screams as Scotty Pods, Gooch, and Paulie sent shots over the wall. But with the thunder crack of Jim's bat, fans from pole to pole weren't cheering or yelling as much as shrieking, and this time, there was no freezing rain to muffle the sound. If only the drama of this win could have made it count for 20.

Mr. Incredible just lightened the load on a terribly heavy season. Congratulations, Jim. And thank you.