I mention this because I was reminded of it when thinking about the constant harping on the Cubs/White Sox "rivalry" by the media here. I guess it's a big series in its way, but any series with the Cardinals is more intense, and more important, than two late June series with the Sox, and any real Cubs fan will tell you as much.
Like all lifetime Cubs fans I know, I never hated the Sox. Growing up - away from the Chicago media and before interleague play existed - I would root for the Sox, as a Chicago team. (I even went to a Sox game my freshman year of college, and, more damningly, bought a jersey. It has since been donated to a clothing drive.) Of course my primary interest was in seeing the Cubs win, but something like 2005 would have been an okay consolation prize. There are still fans who feel this way - my dad and Michael Wilbon come to mind, people who grew up in the 50s, 60s, 70s - periods in which the Cubs and Sox were nothing approaching rivals, when fans of both teams tended to root for each other. (Wilbon is from the South Side, for crying out loud.) Of course, they're also people who haven't lived full-time in Chicago for decades.
But living and working in the city in the interleague age, it's impossible to be a fan of both teams. Sox fans seem to uniformly despise the Cubs, and take a perverse amount of glee in seeing the Cubs fail, nearly as much as seeing their own team win. (As reported by Bad Kermit on Hire Jim Essian, Sox fans started a "Cubs lost!" chant at US Cellular - in an extra-inning tie game, with their first-place team at bat. How much more pathetically obsessed can you get?)
Some of this is because the media desperately wants a rivalry. And a lot of it is because White Sox fans desperately want a rivalry. And still more of it is because the team's management (sometimes prodded by the media) won't shut up about it.
For example, before today's Cubs win, Ozzie Guillen (yet again) talked trash about Wrigley Field:
Guillen was on a roll before the game and got in another shot at one of his favorite targets, Wrigley Field. Especially the batting cage under the right field bleachers.
"You go to take batting practice and the rats are bigger than pigs out there. You want to take a look? I think the rats are lifting weights," he said.
"That's the way it is. This is a museum. People like to come to Wrigley Field. I don't say people don't like to come here. I said, 'Ozzie doesn't like to come here.' "
This was in the AP game recap. Why, other than as an attempt to fan the flames? What does it matter to anyone whether a notorious loudmouth prefers his soulless abomination of a home ballpark?
Better still, Kenny Williams had this to say:
"You might as well build a border, a Great Wall of China on Madison, because we are so different. We might as well be in two different cities. The unfortunate thing for me when I look at a lot of this is it's a shame that a certain segment of Chicago refused to enjoy a baseball championship being brought to their city [in 2005]. The only thing I can say is, happy anniversary."
A few points of response:
(1) Fuck you.
(2) Name me one Sox fan who would enjoy a Cubs World Series win (particularly if it was just another reminder that their own team had not won in forever).
(3) Way to yell at Cubs fans for not rooting for the White Sox, then work in a dig at Cubs fans two seconds later, giving us all more reasons not to root for the White Sox.
(4) Seriously, fuck you, you condescending prick.
It's not quite as bad as when Scoop Jackson called us all racists for not rooting for the Sox in 2005, but come on. It's this ridiculous mindset that drives me more crazy than anything else. Sox fans spend all year making fun of Cubs fans, rooting against the Cubs, antagonizing Cubs fans - and then they want us to root for them??? Get out of my face with that bullshit. I know you've all got a massive inferiority complex, and I know you're mad that you can't consistently sell out your stadium even when the team is winning (not including today, the Cubs have drawn more than half a million more fans than the White Sox this year already, in just two more home games), and I know you're upset that the national media makes a bigger deal out of the Cubs (hint: it's because we have fans who don't live in Chicago, and also more fans in Chicago, and also, fans). But maybe if you would just shut up, this whole thing wouldn't be an issue. I have no particular interest in hating the Sox; at this point, I have no interest in really caring about them, period. But it's difficult to ignore when you're constantly making obnoxious spectacles out of yourselves.
So, I think it may be time to go to plan B, just like Kermit did in the post linked above. Plan B: ignore the White Sox. Don't mention them; it's not worth it. White Sox fans would love nothing more to think that Cubs fans are seriously invested in this rivalry, but real Cubs fans aren't. Real Cubs fans want the Cubs to win or, failing that, the Cardinals to lose. The White Sox? Yeah, great, who gives a shit. It's a rivalry stoked by Sox fans and by "Cubs fans" who are really college kids from out of town who adopted the team so they have an excuse to hang out at a ballpark and drink (and then the twenty- and thirtysomethings those kids turn into). These are the same idiots who buy all those stupid unlicensed shirts outside Wrigley. Legitimate Cubs fans hate these people; they make the rest of us look bad.
So I'm done trading fire. Let the White Sox fans make themselves look pathetic and obsessed on their own time. I'm just going to watch the Cubs, and hopefully watch them win a World Series, at which time White Sox fans won't have crap to say, anyway.
(And, oh yeah, nice win today. No place like home, apparently.)
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