Baseball in the Land of the Blind - Chicago’s Crosstown ‘Classic’

By: Ben Strauss

Saturday night, Sox fans who happened to have tickets to Sunday’s Cub-Sox series finale jammed the phone lines of their Cubs fan friends. The conversation went something like this.Sox fan: “Are you busy tomorrow?”

Cubs fan: “No, why?”

Sox fan: “I’ve got a ticket to the Sox-Cubs game, but I have to go into the office/take my wife to the gynecologist/read War and Peace. You interested?

Cubs fan: “How much?”

Sox fan: “I’ll give you $20 to take it.”

Sox fans would have rather seen Jamie Navarro signed out of retirement than be there in person to watch the impending humiliation of a series sweep at home to the Cubs. So Sunday came, and The Cell was decked out in a sea of blue, sort of the way it used to be in the late 90’s. Only this wasn’t the blue of 20,000 empty seats - it was Cubby blue. And all Sox fans could do in response to their stadium turning into the Cubby Bear South was go (or stay) home and watch their 2005 World Series DVD’s.

That seems to be all that is left of a World Series season just two years later; a commemorative DVD, and maybe a t-shirt. Two years ago there were thoughts of a dynasty; today they are replaced by questions of which prospects those former World Series heroes can bring in a trade.

It’s a pattern in Chicago as reliable as the Daley Machine or traffic on the Kennedy. Consistent winners, that’s for Atlanta, New York and Boston. We prefer lightning in a bottle. This is a town with a history of one hit wonders.

The proof is in the statistical pudding. Only once in over 200 years of combined futility has a Chicago baseball team played in back-to-back postseasons; that was the Cubs of 1906-1908. 1983 and 1984 both saw playoffs in Chicago, but on opposite sides of town. I don’t think that counts.

This season, meanwhile, has only further reinforced the notion that sustained success is impossible as the White Sox, a team that was supposed to contend for a playoff spot, are tied for the fewest wins in baseball. The Royals, Rangers, Nationals, Orioles and Devil Rays all have more.

As for the Cubs, even with their series sweep they remain the same team that lost two of three to the Texas Rangers and are 7.5 games behind the Brewers. The Cubs are also a franchise all-too-familiar with the fate of the Sox. Remember a certain playoff run in 2003, followed by the choke job in 2004 and then 66 wins a year ago?

You don’t need a four-dollar tarot card reading to know neither the White Sox nor the Cubs will be playing October baseball. The Sox are inexplicably bad while the Cubs are celebrating a three game winning streak like it means something for the rest of the season. Remember, the Sox made the Pirates and Astros look good, too.

So the point of the story is not that that both teams are bad; it’s not even about why both teams are bad. Rather, that this is the way it is supposed to be. Good baseball, much less playoff baseball, doesn’t stick around Chicago, and it’s time we got back to business as usual. That means 19,000 people at a Sox game and Cubs fans insisting their team can make the playoffs if they play .700 ball the rest of the way.

After this weekend, we are on our way back to comfortable, which is much less stressful than an entire fan base trying to create a whole new persona. The past two years forced baseball fans all over the city to redefine themselves: Sox fans tried to pretend they had lost that South side chip on their shoulder; bandwagon fans tried to pretend they liked going to Sox games; Cubs fans had to start paying attention to the Sox. It was all very confusing.

This year has brought a return to normalcy. And with the Cubs sputtering in neutral and the Sox clearly in reverse, the Crosstown Classic carried no more bragging rights than it did a year ago, when the Sox had more important things to worry about. Cubs fans are free to revel in their 5-1 series win. This year, the City is theirs.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Ben Strauss was born and raised in Chicago and is currently a senior at Ithaca College. He vomits everytime a Yankee fan turns on the YES Network, and can be reached at bstraus1@ithaca.edu.

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