When I moved to Chicago in the mid-1970s, all my friends there--I'd say all my baseball friends, but frankly that would be redundant--assured me that I would be smitten with the Cubs.
The Cubbies were, after all, viewed as the National League counterpart of my hometown Red Sox--from the friendly confines of their ancient ballparks to the ceaseless futility of their baseball quests. Moreover, embracing the Cubs would require no betrayal of my first love since--this was before interleague play--the Red Sox and Cubs could never meet except in a World Series. Today that possibility remains decidedly against the odds, but back then it was a truly laughable notion.
But even though I settled in on Chicago's North Side, just a few miles from the Cubs home, the relationship never took hold. There were no lights yet at Wrigley Field and every game felt like the adult version of Ferris Buehler--hookey with sausage and beer on the side. It was altogether too happy a place for this East Coast curmudgeon. The fans rooted for the Cubs to win, but didn't seem bent out of shape, let alone as if their lives had been ruined, when the team lost. Any day at Wrigley was a swell day, win or lose. (This was, of course, long before the infamous Steve Bartman, who can be credited with the birth of killer rage at Wrigley.)
Contrarian to the end, I found myself gravitating to the South Side where there was another team playing equally bad baseball in a crummier neighborhood at a truly dreary ballpark. But back then, the Chicago White Sox boasted two major advantages over the fair-haired Cubs. The first was ownership. Instead of indifferent corporate bosses to whom the Cubs were a less important brand than Juicy Fruit, the White Sox had the legendary Bill Veeck who believed that baseball should be the ultimate carnival. And the fans, while not quite as intemperate as those wolfpacks that had raised me, had some expectations along with some edge when, inevitably, they weren't met.
In 1979, those two virtues collided in apocalyptic fashion courtesy of the infamous "Disco Demolition Night" at Comiskey Park. It was a brilliant idea, at least conceptually: demonstrate that "disco sucks" (long before anyone ever suggested the Yankees did) by having fans collectively trash their records by Donna Summer and others of that ilk. The purge was held between games of a doubleheader. But things went amok, thanks to the combination of beer and heartfelt disdain for both disco and the crummy White Sox team. The field became a free-fire zone and, soon thereafter, a disaster area with smoke billowing from the field. The White Sox had to forfeit the second game.
To some it remains an enduring symbol of the on-field mess that has perennially been the Chicago White Sox. Certainly in baseball's annals of mythic suffering, White Sox fans have never gotten their due. While the Red Sox assault on its "1918" curse became a national obsession, the plight of the White Sox, championship-free since 1917, has been largely ignored, even in Chicago. It is the White Sox's eternal fate to be the second team in the hearts of its city; even their failure lags behind that of a Cubs franchise, which hasn't won since 1908.
But once futility approaches the century mark, pray tell me what difference does a decade mean? The White Sox's legacy of baseball misery arguably trumps that of every other team. The ChiSox have appeared in only two World Series since their 1917 triumph and one of those losses--the 1919 "Black Sox"--endures, even with all baseball's blemishes, as the darkest hour in the game's history. As for pathos, Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, Bartman--none of those rise or, more accurately, sink to the level of "Say it ain't so, Joe"--the epitaph for Shoeless Joe Jackson and that scandalous 1919 team that threw the World Series.
Which is a long way to explain why I am so delighted to see a White Sox renaissance this season. So far, the team's performance--with the best record in baseball--not only defies expectations, but modern baseball fashion as well; the White Sox rank 22nd in the majors in both current statistical hotties, OBP (on-base percentage) and OPS (a combination of on-base and slugging percentages). Their success is an homage to that old-fashioned baseball notion that pitching--the White Sox top the American League in ERA (earned run average) by a wide margin--trumps everything else.
There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the duration of this White Sox run. They have played just one quarter of their games against winning teams. Their rotation relies on two New York Yanqui Cuban castoffs, Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and Jose Contreras, whose durability is as suspect as their reputed ages of 35 and 33. And their lineup pales by comparison with some of the big-bash teams around the league. But Chicago's second-year manager, Ozzie Guillen, always played bigger (and smarter) than his talent. And history suggests that if a team can get off good enough for long enough, success may transform them into a genuinely good team.
Chicago's early streak puts some pressure on the fat cats in the AL East. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is diminished when there is an assumption that the regular season will settle just one issue: which of the two teams will enter the playoffs as a wild card. But with both the White Sox and Minnesota Twins winning in the Central (not to mention the season's other surprise team, Baltimore's OPS-crazy Orioles, off strong in the East) that Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has been invested with some new urgency. The two teams could find themselves in a chase for just one spot in the postseason.
That might disappoint some fans--not to mention the bean counters at MLB and the TV networks--who were eagerly anticipating a third act in what has been drama of epic proportions in the AL Championship Series. But there is virtue in welcoming new blood into the playoff fray. Just ask the NFL, which, while now enjoying the blessings of a "dynasty," ultimately thrives on the remarkable turnover among its playoff teams.
Baseball, with its rich team/poor team divide, is not quite so fortunate. And this 2005 season appeared to have "repeat" written all over it. Virtually every expert predicted that all four American League teams from the 2004 playoffs would return to the fray this October. And all three 2004 National League division winners moved quickly out front again this season. Baseball needs a sustained challenge from the White Sox or some other playoff newcomers to invigorate the season. While history can be baseball's greatest blessing, too much deja vu will ultimately hurt the game.
Locker-Room Alliteration
Last week's search for a football equivalent of "cancer in the clubhouse" to describe Philadelphia Eagles malcontent Terrell Owens was not posited as a contest. Nevertheless, my mail offered up a lot of diseases that would pair in perfect alliteration with "locker room." The most popular suggestion was "leper in the locker room," but that struck me an insult to lepers everywhere.
The "winner" came from Laura Ritchie in Tallahassee, Fla. Ms. Ritchie agreed to let me use her name only if I noted that, despite working for the University of Florida, she still bleeds Florida State "garnet and gold." Her suggestion was "leech," which is perfect, particularly in one definition: "to drain the essence or exhaust the resources of." Doesn't "leech in the locker room" conjure up Owens' self-congratulatory mug just perfectly?