A Tale of Two Teams (In One City)

Well, well, it’s that time again. Time for “interleague” baseball. About 10 years ago, Bud Selig (the commissioner of Major League Baseball, in case you’ve been living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears) decided that we should have regular season games between AL and NL teams. In other words, he was trying to create new “rivalries.”

Here in Chicago, that means (yawn) the “Crosstown Classic” between the Cubs and the White Sox. For six games a year, we’re supposed to have this big rivalry between the two, but it’s completely one sided (the rivalry, that is; and sometimes the games too). If you ask a White Sox fan, they’ll say, “Oh, we hate the Cubs so much! They suck! They play in an old smelly ballpark and they haven’t won anything in 100 years. They’re the worst and we hate them!”

Then go and ask a Cub fan. He’ll say, “Who? The Sox? Yeah, good for them for winning the World Series a couple of years ago. It’s about time they beat the Yankees for once. Oh, you meant the White Sox. Yeah, whatever. Our rival is the Cardinals, not the White Sox.” Our only thoughts about the White Sox are when they threw the World Series for money and almost killed the entire sport. Had it not been for Kennesaw Mountain Landis (the first baseball commissioner), the Black Sox scandal probably would have been the end of professional baseball and I would have nothing to write about today.

See, when we think about rivalries, we think of the traditional rivalries. A rivalry is born, not made. You can’t just say, “OK, you two are going to be rivals now.” A rivalry starts because of two teams playing against each other when it means something. Until 1997, the “Crosstown Classic” was one exhibition game each year when both teams had an off day. Not exactly something you build a heated rivalry around.

These made up interleague “rivalries” are a great way to give the ugly stepchild of a major city a chance to get some attention for a few days. If you stop and think about it, that’s what all of them are about. In each major market, there’s always one team that gets the attention and one that gets relatively none. The fans of the “ugly stepchild” team have a big chip on their shoulder while the “favorite” team doesn’t really care. That’s how it is in Chicago. There are millions and millions of Cub fans all over the world, yet the White Sox can’t sell out their own ballpark after winning the World Series.

In New York, you have the Yankees and the Mets. Ask a Met fan who their rival is. They’ll quickly say, “Those damn Yankees! We hate those sons of bitches! Always getting all the press and buying an all-star team every year. We can’t wait to get our shot at beating them!” Now ask a Yankee fan who their rival is. Without hesitation, every Yankee fan will say the Boston Red Sox. Why? Because that is a natural rivalry. Each year the Yankees and Red Sox are fighting it out for the division and sometimes even playing for the pennant. (Just watch ESPN if you don’t believe me.) The Mets have no natural rival, so they make up a rivalry against the Yankees.

It’s the same in other major markets. In Los Angeles, the Dodgers get all the attention, so the Angels fans have a chip on their shoulder. In the Bay Area the Oakland A’s don’t get anywhere near the attention as the Giants, even though they have their share of championships. Meanwhile, the Dodgers and the Giants have had a long and heated rivalry that has followed each team from New York / Brooklyn out to California. Now these are two teams that really hate each other! But the Angels and A’s don’t even have a rivalry with each other, much less anyone else. So they have to make up a rivalry with the popular team in town.

And poor Kansas City. They have no natural rival either, so MLB makes up the “fight for Missouri” between them and the Cardinals. Note to the Royals: even if you have a good team, the Cardinals are still paying attention to the Cubs and not to you.

That said, the White Sox fans were talking a bunch of smack last week before the first three games at Wrigley Field. Ozzie Guillen was his usual profanity-laced whiny self, blaming everyone else for everything instead of admitting that he’s pretty much useless as a manager. The radio and TV stations were predicting the “June Swoon” of the Cubs and preparing the coronation of the White Sox as champions of Chicago once again. Then those pesky Cubbies put a wrench in the works by sweeping the three games with little or no difficulty. So what, who cares, and/or big deal.

There are three more games left in this made-up rivalry this weekend at “U.S. Sell-Your-Name Field.” I’m sure there will be a lot of hurt feelings either way, and I’m quite sure that I don’t care. Personally I’m waiting for the end of July. Like I always say, the reason it’s called “America’s Pastime” is because we use baseball to pass the time between the Super Bowl and training camp. Cubs fan, White Sox fan, it doesn’t matter how much we’re supposed to hate each other during baseball season. We are all Chicago Bears fans, and we all hate the Packers all year round.