Can't We All Just Get Along?

[Farmer Ted]

Was this really printed?

Cubs-hating Sox fans? Grow up

BY JAY MARIOTTI Sun-Times Columnist
I'm asking White Sox fans to do the city a favor. I'd like you to stop picking fights with Cubs fans, stop rooting so bitterly against the Cubs, appreciate your World Series championship and please shut up.

Honestly, I think Sox fans might be more passionate about the Cubs losing than when their own team wins. That is weird, bizarre and not cool. When the Sox won two years ago, I don't recall many Cubs fans holding grudges about it. They were mad at their own team and management, an approach that should be adopted by Sox fans who've watched their general manager and manager screw up a good thing.

I used to add up the collective years without a World Series title on both sides of town, then use the big, ugly number in columns. If the Sox can break an 88-year drought and the Cubs can end a 99-year drought in a matter of two years, that will the local sports equivalent of coming back from the Great Chicago Fire. I'm not saying Sox fans should be belting out ``Go Cubs Go'' in South Side bars.

But don't be vicious haters. There's a lot more to despise in the world than the concept of the Cubs as champions.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And that's the concept of disco. Burn those records, baby!

[MFS62]

Its not merely baseball. Its class struggle.
I've known a guy for over 20 years , and worked with him for 8, who went by the screen name "Shoeless Don". He is a White Sox fan. We discussed the two teams, and their fans, over the years. Here are some of the things I remember:

The White Sox fans are from the "other side of the tracks". They are the lunchbucket and beer kind of fans. He told me that in a White Sox bar, ordering a shot and a beer is considered akin to ordering a wussie mixed drink. They have always been considered beneath Cubs fans, especially econimically. And this class hatred is a constant. They can't stand the team that reminds them of their lowly positions, And that hits them in the face every day.

The Cubs fans are (his words) "martini-sipping Yuppie Scum". They go to their corporate boxes during day games to be seen as much as to see the games. The only difference between them and LA fans is that they generally stay to see all 9 innings. The elitist Cubs fans treat the Sox fans with benign neglect. Why bother to be concerned about them when they aren't important, are they?

Hope that helps.
I'm waiting for him to send me his new email addy, so I can ask him about the current series.

Don't shoot the messinger.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

The problem is that most teams' fans have self-images based on ordinary guyness.

[MFS62]

Edgy DC wrote: The problem is that most teams' fans have self-images based on ordinary guyness.

You're right. But it seems the fans in Chicago take it to the extreme.

Later

[Guest Kid Carsey]

MFS's friend's take on Cubs' fans is certainly different than what we grew
up hearing. Ya know, the jokes about the unemployed, the drunk, the rowdy
fans of the lovable losers.

How many luxury boxes can there be at Wrigley to sip martinis? People go
to Wrigley to be seen and not to see? You go into a bar and order a boiler-
maker and that's not tough enough and wussified?

I'm having trouble buying some of this.

Got Jim Croce in my head now.

[Guest holychicken]

What's wrong with hating the other team from your city? Standard practice, IMO.

[Guest Grote15]

I'd like to teach the world to sing
in perfect harmony


Since when is it news Sox-Cubs fans despise each other..Oh..it's mariotti I forgot

[MFS62]

Kid, the image you have is of the reputation their bleacher bums have gotten over the years. I asked him the same thing. But my friend stuck by his description of those seated in the stands.

There's a story about when there was no free agent draft. IIRC Joe Garaogiola told it in one of his books.
A young pitching prospect named Mo Drabowsky was being wooed by both the Cubs and the White Sox. Bill Veeck was working for the Cubs that year. He picked up MO and Mo's mom at the airport for a drive to Wrigley Field.
But he detoured to the lower class neighborhood around Comiskey Park (home of the White Sox). He asked her "Is this a place where you would want your son to play?"

Then he took them to Wrigley and asked the same question. She immediately signed her son with the Cubs.

Later

[Guest Iubitul]

MFS62 wrote: Its not merely baseball. Its class struggle. I've known a guy for over 20 years , and worked with him for 8, who went by the screen name "Shoeless Don". He is a White Sox fan. We discussed the two teams, and their fans, over the years. Here are some of the things I remember: The White Sox fans are from the "other side of the tracks". They are the lunchbucket and beer kind of fans. He told me that in a White Sox bar, ordering a shot and a beer is considered akin to ordering a wussie mixed drink. They have always been considered beneath Cubs fans, especially econimically. And this class hatred is a constant. They can't stand the team that reminds them of their lowly positions, And that hits them in the face every day. The Cubs fans are (his words) "martini-sipping Yuppie Scum". They go to their corporate boxes during day games to be seen as much as to see the games. The only difference between them and LA fans is that they generally stay to see all 9 innings. The elitist Cubs fans treat the Sox fans with benign neglect. Why bother to be concerned about them when they aren't important, are they? Hope that helps. I'm waiting for him to send me his new email addy, so I can ask him about the current series. Don't shoot the messinger. Later

Hmmmmmm.... not that different than NY....

[G-Fafif]

Iubitul wrote: Hmmmmmm.... not that different than NY....

Only in that by all measures we're great and they suck. Though they would probably say otherwise. But they'd be wrong. Because they suck (and we're great).

Man, I hate sportswriters who tell fans how to think and who to root for. They aren't fans. That is not their beat. They have no idea how fans think, and when they attempt to write about it, they come off as the martini-sipping yuppie scum. Even if they grew up fans, they shook it off long ago in the name of professionalism. If a White Sox fan wants to stick pins his Ted Lilly doll, by all means, he should do so. He understands why he's doing it. He knows he has one hammer in Chicago, that his team won a World Series in recent memory and the team of his overbearing, obnoxious co-workers or cousins or whoever hasn't for a century. He doesn't want to lose that. It's a perfectly valid response to the situation at hand. We're not all pawns in somebody's civic army. Jay Mariotti has no clue.

[Guest OlerudOwned]

As the t-shirts say, Muck Fariotti.

[Zvon]

This carp is perpetrated by the media and fueled by the local rags, and the sad part is the average fan buys into it hook, line, and sinker.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

They said during tonight's b'cast that the Cubs broke their all-time attendance
record this year with well over 3,000,000 seats sold. I don't know diddles about
the town, and I guess my earlier post was a question of semantics, but I don't
see how the fans who show up at Wrigley are martini sippin' wannabeseens.

And what's a White Sox fan order? A double Liquid Plummer straight up with a
grain alcohol chaser to be less wussified than a boilermaker?

I'm just sayin'.

Farmer Ted spent some recent time in Chicago, maybe he can shed some light.

[stevejrogers]

I got more of a college feel hanging around Wrigleyville and in Wrigley during the Met series than anything. Didn't notice too many people who would be considered posers and wannabes.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

And just a side note watching the Cubs on the brink, the place is still packed.
I doubt the orange seats at Shea would be.