Is It Treason?

I’m not the world’s greatest baseball fan. But, since I live in Chicago, and I am SOMEWHAT a baseball fan, I have to choose sides.

No. You don’t understand. I have to choose sides.

As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that the White Sox are the best team ever. As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that I’ve died 40 deaths waiting for them to get to the World Series. As a White Sox fan, I would have to say that this has been the season of a lifetime and I was pulling for them all the way.

…

But I won’t say it. I can’t.

I am a Cubs fan.

I am not ashamed to say it. The 40 deaths I’ve died have been for the Cubs. When you’ve grown up in Chicago you learn that there really is no “fan of both teams.” Those who say they are haven’t spent their entire lives in this metropolitan area, or they’re just trying to get along in mixed company. Anyone who says he or she is a fan of both teams, when he is surrounded by true fans of either team, will be deafened by the shouts of, “The HELL you are!”

There’s no discernable reason one becomes a fan of the White Sox or of the Cubs. Neither team has been a dynastic powerhouse in my lifetime. Unlike a team such as the perennial NL East champion Atlanta Braves, the Cubs have had what can be best described as fortunate hiccups in 1969, ’84, ’98, and 2003. The same goes for the White Sox in 1959, ’83, ’93, 2000, and even ’05. If it were down to a decision to pick one team to which to devote your loyalty, there would be no objective standards to follow. It must come down to childhood influences. Maybe something really nice happened to you when you were age two-and-a-half, and the first color scheme you saw in that moment was black-and-white. Maybe when you were four you thought that little baby bear on their shirtsleeves was cute. Or maybe you just like deep emotional pain. And it was all fun until you encountered someone for the other team and the topic of team loyalty came up, and within a minute you were fighting the urge to strangle this guy!

So it’s not a decision to make. It’s in the blood. But it’s not hereditary. My mother was a White Sox fan, as I learned when I was a teenager. But, she said, she loved me all the same. I never fully trusted her again. My oldest brother, age fifty-something, is a White Sox fan, though he says he is a fan of both teams. He also happened to move away from Chicago at age 20, so he just doesn’t get it.

And so I watch with mixed feelings as the White Sox and the Red Sox battle it out in the American League Division Series. Last year I so desperately wanted the Red Sox to beat the Yankees, and then the St. Louis Cardinals, because if the Red Sox could win the World Series after 87 years of tears, then surely it means that my beloved Cubs could win the World Series after 97 years of hard, hard deaths. Oh, wait. Make that 98, now.

This year I find myself staring at my TV, staring at the team I’ve spent a lifetime despising as they play against my favorite American League team for the privilege of advancing to the next round. But I am a loyal fan of Chicago, so I must root for the White Sox. Boston, you finally had that long-awaited moment in the sun. Now go away.

It’s right, but it feels so wrong.

Go White Sox! (RRRRRETCH!)


dassall