Reflections on the Chicago Cubs in the World Series -- UPDATED

Chicago neighborhoods are roughly divided into six sides, ranging from Southeast to Northwest, but there are only two baseball teams:  The North Side Cubs and the South Side White Sox, with fan loyalties more or less divided geographically.  This presented some complications during my early childhood, as we lived on the West Side, across the street from Douglas Park.  At around age four, I asked my mother which team we cheered for.  Because we lived south of Madison Street (the dividing line), she told me to cheer for the White Sox, and I have been a Sox fan ever since. 

As I grew older, I realized that White Sox fandom appealed to my contrarianism.  I have always preferred to reject conformity, and to make the unpopular choice.  So even though the Cubs were by far the more popular team, I saw the White Sox as a reflection of independence, or perhaps eccentricity, even during my formative years.  Cheering for the White Sox rather than the Cubs was a lot like voting Stevenson against Eisenhower – it was a rejection of the fashionable choice in favor of individualism.

In my eyes, at least, there was also a liberal class consciousness to it.  The Cubs played on the affluent North Side, while the Sox were on the more proletarian South Side.  The Cubs were owned first by the corporate Wrigley family, then by the actual Tribune Corporation, and now by the mostly right-wing Ricketts family.  The White Sox, beginning in 1959, were owned by the maverick and racial progressive Bill Veeck (they are now owned by the self-made Jerry Reinsdorf, who is a Northwestern Law School alumnus).

Now, you may be asking why I did not cheer for both teams.  If so, you obviously are not from Chicago.  You simply did not cheer for both teams – and if you did, well, you just were not a true fan.  And in the way of all rivalries, it was not enough to root for your own team; you also had to root against the other one.  You could, of course, have a second favorite team, which led many people to say, “My favorite team is the White Sox, and my second favorite is whoever is playing the Cubs.”  My actual second favorite team was the Pirates – my father having grown up in Pittsburgh – which turned out to serve the same purpose.

Exclusive fandom was not unique to White Sox fans.  One of my friends, an ardent Cubs fan who grew up on the North Side, still tells the story of figuring out four best words in the English language.

At first, he says, they were “Pitchers and catchers report,” which signaled the beginning of spring training each year.

Later, he decided that his four favorite words were “Cubs win, Cubs win,” but that did not quite get it right.

Finally, he realized that he was made happiest by “Cubs win, Sox lose,” and I had to admit that he had a point.

For most of my life, the two teams had more in common than their fans cared to admit. They were both long-time losers.  The White Sox had not won the World Series since 1917, and the Cubs had not won since 1908.  The White Sox had thrown the World Series in 1919, achieving infamy, while the Cubs had choked badly in 1969, achieving fame for a near-historic collapse.  Even so, Chicago was a Cubs’ town.  They have almost always outdrawn the White Sox attendance-wise, and their affiliation with the Tribune and WGN provided them with a national following as well.  When I went to law school at the University of California, my classmates, who were from all over the country, were astonished to learn that I didn’t cheer for the Cubs.  White Sox fandom was treated like a curiosity – and this was in an era when Maoists were more common in Berkeley than Republicans.

But that is what it was like growing up in Chicago in the 1950s and beyond.  You cheered for one team and against the other.  President Obama has acquired the same attitude, evidently by marriage.  Bill Murray recently showed up at a White House press briefing in full Cubs regalia.  Asked for his reaction, the president replied, “He was wearing a Cubs jacket – which for a White Sox fan is a little troubling.” Well, he is the president of all the people, so you can see why he had to be circumspect.

Of course, childhood tribalism is hard to maintain over the passing of years.  By the time I reached middle age, my disdain for the Cubs had ripened into an attitude of mature indifference.  I still cheered for the White Sox, of course, especially when they won the World Series in 2005.  But as for the Cubs, well, I simply didn’t care.  “I wouldn’t walk across the street to see them in the World Series, “I quipped, quite confident that I would never be put to the test. 

But now the Cubs are actually in the World Series, and I have to admit that I am cheering for them.  Years ago, I might have looked forward to seeing the familiar crestfallen look on the face of Cubs fans, once again resigned to failure, but now I am hoping for a victory celebration on the North Side.

Why cheer for the Cubs after all these years?

Because it will be one of the greatest stories in the history of sports.  Not only will a World Series victory end a 108 year old drought, but it will be the second time Theo Epstein has put together a team capable of breaking a so-called curse, having done it with the Red Sox in 2004.  First the “Curse of the Bambino,” and now the “Billy Goat Curse.”  No one ever again is likely to overcome nearly 200 years of combined futility.  Who wouldn’t want to see that happen?

In the end, my writerly instincts have eclipsed the prospect of schadenfreude. 

So yes, I will say it: “Go Cubs, Go.”

UPDATE: Here is what Hillary Clinton had to say about it, in a 2003 interview:

In our neighborhood, it was nearly sacrilegious to cheer for the rival White Sox of the American League, so I adopted the Yankees as my AL team.

She grew up in north suburban Park Ridge.

Comments

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

My dad, a life long Cub fan and liberal version of Archie Bunker, liked Bill Veeck. He also rooted for the Sox. We got into to Comisky park for five bucks with an Entertainment Book coupon. It was not a mutually exclusive proposition for my dad to cheer for both. But, the Cubs were #1.

[Steve Diamond]

This is very intriguing. As someone who was born on the north side and grew up on the North Shore, I did not realize there was another baseball team in Chicago. Thank you for this enlightening post, Steve!

[m]

I grew up in a Chicago-area household that, on this matter, was divided, sometimes bitterly. Divided loyalties persisted through college, law school, and first job in Chicago. Conflict resolution? Moved West, and ever since have happily supported the SF Giants.

[anon]

What is it about some (most?) people that requires them to adhere to some sort of identity, whether it be a sports team follower, a member of a certain political party, or religion, etc., and use this allegiance to condemn and endless attack others.

It seems to me that the most "liberal" people in the US are the most addicted to rivalry and obnoxious, blind loyalty to their "team." This seems especially true in Chicago, and in Illinois in general.

A particularly corrupt state, Illinois regularly sees its governor hauled off to prison. Four of its last seven governors have been convicted, and three of those four were democrats.

And Chicago is notorious for its corruption. Quoting from Wiki (which may not be accurate, but is likely very close:

"Chicago has a long history of political corruption,[10] and has been a de facto monolithic entity of the Democratic Party from the mid 20th century onward.[11][12] Research released by the University of Illinois at Chicago reports that Chicago and Cook County's judicial district recorded 45 public corruption convictions for 2013 and 1642 convictions since 1976 when the Department of Justice began compiling statistics. This prompted many media outlets to declare Chicago the "corruption capital of America".[13]"

Who can forget what Daley screamed at Abe Ribicoff?

So, you all can fritter away your time congratulating yourselves about how passionately you worship teams that throw balls around a field for your idle amusement - and about how viciously you think your passions can and should run about such nonsense. You can celebrate how vehemently you attack others about such nonsense - practice, one supposes for the dirty way that politics is played there - while your city and your state are known most for being dirty, very dirty.

Sort of a snapshot of everything that is wrong with the political culture today.

[Kevin Heller]

Finally, a Lubet post I can completely agree with! I've been a White Sox fan my entire life and spent many a wonderful afternoon at old Comiskey. (New Comiskey, ugh.) We used to sit next to a guy whose worst epithet, when the Sox manager made a bad decision, was "That's a Zimmer move!" (Don Zimmer, the former Cubs coach, of course.) I wasn't sure the Sox would ever win a World Series in my lifetime, yet they did my first year as a professor at Georgia. (My girlfriend at the time looked at me like I was from Mars as I hid behind the sofa, unable to look at the television during the final inning of game four.) So now I'd like nothing more than to see the Cubs break their curse.

Go Cubbies!

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

anon at 8:05,

Your point being? So, we can't celebrate a Cubs victory because Blago went to prison? He was a big Cub fan, by the way. You my friend are a party pooper!