How to be a Chicago Sports Fan (written in 1975)

Today I have been sorting through the designated Chicago collection that one of my predecessors compiled because many of the books were never cataloged. While leafing through How to Survive in Chicago... and Enjoy It, by Kenan Heise, Charles McWhinnie, Judith Birnbaum, and Juanita Carlson, (the authors loved their ellipsis), I came across this sage advice on how to root for the home team if you're in Chicago:

A Chicago Cubs fan... how to become one

• Know where Wrigley Field is (Addison & Sheffield), that it was originally built for a team in the Federal League, is ivy-covered, and is the only ball park in the majors without lights.
  
• Know that the chewing-gum Wrigleys have owned the team for a long time, and live in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
  
• Live on the North Side and be able to go to the beach or anywhere else on a summer afternoon to hear the game blasting forth from radios. Or else live on the South Side (White Sox territory) and be willing to be treated as a person with an affliction.
• Be accepting of the fact that a team that can go a generation without winning a pennant is still worth dying a little bit for.
  

A Chicago White Sox fan... how to earn the title

• Know what team won the pennant in 1959 and what city's air raid fire sirens went off as a result. It helps to know what years Nellie Fox, Billy Pierce, and Jungle Jim Rivera played.
• Attend White Sox games. In the late 1960s the park was as abandoned as any in either league. Most critics said it was because the stadium was in a supposedly dangerous neighborhood. Well, Blackhawks fans go into one 10 times worse and almost always at night [ooh burn]. The Sox began to win and the myth was totally dispelled.
  
• Share the White Sox fan's mentality about winning. That 1959 pennant followed 30 years losing it.
  
• Hate the Cubs, but hope for a "subway World Series." Just to show those northsiders who will never understand how much greater Luke Appling was than their overoptimistic Ernie Banks.

A Blackhawk fan and what that means

• Be accepting of the most cynical ownership in all sports. Under heavy pressure the owners put in water faucets for the fans. No efforts have succeeded in clearing up the practice of selling tickets so that the average fan over the years will not have to bribe ticket sellers for important dates.
• Enjoy good hockey. The team plays a lot of it even though they rarely win the Stanley Cup.

Chicago Winds

• Just another second-rate football team in Chicago. Many argue that Chicago has just that already.
• An additional chance to root for another underdog.
  

Chicago Bears, or how to be a frozen-toed fan

• Know a little about that crotchety, often-lovable relic of the stone age of professional football, George Halas.
• Be able to recall the 73 to 0 score of the immortal game against Washington on December 8, 1940.
• Know the other teams in the "Black and Blue Division" and accept the fact that they are why so many of the Bears are always in Illinois Masonic Hospital having their knees operated on.
• Live, as other Chicago fans often do, on hope and with the realization that winning cannot be everything.
• Know someone who has a season pass or who hopes to inherit one.

Chicago Bulls... why and how to cheer for them

• To be a superfan, get an old Chicago Zephyr or Stag pennant to commemorate the city's prior attempt at pro basketball. George Halas even attempted a team here in the 1930s (the Bruins). Other teams included the Chicago Majors, the Globetrotters (based here), the American Gears, and the Packers (an earlier name for the Zephyrs).
• Take a course in corporate structure and personnel management to grasp the front-office and player-general manager maneuvers of this fantastic salaried operation.
• Watch the coaching of this operation. It has been a Bull's strength.
• But like any other Chicago fan, live on hope. After all, Chicago does have potential. Didn't it recover from a fire back in 1871?

Note: For scores (1 hour to 2 hours late) of baseball, football, hockey, basketball, call the Chicago Tribune at 222-1234 or the Chicago-Sun Times-Chicago Daily News at WH 3-3080.

Interesting how some things never change:
To be a Cubs fan, you must know more about the park than about the team itself; the really big fans don't even live in Chicago.
To be a Sox fan, you must hold on to trivia and titles while dodging bullets in your apparently really ghetto neighborhood.
To be a Hawks fan - I think this one has actually drastically changed for the better recently - you needed to fight an owner completely out of touch with his fan base.
To be a football fan in Chicago, you need to realize that your team is going to get beat to hell by stronger teams, and getting tickets will be next to impossible unless to know someone.
To be a Bulls fan, you need to also know your history, and watch the politics of the home office -not being a Bulls/basketball fan, I can't really comment on how accurate that is today.

Cubs storm vids - Elvis and a Tornado come to call

These are great, go check them out. I like the 'it's gonna happen' sign being waved at the tornado in the second video. Mayhem.

Edit - more awesome Trib reader photos here.

Bartman Returns... or not

In an amusing tidbit of Cubs news, Steve Bartman, public enemy #1 and scapegoat 2k3 for Cub's fans all over, has declined an offer of $25,000 to sign just one autograph publicly st a sports collectors convention. It is to be assumed that he is now living in a cave in Afghanistan with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Ladin, and Darth Vader, and can't be imposed upon to come back to the states to make an appearance. In other news, the Chicago White Sox announce that they will be unveiling a statue of Bartman riding a goat over by right field.

That time again

Of all things that smack of a real Chicagoland summer, nothing is more characteristic than the rampant crap talking, show of colors, and general hype that surrounds the Crosstown Classic games. For those of you who aren't from Chicago, or don't care about baseball, this city is home to one of the longest-standing rivalries in professional sports - that of the White Sox and the Cubs. My father pretty much had the Chicagoin attitude pegged when he was asked during a team building exercise in his office to pick three words that described himself and answered: Sox fan, Democrat, and Catholic (yes, in that order).

Team allegiance, in this town, is something that you're born into if you were born within about a 50 mile radius of the city. If you were born elsewhere, chances are that the Cubs have won you over through their viral marketing via WGN's massive broadcasting range, and the propaganda of them being the 'lovable losers.' Only Cubs fans can find losing to be an endearing characteristic. The unwanted stepchild status, or as Sox manager Ozzie Guillen calls it, being "Chicago's bitch," is awarded to the White Sox and their fans.

Though we have managed to win not one, but two World Series titles since the last time the Cubs managed to pull one off, we're still perpetually seen as the worst team in Chicago - loved only by those deemed ghetto or white trash. Northside vs Southside, I think, speaks about as much about elitism as it does baseball in this city, but that's another story. The Cubs have the 'nicer' neighborhood with better post-game entertainment; the historic ballpark; a quirky history full of lore and scapegoats; and generally a much more endearing media package to send out to potential converts. Chances are, if you're not from here, you' become a Cubs fan when you move in. Who can blame you really? Sox fans, on the other hand, are a much smaller group but no less dedicated to their team.

And that's generally how my own package of arguments usually is spread out when cornered by an overly-aggressive Cubs fan.

Fiercely loyal in the hard times and the good, Sox fans always seem to be on the defensive. When we won in 2005, we had to debate Cubs fans to disprove the argument that we somehow cheated to take the title. Yes, apparently we cheated through an entire season with a phenomenal record, and a post season that was nearly spotless. Beyond that, arguments with Cubs fans always seem to decline into classist assumptions on both sides. For our part (yes, it's impossible for me to not write this in an 'us vs. them' manner), we argue that Cubs fans are drunken frat boys and trixies who get wasted in the bleachers and then use Wrigleyville as their massive toilet after going to games on mom and dad's tickets. We think they're sore losers because they throw back home run balls hit by the opposing team. All other fans are merely clients being taken to the game because scenic Wrigley Field is a wonderful place to take someone to impress. Basically, they're all rich baseball tourists. For the less PC Sox fans, there are also jibes about Wrigley Field being the world's largest gaybar due to it being located near the heart of Chicago's boystown.

Cubs fans counter with accusations of all Sox fans being mullet-headed trash with fat girlfriends that brawl and curse throughout the game instead of actually paying attention. The only time we pay attention to the field is when we're trying to plan our route to get on to it in order to beat up members of the visiting team's management and other officials. US Cellular Field (sell out field, etc) is ripped on for having a corporate name, though Wrigley is as well, and for being far on the South Side of Chicago where there isn't much more to be done other than get mugged on your way to the Red Line.

The truth behind all the mud slinging lies, as always, smack dab in the middle and free from exaggeration, but it's much more fun to fight with stereotypes and generalizations. In the end, I think we all just enjoy royally pissing each other off and then seeing our boys prove it (or not) on the field.

Well, this is the weekend when that magic happens. In previous years when both teams have royally sucked, all that really mattered in Chicago was who won the bulk of the crosstown games; winner got bragging rights for the next year from that contest of mediocrity. This year will be a bit different: both teams now hold #1 spots, so the stakes are a little bit higher. Murmurs of a cross town post season are heard here and there, though as your typical Sox fan - who doesn't even like to stand for the final out because it might not happen - I prefer not to count any chickens before they're hatched. So, let the sun come out and the rain delay be ended so we can get out there and prove our point to the world (well, to the city, as nobody else seems to care). The bleachers are packed, the beers are poured, and the clients are ready to be less than thrilled out in Wrigleyville - let's not keep them waiting!