Confessions of a Recovering Chicago Cub Hater: Part One

I have always lived by a few simple rules:

Be honest
Work hard
Be respectful
Help those in need
Take care of your family
Always try to be part of the solution
Take care of the people who take care of you
Hate the Chicago Cubs with all of your heart and soul

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From that list, the easiest to follow has always been to hate the Chicago Cubs with all of my heart and soul. For years, it was actually too simple. Their fans worshiped cheaters like Sammy Sosa and filled the park to watch a terrible product. The team was more famous for their ballpark than the product on the field. They obsessed over an announcer who failed to say anything coherent for the last twenty years of his career. They didn't even have any real fans (check out my previous post if you'd like to see what I used to think that entailed).

In other words... I hated them because I was a Chicago White Sox fan. If you are not from Chicago, this may make no sense at all. Anyone who looks at the situation logically would think, "You are incredibly lucky. You have twice the chance to win a World Series... or at least win a game each day". If were behaving logically, of course these people would be correct. However, these observers don't live in Chicago.

For my entire life, the White Sox have played second fiddle to the Cubs. It didn't seem to matter what the Sox did, the Cubs always got first billing. If the Sox won 7 games in a row but Sammy Sosa hit a 400 foot home run in a game the Cubs lost 8 to 1, the Sosa homer would still lead the local sports coverage. Even in 2005 when the Sox miraculously won the World Series, for most of the season, the Cubs still dominated local sports talk radio. No matter what, the Sox just weren't good enough for the city. They could never measure up to the love the city felt for the Cubs.

Dawson's Creek from Columbia Tristar Television

This feeling of being overshadowed (many times by an inferior team) drove White Sox fans like me insane. Because our team couldn't get the attention it rightly deserved ,we became incredibly bitter and angry. This emotional reaction should be no surprise. It happens in "real life" all the time.

Have you ever been passed over for a promotion by someone who wasn't as talented as you? Have you ever been dumped by a boyfriend or girlfriend in favor of someone far less attractive and charming? Does your mom like your brother best? How did you feel towards the individuals who received the perceived unjust rewards?

Maybe you are a truly good person and you were able to overcome the natural desire to blame the recipient for the undeserved reward. If so... good for you. But when it comes to baseball, most White Sox fans aren't like that. The more undeserved preferential treatment the Cubs received, the angrier we became. Eventually, our anger blinded us to the point that all we could do was despise our North Side rivals.

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Finally in 2006, it seemed like the tide might be turning. The White Sox had won the World Series the previous year. More importantly to us bitter White Sox fans, the Cubs lost 96 games that year. Maybe now our team would get to stand in the spotlight... but it never happened. The following seasons the Cubs became just good enough to get beat in the playoffs (a sight most Sox fan enjoyed nearly as much as our team winning ). At the same time, the White Sox began to fade... again. We knew the Cubs were nowhere as good as their silly fans thought, but that didn't matter. Their flawed team would get all the headlines and the fans would really, truly believe that "this was the year". Nonsense.

It seemed like business as usual. The Cubs would get love they didn't deserve and the Sox would be ignored. But at least the Sox fans would have the satisfaction of knowing that the Cubs would never win. This pattern continued for the next several years.

Unfortunately, for an irrational and bitter Cub hater like me, things were about to change...