hello.
yesterday i went to the sox game. they lost, so now i am 0-5 in sox games attended. the bears and hawks also lost the only times i've seen them. sweet. i have not seen a chicago pro team win. when i got home, my dad was making fun me for that....thanks. well, although they lost, it was an interesting game. i knew it wasn't going to be good when joey randa, who i benched because i was going to the game, jacked one in the 1st inning. also, add another chapter to "the adventures of billy koch".
i'm a lot of you heard about how 4 different times a fan ran onto the field during the game. seriously, it was like that nike commercial where there are like 10 security men chasing the fan and diving and falling over trying to catch him. the first couple of times it took like a full minute to bring the guy down. and then a fan ran onto the field and tried to attack the ump. he got his ass kicked by the players, though, which was good. me and chras's boy brandon berger from kc jacked him in the head with a baseball. anyways, i think it's getting to the point where between yesterday and the gamboa incident last season, everyone on the field at comiskey is gonna be looking over their shoulder every few seconds. so because of a few drunken white trash, white sox fans are getting a bad reputation.
evolution of a hybrid chicago baseball fan
most baseball fans in chicago pick one team, the cubs or the sox. i picked both. why? because when i was growing up, no one told me i had to pick one. but i became a bigger cub fan than sox fan, although still liking the sox. since there are not many of these types, i'll try to go through how this happened. late 1988-1989 was the period when i first got into sports. that was the year of the fog bowl, the "bear weather" playoff game debacle, flying illini, jordan's "the shot" against the cavs for the 8th seeded bulls, etc. it was one of the best sports years for chicago in my opinion. so then baseball season started. the teams you pick to root for when you are a kid, you stick with for life. i had no bias towards either team from outside sources at first. being from chicago, i thought you were supposed to root for all chicago teams. anyways, a lot of times parents influence their kids to be either a sox or cubs fan. well, my dad liked both, because he also thought you were supposed to root for all chicago teams. i had friends who were cub fans, sox fans, and one tiger fan in my class. so they didn't influence me. the one thing that did influence me was tv. the first baseball game i ever watched was a cub spring training game on wgn. back then, wgn showed every single cub game. the sox were on sportsvision mostly, with some games on fox. we didn't have cable, so i would see a lot of cub games, and some sox games. basically that's how the cubs pulled ahead in the derby for piya's fandom. with all things being equal, it makes sense that if you are exposed to one team more, you will like them more. you can't be as big of a fan of one team if you can't see them play and follow them as much as the other. well, you can if you have something else to influence you, but i didn't. even though i've never been to wrigley and my dad took me to old and new comiskey, it didn't matter. a few games at the ballpark for the sox didn't overcome a 5:1 ratio of games watched for cubs to sox. (we only went to comiskey because i had perfect attendance and they had half off monday night games...typical of my parents, haha.) also, add the fact that the 1989 cubs team had more of the spotlight because they won their division. during the playoff series, b and i went with my dad to waveland bowl, i think because he was going to go bowling there. anyways, he asked if i wanted to pass by wrigley field, because the game was being played. of course i said yes, and we passed by, and i could see the lights and hear cheering and i thought to my self: "that....is soo cool" (i'd never gone to any sporting event before). that was the first time i saw any stadium before, and even i could feel a buzz in the area.
ok that takes care of why i like the cubs more. so why didn't i develop hatred for the sox? ::shrug:: as i said before, when i was little, i didn't know you had to like one and hate the other. the kids at school would like only one, but neither side said "cubs suck", or "sox suck". i first saw that when i moved from cicero to darien in 6th grade. but by then it was too late. again, the teams you root for when you first form your sports allegiances when you are a kid, you keep forever, unless something catastrophic happens. anyways, nobody really gave me shit about my dual fandom until college, and by then, it was definitely too late. the cubs and sox are in different leagues. up till a few years ago, they never played each other, so i never understood why you couldn't root for both. i guess it's just one of those things.
so all that being said, hopefully i get to pop my wrigley cherry tomorrow, watching my favorite player (kerry wood) pitch. it better not rain.
posted by mcpheeny 1:59 PM
here's a joke, courtesy of matt sweeney:
q: what's the difference between a zit and a priest?
a: one doesn't come on your face until you turn 13.
harharhar.
75 degrees at night with a soft breeze is one of the best things ever.
posted by mcpheeny 11:21 PM