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Our two beloved baseball teams face off this week for the first time this season, and as usual the hoopla and hype over the series begins well in advance of the first pitch. Never one to shy away from taking the first shot, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen let his true feelings for the Friendly Confines be known on Sunday: "One thing about Wrigley Field, I puke every time I go there." He continued, "That's just to be honest. And if Cub fans don't like the way I talk about Wrigley Field, it's just Wrigley Field. I don't say anything about the fans or anything now. But Wrigley Field, they got to respect my opinion. That's the way I feel."
OK, got that? Ozzie doesn't like Wrigley. Which is certain to anger some Cubs fans, but Ozzie doesn't care care if they hate him for it, "They don't feed my kids. If they hate me, that's cool." So now the media can start fanning the flames of the first non-story controversy of the crosstown series to get fans from the North Side and the South Side all worked up. And Sweet Lou's response to Ozzie.
While Guillen's trying to fan the flames across the city, the Trib takes a look at the demographics of Cubs and Sox fans -- as well as our other pro sports teams -- and says that we're not the different after all. Both Cubs and Sox fans tend to be male, white and have high incomes. A higher percentage of Cubs fans are married, while more Sox fans are married with children. Cubs tend to have slightly more Republican fans than the Sox do. And while Cubs fans were more likely to have donated to political candidates or social causes, the Sox faithful are more likely to give to religious institutions. So much for the stereotypes -- they claim. Given that their polling of 4,000 people defined fans as people who had "attended a game within the past year," perhaps they didn't get a representative sampling of Chicago sports fans. How many of us are true fans, but because of the high prices and high demand for tickets, mostly watch our teams on TV at home or in our favorite watering holes? We're guessing more than they realize.
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Yawn
If ever there was an article purposely written to drive up comment numbers, this is it.
And I'm happy to do my part ... by that definition of "fan," then Cubs fans will most likely live in Iowa and be members of Sigma Chi.
It's on!
I'm surprised a Sox fan was able to a.) find this website and b.) type up a cohesive statement using the magical keyboard.
Wow. A Cubs fan put down his beer long enough to reply to me. Well ... I guess he still has the beer in his other hand.
we just dictate our blog comments to our secretaries...
not only his beer, but the Cubs fan must put down his cell phone too.
don't need to worry about putting our phone down, we're wearing a bluetooth
A fan is considered someone who's been to a game in the last year? That's being a bit generous. I would say most of the White Sox fans never go to a game. Just look at the attendance numbers. (oh, it's on like Donkey Kong)
White Sox Attendance
Cubs Attendance
Attendance numbers, schmattendance numbers. I spend enough time at the Gingerman to know that many of the most "diehard Cubs fans" haven't been inside Wrigley Field in years. So Wrigley is a tourist destination. So The Cell is not. Factor that into your attendance numbers and then I'll listen.
And I wanna puke every time Guillen opens his mouth. That being said, both teams suck this year anyway. Just biding my time until football season and the Cutler era begins...
If we ignore Guillen will he go away? The whole 'I dont speak English good so I can say stupid crap' act is getting pretty old.
Guess what: Wrigley is awesome, people come from all over to go to the Cubs ballpark, people won't even take the train from downtown to go to the Cell.
Also getting old: 'We are Chicagoist: we don't run silly non-news stories: We just comment on how other media runs those silly stories'
I wonder if Ozzie just says this stuff or does he get asked? As much as I hate Ozzie and I think he just sits in his basement hating the Cubs with Kenny Williams, I'm sure he gets asked this shit every year and every year he comes up with something to top what he said last year.
I'm sure someone asks him: "how do you feel about the Cubs Series- do you still have to park at McDonalds you prima-donna?" to wit Ozzie drools stammers and then says something that the reporters translate from gibberish into broken English.
I feel like every time there's a Cubs/Sox series Ozzie has comments about Wrigley and then some other war of words unrelated to the games...this year it's with Black Jack
In other words, Wrigley's the Dave Matthews Band of ball parks....
mmmm. If so then the Cell is the River Boat that gets the tour bus septic tank dump.
It is not such a good analogy though because bands tour and Wrigley just sits there.
Wrigley is a landmark- the Cell...eh more of an eyesore.
If you were going towards the ole: "Cubs fans are just DMB fans" well the problem is that comparison might have been valid when you were in college, but DMB fans have grown up and don't quite fit the stereotype they once did. Sorry your put-downs are no longer current.
Please pool the collective Sox fan mucus membranes for a new zinger. "worlds largest gay bar" etc... gay bashing is passse, um the world series thing- stop living in the past, Jake Peavey- oops... there should be some Milton Bradley jokes in there if you try hard.
It's funny to see a fanbase that loves its ball park simply for being old to tell others to stop living in the past.
Install some urinals, for God's sake. Let's bring Wrigley into the 1860s.
That's right, you've all grown up into "Parrotheads" Surely Wrigley as a giant gay bar would be a big improvement, if you ask me.
there should be some Milton Bradley jokes in there if you try hard
Milton Bradley IS a joke. That pretend-I-forgot-how-many-outs-there-are routine of his... classic Milton.
Given that their polling of 4,000 people defined fans as people who had "attended a game within the past year," perhaps they didn't get a representative sampling of Chicago sports fans.
It's a good point. The pool seems pretty homogeneous when the definition of "fan" is "Attending one game a year".
I'd like to see how the demographics skew when you start looking at people that attended 3, 4, 5+ games. You wonder if some of those stereotypes (that apparently aren't true) would start creeping back into the mix.
BDazzle, I don't think you quite got the gist of that quoted paragraph... what it meant was that somebody who had attended at least 1 game in person in the past year, ie. only those who had been to a game live was considered a fan vs. those who only watched on TV, listened on radio, etc. For example, I certainly consider myself a fan of all pro teams (except the Cubs) and yet I'd only be considered a fan of the Bulls by their criteria since It's been more than 12 months since I last attended a Bears, Sox or Hawks game -- nevermind how many games I've watched on TV...
The issue with defining the term "fan" with an increasing number of games attended is that you almost automatically increase income, with the result being that a fan is almost automatically going to be someone of similar demographic, regardless of chosen team.
This is something almost impossible to measure in any demonstrable way, although I would say this is one circumstance in which you might be able to pull useful information from an unscientific survey. Fans would be much more likely to respond to such a survey than non-fans.
Point taken.
Some super-fans will not attend a sporting event within in a 12 month window. At the same time, how many people attended one game for, say, a sorority/church/etc outing or received complementary tickets from a business or raffle? Attending a single game wouldn't necessarily qualify or disqualify you as a fan. Maybe they should have allowed fans to be self-identifying.
I'd also be curious to see this study without the regional bias. Local teams have national (even international) followings... especially the Cubs' reach via WGN.
I think it's a given that the Cubs have a much, much wider fan base from a geographic sense, due entirely to WGN's superstation status. I think very few ball clubs can match the Cubs on that ... the Red Sox, perhaps. And the Braves get a smaller, similar effect from TBS.
Well, this Sox fan won't join the fans pissing match, but I noticed that seats can be had on StubHub [and other secondary markets] this year for much less than years past. Granted, two mediocre teams help that, but frankly, I've grown tired of this series [and perhaps interleague play in general]. It brings out the worst in fans on both sides, and just doesn't seem to have the 'buzz' after 12 years. The novelty has worn off.
I thought that the whole point of this article was for us to engage in silly stereotypes?
So much for silly stereotypes... this Sox fan grew in Evanston, doesn't like hair bands, and has never had a mullet. ;)
I'm with you there man...I get completely wiped out from the 2 weeks of media hype that surround the series. I would like to see the Cubs/Sox play once every 3 years. This year the Cubs play AL Central teams. Next year it'll be AL West and the year after East and then back to Central. So this year the games are at Wrigley, in 3 years they're at The Cell. Of course that'll never happen because the rivalry games (Cubs/Sox, Mets/Yanks) are huge moneymakers. I just think that the Cubs/Sox games would be all the more fun if they didn't happen every year
The novelty has worn off.
I dunno. I mean, all of the games DO sell out and there are still pretty good markups on Stubhub, etc. SOMEbody must think it's pretty novel.
Pretty good markups? Check stubhub for this year's games. Not that much more at all. You can get UD seats for wednesday's games for under $30 each.
I don't mind if they have the series every year, if they would just tone down the freaking hype (and by "they" I of course mean the media...exploding graphics, refernences to "battle", "war", etc.). I kinda enjoy the good-natured ribbing I do with my Cubs friends, but we know not to take it seriously and end it. What's so hard about that? But, yeah, the media screaming... that I can do without.
Interleague play is an abomination.