Picking Your Team
By Benjy Lipsman in News on Oct 25, 2005 7:48PM
Most native Chicagoans, from an early, age pick sides. Cubs or White Sox. Sometimes it's a conscious choice. More often, its a nature of geography or passed down by family -- father to son, mother to daughter. And once we make this choice, there's no changing it for most Chicagoans. We ride the highs and lows with our teams.
So what made you pick Cubs or Sox?
Chicagoist didn't inherit our team from our parents. They both grew up in small Midwest towns with no baseball teams and had only modest interest in sports. While we grew up deep inside Cubs territory, we chose to cheer for the White Sox at the tender age of eight after trying on both teams for size for a bit. This was 1985, so we'd just seen the 1983 "winnin' ugly" Sox and the 1984 Cubs make the playoffs. While we appreciated the "play to have fun" aspect of our Little League, we sensed that major leaguers should care more and the Cubs whole "lovable losers" thing didn't work for us. So we picked the Sox, even when they were just plain losers. And in many of those ensuing years they were -- winning 72, 77, 71 and 69 games the next four years. But we stood with them anyway. We've done so ever since and there's nothing that'll change that.
2003 was certainly a painful year to be a Sox fan. Not only did our team drop 5 of 7 to the Twins in September after entering the month in 1st place, but we had to watch the Cubs make it to the NLCS. For a while, it looked like out worst nightmares would come true -- even worse than the Cubs actually making the World Series would be having to put up with Cubs fans gloating about it. We'd probably have rather died than putting up with that. Chicagoist is sure than many Cubs fans now feel the same way.
Among those who expressed such sentiments was Irene Egan. Her son recounted and exchange he had with his mother, "She's like, 'If them damn Sox go to the World Series, it will be the death of me.'" Two days after the Sox won the pennant, Irene died of a heart attack. "The White Sox gave her a heart attack," [granddaughter Allena] Harnish said with a chuckle. "The White Sox killed my grandma." Chicago baseball fans understand.