A CITY DIVIDED
View From A Cubs Fan
by Cornelius Merz, smerz@rivalfish.com
Chicago is a town that prides itself on its food, architecture, a blue-collar work ethic, and the arts. The White Sox have managed to ruin them all for a true fan of Chicago Baseball…. a Cub fan.
(Notice, that's spelled and pronounced "CUB fan", not "CUBS fan", people who say they are a "CUBS fan" are generally pseudo-fans who think that "Sandberg" is an enormous floating sand mass is the Arctic as they proceed to puke strawberry Mai Tai's down the ivy in right field bleachers while trying to talk on their cell phone.)
Unlike a toothless, useless Sox fan, I will support my case for the Sox's desecration of Chicago with examples.
1) Food - The Sox ruined Chicago's notorious and glorious reputation as the Epicenter of Tasty Fat by offering such bland and boring food choices at their concrete jailhouse of a stadium as veggie burgers and veggie dogs. That menu was never meant to leave Anaheim.
2) Architecture – No skyline in the world can match the undulations and grandeur of Chicago. However, it hit an all-time low when seemingly half of Chicago's skyscrapers were emblazoned with obnoxious "Go Sox" patterns spelled in lights and then came the even more blasphemous "Sox Win." Unfortunately, our website doesn't have the space for me to even begin to make fun of the architectural kidney stone that is U.S. Cellular Field.
3) Blue-Collar Work Ethic – In hordes, people everyday take the "El" to work for a long day at the office or construction site. However, I had to arrive late one day when I refused to step foot on the Addison Red Line train because the outside of each train car was tackily covered in "Sox Win" propaganda. I waited for the next train despite the snow. I also witnessed a construction worker on Wrigley Field's bleacher expansion wearing a huge Sox sticker on his work helmet. This must have been some kind of sick joke.
4) The Arts – After the Sox supposedly "won the 2005 World Series" Picasso's landmark Chicago sculpture "Chicago Picasso" was outfitted with the most hideous of MLB headgear – a Sox hat. At least they didn't put Ozzie Guillen's face on Millennium Park's Crown Fountain. I'm starting to get sick.
GO CUBS!!
Sincerely,
Wrathful in Wrigleyville
[Some thoughts have been repressed to protect the innocent.]
View From A White Sox Fan
by Tello Reál, mraspatello@rivalfish.com
Anyone born into the Chicago baseball rivalry, or even those that may have adopted it's vigor at some point in their lives, understood that a day would come when one of two things would happen: Either the Cubs would win the World Series, granting delusional validation to the load of ridiculous, but also kind of true, claims against the White Sox and their fanbase. Some people would believe these things, be jerks about it without a hint of tongue-in-cheek, ironic, or deadpan appeal. Others would look at it much more sanely, using it merely to harass the very friends they secretly feared would someday be in their current position.
Or
The exact same thing would happen. The other way around. And that's what ended up actually happening. And I was on that side. And I'm more thankful than I'll surely be able to describe to you. So thankful that it makes me feel uncomfortable and gauche(Shift-F7 for "awkward") for being that thankful.
See we had always heard the rap about having the Inferiority Complex, which was mainly true, but thought that they had twice the Superiority Complex. Weirdo Sox Fans that care too much were annoyed with Cubs fans like they were an arrogant dude or lady, often even a friend, who used irrelevant evidence to deem themselves superior. It never really made you mad, but you knew that if cornered, you could not-really-but-possibly react like a few Sox fans have been reported to in the past couple of years.
But all rare chance of inappropriate reaction to a sporting event aside, no one wanted to face the reality of losing the usually-jovial-enough struggle. Either we would end up getting torn a new one, or they would. You have to be a lot funnier than myself or any of the kids that I know that think they're funny, to come up with a comeback that trumps the whole World Series "thing," and actually make someone say to themselves "World Championship aside, I guess it's cooler to be a fan of the Cubs/Sox."
So, like I said, then it actually happened. And at least in the beautiful amber eyes of this Sox fan, things have changed noticeably. Back in the day, before we won and they started hitting Wrigley with a wrecking ball on a daily basis, you could stumble shirtless and obese into the middle of the 3500 block of Clark Street, and actually seduce members of the opposite sex doing it. As long as you were shouting about the Cubs. Had you been shouting about the Sox, in the same fashion, you probably would have been cuffed and booked. Now, such actions by a Cubs fan would be deemed "so-1998,'02, '04 or whichever other years Kerry Wood's arm wasn't broken, and the Sox hadn't just won the Series. Thank God. Thank you Thank you God, or whoever decides these matters. Seacrest Out.
by Cornelius Merz, smerz@rivalfish.com
Chicago is a town that prides itself on its food, architecture, a blue-collar work ethic, and the arts. The White Sox have managed to ruin them all for a true fan of Chicago Baseball…. a Cub fan.(Notice, that's spelled and pronounced "CUB fan", not "CUBS fan", people who say they are a "CUBS fan" are generally pseudo-fans who think that "Sandberg" is an enormous floating sand mass is the Arctic as they proceed to puke strawberry Mai Tai's down the ivy in right field bleachers while trying to talk on their cell phone.)
Unlike a toothless, useless Sox fan, I will support my case for the Sox's desecration of Chicago with examples.
1) Food - The Sox ruined Chicago's notorious and glorious reputation as the Epicenter of Tasty Fat by offering such bland and boring food choices at their concrete jailhouse of a stadium as veggie burgers and veggie dogs. That menu was never meant to leave Anaheim.2) Architecture – No skyline in the world can match the undulations and grandeur of Chicago. However, it hit an all-time low when seemingly half of Chicago's skyscrapers were emblazoned with obnoxious "Go Sox" patterns spelled in lights and then came the even more blasphemous "Sox Win." Unfortunately, our website doesn't have the space for me to even begin to make fun of the architectural kidney stone that is U.S. Cellular Field.
3) Blue-Collar Work Ethic – In hordes, people everyday take the "El" to work for a long day at the office or construction site. However, I had to arrive late one day when I refused to step foot on the Addison Red Line train because the outside of each train car was tackily covered in "Sox Win" propaganda. I waited for the next train despite the snow. I also witnessed a construction worker on Wrigley Field's bleacher expansion wearing a huge Sox sticker on his work helmet. This must have been some kind of sick joke.
4) The Arts – After the Sox supposedly "won the 2005 World Series" Picasso's landmark Chicago sculpture "Chicago Picasso" was outfitted with the most hideous of MLB headgear – a Sox hat. At least they didn't put Ozzie Guillen's face on Millennium Park's Crown Fountain. I'm starting to get sick.
GO CUBS!!
Sincerely,
Wrathful in Wrigleyville
[Some thoughts have been repressed to protect the innocent.]
View From A White Sox Fan
by Tello Reál, mraspatello@rivalfish.com
Anyone born into the Chicago baseball rivalry, or even those that may have adopted it's vigor at some point in their lives, understood that a day would come when one of two things would happen: Either the Cubs would win the World Series, granting delusional validation to the load of ridiculous, but also kind of true, claims against the White Sox and their fanbase. Some people would believe these things, be jerks about it without a hint of tongue-in-cheek, ironic, or deadpan appeal. Others would look at it much more sanely, using it merely to harass the very friends they secretly feared would someday be in their current position.Or
The exact same thing would happen. The other way around. And that's what ended up actually happening. And I was on that side. And I'm more thankful than I'll surely be able to describe to you. So thankful that it makes me feel uncomfortable and gauche(Shift-F7 for "awkward") for being that thankful.
See we had always heard the rap about having the Inferiority Complex, which was mainly true, but thought that they had twice the Superiority Complex. Weirdo Sox Fans that care too much were annoyed with Cubs fans like they were an arrogant dude or lady, often even a friend, who used irrelevant evidence to deem themselves superior. It never really made you mad, but you knew that if cornered, you could not-really-but-possibly react like a few Sox fans have been reported to in the past couple of years.
But all rare chance of inappropriate reaction to a sporting event aside, no one wanted to face the reality of losing the usually-jovial-enough struggle. Either we would end up getting torn a new one, or they would. You have to be a lot funnier than myself or any of the kids that I know that think they're funny, to come up with a comeback that trumps the whole World Series "thing," and actually make someone say to themselves "World Championship aside, I guess it's cooler to be a fan of the Cubs/Sox."
So, like I said, then it actually happened. And at least in the beautiful amber eyes of this Sox fan, things have changed noticeably. Back in the day, before we won and they started hitting Wrigley with a wrecking ball on a daily basis, you could stumble shirtless and obese into the middle of the 3500 block of Clark Street, and actually seduce members of the opposite sex doing it. As long as you were shouting about the Cubs. Had you been shouting about the Sox, in the same fashion, you probably would have been cuffed and booked. Now, such actions by a Cubs fan would be deemed "so-1998,'02, '04 or whichever other years Kerry Wood's arm wasn't broken, and the Sox hadn't just won the Series. Thank God. Thank you Thank you God, or whoever decides these matters. Seacrest Out.
posted by Rival Room Editor at
1:00 PM
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