It's fitting that it's rainy and overcast on this most unusual of
Election Days. This presidential campaign has been long and bitter, and
exposed rifts in American society that cannot be ignored and have no
simple solutions.
One of our presidential candidates is counting
on voters seeking the simple solution—"I alone can fix it"—to carry him
to the White House. But democracy, especially our unique American
version of it, is anything but simple. It's messy and resembles a Gordian
knot at times. It allows for rational and irrational voices to be heard
in equal measure, in the hope that we can find consensus to move the
nation forward together.
I
believe that the United States is a progressive nation, despite its
stumbles. It always has been and always will be. (If you're unsure, read
the Preamble to the Constitution.) We don't look back; we move forward
and, hopefully, hand over a nation to future generations that was better
than the one we received.
Radical conservatives are fond of
quoting Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But they
omit the next sentence: "It is its natural manure." Jefferson wrote that
when the tree of liberty was merely a sapling. 240 years later, that
tree has formed deep roots and boughs capable of bearing the weight of a
modern nation. But it does need watering and sunlight to remain strong.
Our votes provide that sustenance and deter the pests that seek to do
it harm.
Don't succumb to the siren's call of simple solutions
today. And reach out to those who do, empathize with them and let them
know that it gets better and you're there to help.
I wear a 1972 White Sox replica ballcap these days, and my
personal baseball allegiance lies with the Pale Hose. But it wasn’t always that
way.
I grew up root, root rooting for the Cubbies, my love of the
ballclub passed down from my mother, who learned to love the team from her family.
Mom would take my brother and me to Wrigley Field whenever the opportunity
arose, or let one of my uncles chaperone us when she couldn’t take the day off
from work. This was in the mid- to late-1970s. The wounds from the 1969 collapse
were still raw for those who bore witness. There was no “Wrigleyville.” Harry Caray wasn’t a Cubs fan and
a Bud Man—he was shirtless and sunburned in the Old Comiskey Park bleachers,
calling out the White Sox’ shitty play with Jimmy Piersall on Channel 44 and shilling
for Falstaff. The Friendly Confines were nestled in a neighborhood settled by rednecks
and white trash who followed the same rail and bus lines north as Southern
blacks did during the Great Migration, and seeking similar financial
emancipation. The Cubby Bear was a hellhole dive bar and tickets to Cubs games,
on game day, were as plentiful and easy to obtain as Sox ducats are today.
I had little clue about the Cubs’ star-struck history, that
they hadn’t won a World Series since 1908 nor sniffed a pennant since
1945. I had no idea about Tinker, Evers and Chance; Sam Sianis and his cursed
pet goat; the College of Coaches; Leo the Lip; Ron Santo clicking his heels;
Ernie Banks wanting to play two; black cats on the field; Babe Ruth’s called
shot or that Lou Brock was once a Cub. But thanks to Mom, I became attached to
Bill Buckner’s play at first base and the plate (and his pornstache), awed by
the double play duo of Manny Trillo and Ivan De Jesus, gasped as Bobby Mercer
threw his body into the right field wall chasing fouls, cheered as Dave Kingman
launched balls out of the ballpark and well past Waveland Avenue, observed manager
Herman Franks use the dugout phone to place trades with his stockbroker as often as he
called for a reliever, bit my nails whenever Bruce Sutter was called from the bullpen
for a three-inning save, and rolled my eyes at the TV whenever Jack Brickhouse—the
hardest working broadcaster in Chicago history, but never the smartest—was called
upon to improvise his way through a rain delay.
My deep, unconditional love for the Cubs didn’t mean there
wasn’t room for the other team eight miles south of Clark & Addison. The
White Sox, by comparison, were fun punks under Bill Veeck’s ownership. They sometimes wore shorts and collared jerseys on the field during games, had an exploding scoreboard, boasted an entertaining
broadcast team in Caray and Piersall who may have drawn more fans to Comiskey
as the team, and played their games in an equally rundown ballpark in front of a long-suffering fan base. In a
city where you’re almost required to choose a side in its baseball civil war
after you draw your first breath, I could respect the Sox if I couldn't root for them. When Mom remarried,
my stepfather didn’t hesitate to tempt me with his White Sox fandom. Soon, we
were attending as many games at 35th and Shields as we were at Clark
and Addison.
Things weren’t the same in our home when my mother remarried.
I can draw parallels between that and when the Wrigley family sold the Cubs to
Tribune Company in 1981. If the Cubs were my mother, the Trib was my new
stepfather, swaggering into the picture, vowing big changes while also claiming to love the ballclub as much as I did, if not more. And those first steps were
promising. Jack Brickhouse was out of the broadcast booth, in favor of Harry Caray.
The Tribune hired Dallas Green to build a contender. He hired Jim Frey and
brought in players from Philly like Keith Moreland, Bobby Dernier and, most
notably, a fresh-faced third baseman turned promising middle infielder named
Ryne Sandberg. Corporate synergy meant the Cubs had a tailor-made broadcast
outlet in WGN and, when cable television exploded in the mid-80s and WGN was
included in basic cable packages, the Cubs—with Harry in full salesman mode—had an instant national fanbase. The 1984 Cubs taught me heartbreak. The ’85 and ’86 editions
taught me how to swear like a sailor at the team on the field, and rail against an ownership
structure that seemed to value keeping the turnstiles rolling than building a perennial. Not that that growing fanbase seemed to notice at the time.
After that, the shine was gone. I was ecstatic when the Cubs
signed Andre Dawson in ’87, but confused as to why he only received a one-year,
$500,000 deal from the team. (He more
than earned that money with an MVP season for a last-place team.) I cursed as
Shawon Dunston sent routine throws to first base flying over Mark Grace’s head
and into the stands. I first swore to stop rooting for the Cubs when they let
Greg Maddux leave for Atlanta as he was entering the prime of his career. But I
would still go to games at the now-Crumbling Confines, aware that thin netting
hanging over my head was all that separated me and other fans from having
chunks of concrete fall on our heads. The neighborhood gentrified, the
hillbillies pushed out and “Wrigleyville” was born. Apartment buildings across
from Wrigley became hot properties for owners who sought to cash in on the unobstructed
views into the ballpark from the rooftops, and highly desirable addresses for
college graduates who came of age watching Harry Caray (nearing the end of his
storied career and as exasperated as the die-hards at Tribune’s chase for the
almighty dollar) extol the benefits of fun at the old ballpark.
Still, I stuck with the Cubs, like being in a
marriage of convenience, and kept repping the colors as Mark Grace never
developed a power stroke (but he could drink like a champion at Murphy’s
Bleachers), felt sorry for Sandberg as he came out of retirement a shell of the
player he used to be, and watched as Sammy Sosa, fueled by steroids, became a
Dominican Dave Kingman.
There’s a point in every relationship where you take serious
assessment and determine if it’s worth continuing, or if it’s time to move on. When
it came to the Chicago Cubs, that point was Wrigley Field Premium Ticket Services.
This was one of several low-water marks during Tribune Company’s ownership of
the Lovable Losers. Aiming to capitalize on the secondary ticket market, the
Cubs—with Tribune Company’s blessing—launched a service in 2002 where the team could
sell tickets to games against select opponents to their fans, at ridiculous
upcharges.
In short, the Cubs decided to scalp tickets to
their own games to their fans.
A lawsuit was filed and the Cubs were found not
guilty of any wrongdoing. Today, the “premium pricing” model is used by every
team in Major League Baseball. By then, I had enough. I moved to Bridgeport
three years prior. The White Sox were near my apartment. The team always put
forth a good faith effort to be contenders, even if their play on the field
spoke otherwise and New Comiskey Park, despite the criticisms, wasn’t that bad of
a park to catch a game. I lacked the funds and, more importantly, the emotional
capital to be in a one-sided relationship. I bid farewell to the Cubs and
embraced the White Sox like someone free to love whomever he pleased. The next year, the Cubs collapsed in the NLCS, which justified my
decision.
I felt further validation two years later when the Sox rode
some of the most dominant starting pitching I’ve ever seen to Chicago’s
first World Series in 87 years.
I was on the phone with Mom the day after the Cubs clinched
the NL pennant. She’ll be 73 next month and sometimes her memory fails her. On
that day, she was unusually talkative. “Are you excited about the Cubs?” She
asked. I told her no and followed with, “You do remember I root for the Sox,
right?”
There was a long pause on the line. Then Mom snapped, “that’s
not how I raised you.”
Tonight, the Cubs can put 108 years of futility to rest with
a win in Game 7 in Cleveland. Across Chicago, there are White Sox fans, fueled
by the “second class in the Second City” syndrome, who have probably spent
their mornings in front of a mirror practicing rubbing it into the faces of
their Cubs fans counterparts if the team loses, or they’ll say “well, we won it
first” or “at least we swept our World Series” if the Cubs win it all.
I’m not one of those folks. I see the Cubs today for what
they are: freed from a partner who wasn’t good for them, transformed from head
to toe, with a new beau who treats them like royalty and ready to tackle the
world for years to come. Eight miles south, meanwhile, my team is switching out
signage in its ballpark from U.S. Cellular Field to Guaranteed Rate Field, with
a logo that perfectly depicts the White Sox’ current standing in Chicago’s
sports hierarchy.
I wish the Cubs well and hope the ground underneath Wrigley
Field doesn’t open and swallow the mass of humanity gathered around the
ballpark whole tonight, as payment for ending the title drought. I know my Mom would be happy to know she lived long enough to see a Cubs World Series championship.
Unlike 14 years ago, however, I’m sticking with my
White Sox and, with the help of others in the fanbase, encouraging them to
reinvent themselves in a similar manner to how the Rickettses have rebuilt the
Cubs. Because the only thing better than one dominant baseball team in Chicago,
is two.
