In White Sox Nation, the Borders Are Secure
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Printable FormatNEW YORK TIMES
By Lawrence Downes
In the next week or so, if God lightens up and lets Chicago win its first World Series since 1917, who knows what else might happen? Last time it was the Russian Revolution, followed by a global flu pandemic. This time might be completely different. Packs of rabid wolves sweeping down from Canada, maybe. Sinkholes swallowing Nebraska. An asteroid.
Whatever it is, it seems safe to say this: In half of the city -- the Cubs half -- nothing much will happen.
Chicago's divided baseball loyalties -- Cubs vs. Sox, North Side vs. South Side, the oldest vs. the second-oldest championship droughts in baseball -- look quaint from a distance, like the rivalries that energize high school pep rallies or cause politicians to make lame wagers with one another on the TV news.
But in Chicago, team affiliation is a form of ethnicity, passed on to sons and daughters like a genetic disease or silverware. You would think a city that never wins at baseball might suspend hostilities for the World Series, an event it sees roughly once every World War or Great Depression.
But no. When the Sox and Houston Astros opened the Series last night at U.S. Cellular Field, the concentrations of people going bonkers were highly localized. Many in the larger, more visible Cubs tribe conspicuously went on with their lives. This reinforced the outward impression, at least, of a city that was handling the World Series like a really big trade convention -- accommodating the fuss, but not caring all that much.
This is sad, especially when you consider the large-scale affection other teams enjoy. The Red Sox Nation covers all New England, from Maine down to the edges of Yankee territory in southwest Connecticut. The St. Louis Cardinals own the allegiance of several rectangular and trapezoidal states. In New York, the city is so big and playoff games so frequent that Met-Yankee tensions can be quite tolerable. Fans live and work side by side, and newspapers and TV stations are nonaligned.
White Sox turf, by contrast, extends only a few square miles south from Madison Street in the Loop, through neighborhoods like Bridgeport and Hyde Park and into the south suburbs. The Cubs hold pretty much everything to the north, and much in the wide world beyond, thanks to their lucrative yuppie branding and the media hegemony of the Tribune Company, which owns the team, major TV and radio stations, and a big local newspaper.
So you can forget the lofty example set by Abraham Lincoln (''A house divided against itself cannot stand''), Mayor Harold Washington (''Chicago is one city'') and Senator Barack Obama (''There is no conservative America and liberal America''). Many Chicagoans are down with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who has said he ''bleeds Cubby blue'' and will not wear a Sox cap to a Series game.
The Great Rift, as Mr. Obama, a White Sox fan, described it, has left the Sox and their fans feeling pretty much alone in a big, oblivious world -- baseball's Little Red Hen.
''Who will help us win the division?''
''Not I,'' said the North Side.
''Who will help us sweep the Red Sox, eliminate the Angels, and polish off the Astros?''
''Not I,'' said the North Side.
''Then we will do it ourselves.''
A World Series triumph may not happen, of course. Chicago has an old and sturdy tradition of losing, and the Astros are an impressive team. But if it does happen, you can't blame Sox fans if their celebration is invitation-only -- no bandwagons allowed.
On that amazing night, when the cold wind whistles off Lake Michigan and rattles windows along the empty streets of Wrigleyville and Lincoln Park, where people are indoors making lattes or banking online or whatever it is Cubs fans do in October, the party on the South Side will go on and on. And that, it seems, will suit this strange, severed city just fine.