Managers Lou Piniella and Ozzie Guillen share a laugh before a 2008 game.
Some call it the City Series, others the Crosstown Classic: By any name, it's Cubs vs. White Sox, the annual uncivil war pitting North Siders vs. South Siders for six interleague games. It's sneaking up on us, just five days away and counting: For the first time, the teams will play a regular-season weekday series beginning Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.
And whether it's because these games won't take place on a weekend or because both teams are struggling, there's a definite lack of "buzz" about the Chicago showdown this season.
Both teams lost by 2-1 scores Wednesday. For the Sox, it was the latest crushing blow on what once seemed a promising homestand: 12 games vs. the A's, Indians and Tigers. They lost three of four to Oakland, two of three to Cleveland and have lost three of the first four to Detroit, leaving them 3-8 entering Thursday's finale. The Sox have slipped to six-and-a-half games behind the first-place Tigers and are sliding toward rebuilding mode, having called up two first-round draft picks -- Gordon Beckham (2008) and Aaron Pereda (2007) -- in the last week. The Cubs, meanwhile, wasted a good outing by Carlos Zambrano in losing at Houston and remain inconsistent offensively without injured slugger Aramis Ramirez. But neither the Brewers nor Cardinals look imposing, and the hunch is the Cubs will end up on top in the NL Central.
In years past, the Cubs-Sox series often has served as a springboard to launch one of the teams to bigger and better things. There's something about the playoff atmosphere surrounding the games that helps put postseason ambitions into sharper focus.
Last season, both teams started off well and there was talk of the crosstown clashes serving as a possible World Series preview. The Cubs swept the first three-game series at Wrigley, the Sox responded the following weekend by sweeping the rematch at the Cell, and both teams ended up playing (and losing) in October.
It could be that the novelty in wearing off. I'm inclined to agree with Ozzie Guillen, who suggested last season that six meetings per season are three too many. The first series generates a ton of excitement, but when the two rivals have to go at it again the very next week on the other side of town, it can get stale.
Do you sense a lack of excitement about the Crosstown Classic this season? Or do you think that once Tuesday rolls around and Wrigley Field is jammed with fans proudly wearing the colors of both teams, the familiar buzz will return? Would you prefer just one Cubs-Sox series per season or do you like the home-and-home format? And, most importantly, which team is going to come away with bragging rights this time around?
The reason no one cares is because it is a boring idea in the first place. Only reason for interleague play is to try and sell seats to the rubes and bumpkins and to fill the stands in marginal franchises. Cook up a phony rivalry and then hype it so everyone thinks it matters, it doesn't. No one really cares, except if you are raking in the cash from ticket sellouts. Look back over the last 5 years and see which visiting team to Sox park drew the most fans there.... cubs obviously. Do the same for milwaukee... also cubs.
In some years, only sellouts for sox and brewerw were the cubs games. That is the true reason for these games, that is all it has ever been about, and the only people who care are the ones who are raking in the bucks. The owners of the 2'nd or 3'rd rung teams who are getting more games with the teams like the cubs who sell out their stadium and also the stadiums on the road they play in.
The rivalry and the games are just hype for homies and hicks.
Asking this blog following if they can get excited about Cubs vs. Sox (and thank you Stu, for putting them in the proper order of importance)....is like asking a 7 year old if they can get excited about Christmas....or Chanukah's
AH YEEES!
The Whitesox need the money and fans and the Cubs need to experience real baseball. Cubs fans can say what they want, I know it feels good to sit in a state of the art facility with great parking etc and compete in the AL with the big boys.
And the Whitesox fans won't like being invaded by yuppieville, but management LOVES the revenue. Talk about "man your stations"! Nobody spends like the Northshore'ers! "MERCY" And the Sox have some of the best food in baseball and a fan-friendly atmosphere. Cubs fans are going to be quite pleased with the newly gentrified Bronzeville neighborhood also. We don't have anything like the Manhole, but they should be quite pleased with the upgrades.
All jokes assided, fans like it. Not me. When the Sox and Cubs play - CHICAGO LOSES. Outside of the Sox, I want to see the Cubs win. Go Sox!
I love how Tyrese contradicts his own argument: "No one really cares about these games...but they're a sellout." So which is it? No one cares or the games always sell out? That's a lot of non-caring people there, pal, to fill up a ballpark.
Is the concept of interleague play a manufactured one, designed to increase ticket sales? You bet. But it still give the fans of one market the chance to see stars that they would never otherwise see short of a World Series. If I lived in Seattle, would I like the chance to see Carlos Zambrano pitch in my homeball park? Sure, why not?
Look, we know the games don't matter in the larger sense (unless they start holding them late in the season and both teams are trying for a playoff spot). But don't call it a phony rivalry. Fans of both teams have been at loggerheads for DECADES, and only recently got the chance to root for their team when the games actually count in the standings. You want a phony rivalry? Try Philadelphia vs. Boston, Rangers vs. Astros, Minnesota vs. Milwaukee. We have one of the rare occurances where two major league teams exist in the same city, and as such the passions have been running high for years. There is a real rivalry there, not some manufactured crap. No one had to make (some) Cubs fans dislike (some) Sox fans and vice versa. For a lot of people it's real and been that way for a long time. Only recent transplants to Chicago don't get it.
So what 'burb are you originally from?
There's several other "rivalries" that MLB has been trying to make. One of the more ridiculous is the vaunted home-and-home between the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres. Oh, man, the people of Seattle can't hope to get tickets to that blockbuster affair. NOT!!!
That's ultimately what makes these interleague games so ridiculous. Moreover, even teams in the same divisions are playing different teams year in and year out. Is it fair, for example, for either the Mets or the Yankees to have to play each other six times while the Yankees' division rival Tampa Bay plays the Marlins six times? Or, Seattle plays San Diego six times while their division rival Anaheim plays the Dodgers six times? The more one looks at it, the more ludicrous it gets. Yeah, it's fine--maybe--for Cubs and Sox fans, but the cost league-wide in terms of fairness and MLB legitimacy isn't worth it in my book.
Regarding the Cubs-Sox series, the novelty of that has worn off of me almost totally over the years. It's still a nice little treat I suppose, but what does it really mean? Moreover, I'm not one to puff up my chest if the Sox go 4-2 against the Cubs and are still struggling to tread water within their own division. About the only thing this series can mean to me is possibly adding more proof that the AL is still the better league. I mean the Cubs should go 5-1 or 4-2 against the Sox if you look at the teams as composed right this moment. If they go 3-3, to me, that still is evidence (however small in and of itself) that the AL is superior.
With a family split down the middle like mine, it may be the only fire left in this season.
Start the coals, dads got front seat!
Cubbie blue? Oh they'll be feeling it alright.
Dark blue!
Go White Sox!!!
Nope! Didn't work.
Is it football season yet?
Finally the Cubs get to show the White Flags and their whiney, no-teeth, poor-hygienic fans who is the real baseball team in Chicago!
Go Cubs Go blogger - as a reminder...each team gets 3 outs per inning unless the home team maintains a lead after 8 1/2 innings...in which case they don't bat in the last half of the 9th.
"Go Cubs Go,"
It's quite obvious that you will never learn. Whether you're ready to face the facts or not, Cub fans have no bragging rights until they win it all. Any bragging apart from that is mere frivolity.
This year...............
I don't care.
Wow, imagine that, MLB "creating" rivalries for entertainment value.
Folks, sports is entertainment. Maybe you're not as excited about Sox v Cubs as in past years, but the games have been generally fun (or dare I say entertaining) to watch, particularly when the Sox RULE.
Yes, some of the match ups are a huge stretch, but so what. You don't like them, don't go, watch or listen to the games.
And I completely agree with KLSS -- The Cell is by far the superior place to see a game. Yes, Wrigley has better atmosphere outside the park, but the Cell is a great place to enjoy a game. My kids agree too.
Gee Go Cubs Go...
I thought that you Cubs fans liked men with no teeth.
Is anybody happy the Penguins won??? I know I am!
Stu responds: Keith, I watched the whole game, and before it started I told someone that I'd be shocked if the Penguins won. It was stunning to see the Red Wings struggle to score goals on their home ice with so much on the line. It has to be encouraging for the Blackhawks to see that the Wings are not an insurmountable obstacle, they can be beaten.
Yeah, I hope the Hawks also noted what style of hockey can do them in!
I know it's only 2 games, but just 4 the moment I'd like to retract all the bad things I've been saying about Contreras these last 2 years. I had no inside clue they rushed him back this year, and I knew last year he was hurt, but I figured it was his age catching up 2 him and he needed 2 go.
These last 2 performances were vintage Jose, and if he keeps this up he'll go from one of the biggest question marks in starting pitching to a very viable candidate for pitcher of the month (June).
Becketts tearing up the scene, also, but Contreras should win it, alone, by virtue of being 50 years old.
Did I say that!