by Cliff Nadar
I’m a Cubs fan. I’m also a Bulls fan, a Bears fan, and a Chicago fan. That is to say, if you represent the great city of Chicago, I support you. That expands the list to include the Blackhawks, Notre Dame, DePaul, and the White Sox.
I loved the “Real Men Wear Black†Sox of Jack McDowell, Alex Fernandez, Robin Ventura, Frank Thomas and friends. I was at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium for Wilson Alvarez’s no-hitter. Regardless of his politics, I’d support Obama for President and I’d love to see the Olympics in 2016.
But, more than any of those things, I’d love this year’s World Series to become the “L†Series. And that can’t happen if the Sox don’t win today.
Weather permitting, around 6:30 local time tonight, the entire sports world will be focused on U.S. Cellular Field for a one-game playoff between the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox. It’s been an interesting path for the Sox to get here, not only blowing a 2.5 game lead in the final week, to getting swept by those Mini-Twins, to losing two of three in their final series to (help them?) force today’s game. A game they should win, if only because of a coin flip. The White Sox could not win this game in the Baggie-Dome, and I don’t think the Twins can win it at the Cell.
All season, Ozzie has complained of the White Sox being second-class citizens. He has made claims of being disrespected, overlooked, and outright ignored. Here’s your chance, Oz, I hope you seize it. Today, the White Sox aren’t just the focus of Chicago baseball, but of the entire baseball world.
Chicago has been the talk of much of baseball all summer. For one summer, one in which both New York teams celebrated the closing of old stadiums and the history within, a summer where the All-Star Game was in Yankee Stadium with a parade of Hall-of-Famers down the Avenue of the Americas, Chicago has been the baseball town to talk about. As far back as June, columnists, both local and national, have hypothesized about an All-Chicago World Series, and now we stand just a few steps away.
There are no New York teams in the Major League Baseball playoffs this year. There are two Los Angeles teams, but this is Chicago’s autumn. Who wants to watch a Hollywood World Series? Not even people in Hollywood. Who wants to watch a team whose fans only watch innings 3-8? A team whose greatest highlight (Kirk Gibson) is co-starred by the sea of taillights of fans who missed it. And the other team relies on a monkey to fire up their crowd in late innings? We have a chance to have two old-school teams, with old-school fan bases, representing the same great city, meet for a trophy that has only made one appearance in this town in the past 90 years. There are a lot of negative things happening right now for Chicagoans to focus on. We need this to celebrate. So, on behalf of Cubs fans, may I say, GO SOX!!!
[tags]chicago, chicago white sox, chicago cubs, ozzie guillen, mlb, baseball, mlb playoffs[/tags]
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