This Sporting Life: Foul Ball

(WARNING: This week's update is entirely about the sucky state of baseball in Chicago. If you don't care about sports in general or baseball in particular, then the following essay will likely bore the shit out of you....which may be a good thing, if you happen to be constipated. Otherwise, this one just ain't for you.)

I'm told that in cities as far apart and different as Atlanta, Oakland, Saint Louis and Minnepolis, base ball fans are awake and alert, cheering their teams on in the playoffs with the hopes that their city will host a World Series next week.

There are no such hopes in Chicago, where, despite the fact that the city claims ownership of not one but two major league franchises, fans have packed away their pennants and gloves, their caps and spring dreams, for a long winter's nap. In truth, though, these fans needn't have waited until the final week of the season, nor even the final month. They could have gone into hybrenation somewhere around the Fourth of July and not have missed a thing.

The baseball season just concluded in the Windy City could easily be described as typical, what with the Cubs finishing near the bottom of their division (and only escaping the cellar due to the epic awfulness of our neighbors to the north, the Milwaukee Brewers) and the White Sox stinking up their sanitary, bland stadium for much of the season, only to come roaring back toward the end to reach the coveted .500 mark--and by losing as many games as they won, they basically could have gone without playing any games at all.

But there were aspects to this excruciatingly long six months that were far from typical. First of all, there was the labor strife all of baseball had to deal with. The idea that millionaire ballplayers would go on strike against billionaire owners was met with a collective "meh" from sports fans everywhere, most of whom simply asked, "So...when does football season start?" This is indicative of the apathy felt toward the game since the last work stoppage in 1994. (Hell, I'm feeling pretty apathetic now as I write this...my reason for caring is what, exactly?) This is also indicative of how ineffective Major League Baseball has been in their attempts to get a grip on our collective attention: an extra round of playoffs, interleague play, brand new ballparks all over the place, etc.

On the North Side, there was the added spectacle of the ownership of the Cubs, the many-tentacled Tribune Company, trying to expand that ivy-covered shrine to all things good in the sport, Wrigley Field, at the expense of the views of some of the owners of apartment buildings across the street from the ballpark--building owners who've installed bleachers on their rooftops and charge big bucks to let people sit up there. When the owners kicked and screamed and filled community meetings with angry villagers, the Tribune Company responded in a mature, professional way--by putting up windscreens to block the sight lines of rooftop viewers, all the while claiming the maneuver was motivated not by pettiness, but by post-9/11 security concerns (like those screens could stop spitballs, much less bullets or worse). At season's end, no compromise or resolution had been reached. But did anybody but the immediate parties really care about this, another case of the rich being pissed off at the richer? Not really.

For added spice, the Cubs fired not one but two managers this season--it's not unusual for one to get whacked every couple years or so, but two in one year is kind of odd. However, it makes more sense when you look at how the team played: with the exceptions of Sammy Sosa, Kerry Wood and a few others (mostly younger players), the Cubs showed no hunger, no drive, no spark. And neither manager employed this year--Don Baylor for the first half of the season, Bruce Kimm for the second half--could inspire this sleepy bunch. I doubt if the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost could have gotten more out of these guys, most of whom played like they were anxious to grab their paychecks and walk (why show the energy to run?).

Not that matters were much better on the South Side. Aside from Mark Buerlhe, who won 19 games this season, and Magglio Ordonez, who made the All-Star team (again), the White Sox all looked like they needed compasses to lead them to a clue. The big off-season trade by general manager Kenny Williams of three young pitchers to the Pittsburgh Pirates for veteran Todd Ritchie turned out to be disasterous, as Ritchie lost 16 games and two of the three young pitchers entered the Pirates' starting rotation. And then, there was Frank Thomas, who sat out most of last year with an injury. He came back this year as grouchy and uninspiring as ever, refusing to talk to the media while also, apparently, refusing to figure out how to hit a baseball the way he did in MVP seasons past. His average and production climbed a bit by September--just in time for the team to watch the Minnesota Twins, who were supposed to be contracted out of existence this year, win their division by a wide margin and crawl to within a series, against the Anaheim Angels, of playing in the World Series.

Think about that for a moment, if you would: The Twins haven't been to a World Series since 1991, and the Angels have never been to a World Series. Meanwhile, here in Chicago, not a single World Series game has been in this city in my lifetime. Not. One. And not one World Series has been won in this city on either side of town since 1917. Not. One.

Why, then, do fans still turn out at all? I mean, Sox fans at seem a bit practical, showing up in dwindling numbers at the second Comiskey Park. But Cubs fans? They're like grocery shoppers buying gallons of milk, finding out that the milk is spoiled to the point of being chunky, and going back to the grocery store for more spoiled milk--over and over and over and over again.

But at least their self-inflicted pain is ended for another year, when eternal hopefulness and blind faith will again have a head-on collision with the weight of gloomy history. And who knows? Maybe hope and faith can win for once. Maybe.