Chicago Baseball Discussion: Cubs & White Sox

[Nyk33]

56 minutes ago, BringBackTheVet said:

Complaining about "bandwagon" fans is one of the most tired things that happens not only on here, but in life in general.

 

I'm using the royal 'you' below, not a specific 'you'.

 

What is the point of pro sports?  Entertainment / fun?  An "escape"? Both of the above?  Guess what - it's more fun when a team is winning and everyone's partying, having fun, filling the park, getting together with friends to cheer on a win, etc.  

 

If you think you need to "suffer" as a fan in order to enjoy it when the team wins, then something is wrong.  If you've been a fan for ever and appreciate the history and know all about the struggles, then great!  It likely means something to you that is different than what it means to someone who just jumped on.  But to think that watching blowout after blowout, spending money watching a losing team in an empty stadium, wasting your life by yourself at home watching losers strike out means that you're the only one that can enjoy it when the team wins, then that's a problem.

 

"Bandwagon" fans are that way (at least partially) because their priorities are maybe different and they're focusing on enjoying life and focusing on other things that make them happy, rather than watching crappy baseball.  Now all of a sudden baseball is fun, so they're enjoying that, until it's not fun again.  Doesn't that sound like a pretty good way to go about life?  It does to me.

 

Plus, maybe by getting on the bandwagon, they'll realize that baseball is pretty great, and they'll remain fans even when the team sucks again.  Being good is how a lot of teams establish a fan base.  So I can't think of a single thing to complain about when it comes to "bandwagon" fans.

 

The lapsed casual fan and the local that doesn't normally give a damn about sports except when the team is winning aren't the only two types of bandwagon fans and I usually don't have issue with those people. Teams can't be absolute crap for a decade plus and not expect some drop off in enthusiasm. Also if you don't usually give a damn about sports that's a person's right.

 

However if the bandwagon fan starts talking trash or engaging in banter he/she deserves to have their "bandwagon" status thrown back at them. This is something that is useful for dealing with the "person who switches team because their old team stinks" and "Yankees/Lakers/Steelers/Manchester United fan" categories of "bandwagon" fans.

[The_Admiral]

4 hours ago, CS85 said:

Also for some advice,don't be one of these people who tries to make up rules about who can celebrate and who can't.

 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Mythologies often eclipse reality. If you step back and look at Chicagoland sports, you see a dominant, all-time memorable football tile in 1985, six basketball titles in the 90s, a World Series title in the 2000s, and three (right?) Stanley Cups in the 2010s. Hardly a beleaguered sports city.

 

However, the Cubs are obviously different. They're up there as all-time franchises along with the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Giants (that's the list, right?). They had Harry Carey, SNL Harry Carey, the celebrity Take Me Out... singing, Ferris Bueller, and more. The White Sox had NWA and Frank Thomas; that's it. Plus 100 years since the last title is a long time.

 

So while I don't get the sense of relief specific to Chicago, I do get the desire to be part of something. And being a part of celebrating the end of a century of futility is pretty cool.

[infrared41]

17 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Mythologies often eclipse reality. If you step back and look at Chicagoland sports, you see a dominant, all-time memorable football tile in 1985, six basketball titles in the 90s, a World Series title in the 2000s, and three (right?) Stanley Cups in the 2010s. Hardly a beleaguered sports city.

 

However, the Cubs are obviously different. They're up there as all-time franchises along with the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Giants (that's the list, right?). They had Harry Carey, SNL Harry Carey, the celebrity Take Me Out... singing, Ferris Bueller, and more. The White Sox had NWA and Frank Thomas; that's it. Plus 100 years since the last title is a long time.

 

So while I don't get the sense of relief specific to Chicago, I do get the desire to be part of something. And being a part of celebrating the end of a century of futility is pretty cool.

 

I'll get the hell beat out of me for this, but you should probably add the Cardinals to that list. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

Oh, I knew what I was doing

[infrared41]

1 minute ago, DG_Now said:

Oh, I knew what I was doing

 

Shrewd move. Only an idiot would come into a Chicago sports thread and say "hey, what about the Cardinals?"

[IceCap]

The Best Fans in Baseball Twitter account has been delightful since the Cubs won by the way.

[CS85]

15 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

The Best Fans in Baseball Twitter account has been delightful since the Cubs won by the way.

Nice to know there are some proud Cardinals fans who feel so full of piss in vinegar that they can brazenly spew hate speech onto the internet.

[Alex Houston]

20 hours ago, DDR said:

Guaranteed Rate Field <insert Sideshow-Bob-stepping-on-a-rake-shudder> has a pretty fun tailgate environment. But that's kind of all it has going for it. The surrounding area isn't as bad as some like to say it is, but it's certainly not like going to Wrigley. When I go to a Sox game (and when most people I know do as well), you get there 90 minutes early, drink beer and play baegs (©the admiral), go into the park after first pitch, drink beer and watch the game, and then we get our asses back to Oak Lawn/Orland Park/Palos Heights/Tinley Park/etc. and go out to a bar there.

 

I feel like I kind of have to restate the obvious here, but Bridgeport and Lakeview are extremely opposite neighborhoods, more so now than before, which helps explain the stark contrast of the Sox and Cubs fanbases. Lakeview over decades transformed from big lots for people to get away from downtown, into an urbanizing area that attracted single people, non married folks and eventually the LGBT crowd. It was that development that attracted Wrigley to set up the stadium there in the first place, so way before al of us were glints in our father's eyes, the Cubs were being set up for a distinct advantage.

 

Comiskey, on the other hand, made a bad choice to buy his plot off 35th and Shields where his neighbors were Upton Sinclair's magnum opus and a soon to be historically black neighborhood. So it was never going to be easy down the road, when technology and tastes change, for the Sox to be as competitive as the Cubs in the entertainment department. Like I've said before, ownership decisions have hurt, but even if they got some crazy Mark Cuban-esque type who came from Joliet and wanted to radically reshape the Sox at their current spot, there's not as much you can do now. You have train tracks to the left, the ever imposing "ghetto" straight to the south, a really unknown college to the right and Chinatown to the north. So where exactly is 'Soxtown' or 'The Sox Strip' supposed to be? Only now is Bridgeport getting sort of gentrified, with a weird mix of the three story condo units beginning to dwarf the smaller, aged homes similar to mine because displaced UIC and IIT kids are coming in from Pilsen and University Village. It would be great to offer them something they could walk do and drink in the neighborhood but look at the map. Where could you put something like that?

 

 

Sure, if Comiskey had bought his land near 31st and MLK Drive, they could've built a picturesque stadium a la Pac Bell Park (or whatever it is now) but alas, this is the hand that's dealt. They displaced folks before and I just don't see where any entertainment even close to Wrigley could really be added.

 

I'm battling a cold so my thoughts are sort of muddled, but the gist is the Sox were already doomed from the start by a couple key bad breaks. 

[BBTV]

2 hours ago, Nyk33 said:

 

The lapsed casual fan and the local that doesn't normally give a damn about sports except when the team is winning aren't the only two types of bandwagon fans and I usually don't have issue with those people. Teams can't be absolute crap for a decade plus and not expect some drop off in enthusiasm. Also if you don't usually give a damn about sports that's a person's right.

 

However if the bandwagon fan starts talking trash or engaging in banter he/she deserves to have their "bandwagon" status thrown back at them. This is something that is useful for dealing with the "person who switches team because their old team stinks" and "Yankees/Lakers/Steelers/Manchester United fan" categories of "bandwagon" fans.

 

Talking trash about sports is stupid anyway and makes one sound stupid.  It's like some people feel that if their team is good, then somehow they are actually superior to someone who roots for a bad team.  It's dumb.

[infrared41]

1 hour ago, BringBackTheVet said:

 

Talking trash about sports is stupid anyway and makes one sound stupid.  It's like some people feel that if their team is good, then somehow they are actually superior to someone who roots for a bad team.  It's dumb.

 

All that, and it's aggravating as hell to listen to. 

[IceCap]

"The Toronto Maple Laughs suck! Losers since '67!!!!!1!1!1!!!11!!!oneoneleven"

 

"Get  ed"

[Nyk33]

4 hours ago, infrared41 said:

 

Shrewd move. Only an idiot would come into a Chicago sports thread and say "hey, what about the Cardinals?"

 

Which would likely get you chased out of a Chicago thread faster, praising the Packers or praising the Cardinals?

[DDR]

4 hours ago, Alex Houston said:

 

I feel like I kind of have to restate the obvious here, but Bridgeport and Lakeview are extremely opposite neighborhoods, more so now than before, which helps explain the stark contrast of the Sox and Cubs fanbases. Lakeview over decades transformed from big lots for people to get away from downtown, into an urbanizing area that attracted single people, non married folks and eventually the LGBT crowd. It was that development that attracted Wrigley to set up the stadium there in the first place, so way before al of us were glints in our father's eyes, the Cubs were being set up for a distinct advantage.

 

Comiskey, on the other hand, made a bad choice to buy his plot off 35th and Shields where his neighbors were Upton Sinclair's magnum opus and a soon to be historically black neighborhood. So it was never going to be easy down the road, when technology and tastes change, for the Sox to be as competitive as the Cubs in the entertainment department. Like I've said before, ownership decisions have hurt, but even if they got some crazy Mark Cuban-esque type who came from Joliet and wanted to radically reshape the Sox at their current spot, there's not as much you can do now. You have train tracks to the left, the ever imposing "ghetto" straight to the south, a really unknown college to the right and Chinatown to the north. So where exactly is 'Soxtown' or 'The Sox Strip' supposed to be? Only now is Bridgeport getting sort of gentrified, with a weird mix of the three story condo units beginning to dwarf the smaller, aged homes similar to mine because displaced UIC and IIT kids are coming in from Pilsen and University Village. It would be great to offer them something they could walk do and drink in the neighborhood but look at the map. Where could you put something like that?

 

 

Sure, if Comiskey had bought his land near 31st and MLK Drive, they could've built a picturesque stadium a la Pac Bell Park (or whatever it is now) but alas, this is the hand that's dealt. They displaced folks before and I just don't see where any entertainment even close to Wrigley could really be added.

 

I'm battling a cold so my thoughts are sort of muddled, but the gist is the Sox were already doomed from the start by a couple key bad breaks. 

 

Maybe I'm misreading this, or it's your cold muddying thoughts, but I'm not advocating for a "Soxtown" nor am I faulting the Sox for not developing one near their park. The two areas of Chicago are, to your point, extremely opposite. That's just the way it is. All I'm saying is that the areas in which each park resides very much contributes to the atmosphere and attendance.  

[Alex Houston]

3 hours ago, DDR said:

 

Maybe I'm misreading this, or it's your cold muddying thoughts, but I'm not advocating for a "Soxtown" nor am I faulting the Sox for not developing one near their park. The two areas of Chicago are, to your point, extremely opposite. That's just the way it is. All I'm saying is that the areas in which each park resides very much contributes to the atmosphere and attendance.  

 

Allow me to clarify. I'm wasn't accusing you of either point that I brought up. I was more so quoting your initial comment about the lack of options nearby to jettison my own theory about why attendance has suffered so much on the south side for so long. I think we're both arguing the same point, I was just tacking on some stuff to it. 

[Alex Houston]

5 hours ago, infrared41 said:

 

All that, and it's aggravating as hell to listen to. 

 

That may be all good and true but when the sports industry is based around competition, I don't see most people following your lead. People are petty and when the partisanship starts, I don't think there's much recourse besides sipping your beer and rolling your eyes.

[infrared41]

10 minutes ago, Alex Houston said:

 

That may be all good and true but when the sports industry is based around competition, I don't see most people following your lead. People are petty and when the partisanship starts, I don't think there's much recourse besides sipping your beer and rolling your eyes.

 

What "lead" am I trying to get people to follow, exactly? I said trash talk is aggravating. How did you manage to come up with me trying to get people to "follow my lead" from that statement? 

[Alex Houston]

2 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

What "lead" am I trying to get people to follow, exactly? I said trash talk is aggravating. It wasn't a call to arms or anything. 

 

Let me try this again. I think it would be tough for people to follow that example because it's head-to-head, not that your advocating for a larger cause. 

[IceCap]

I only trash talk the Sens because lol Sens.

 

Also the Red Wings, but only because they're objectively terrible people.

[Rj0498]

33 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

I only trash talk the Sens because lol Sens.

 

Also the Red Wings, but only because they're objectively terrible people.

Don't forget the blackhawks if there is one thing I have learned over the years is that the hawks have very obnoxious fans