Posted on 05/20/2005 10:20:51 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Every time I stand outside U.S. Cellular Field, I wonder. I look at the massive cement wall to the west, the rampart that supports the railroad tracks that hold the freight trains that rumble past, and I feel as though I am in West Berlin, circa 1980.
To the east there is the equivalent of a gigantic moat, the sunken Dan Ryan Expressway, a concrete trench I often have envisioned filled with water and alligators, an impenetrable obstacle protecting Jerry Reinsdorf and his troops from assault by, say, the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The south is remote, on the other side of the main entrance, a nest of parking lots and chain-link fencing.
It is to the north I turn.
And this is what I wonder.
What if the blank expanse of parking lots framed between the forbidding railroad, expressway and the Cell itself could be turned into something ... fun?
What if there were restaurants and shops and bars and patches of green with trees and sidewalks and promenades right on up to Armour Square Park?
Where would the current parking lot go?
I don't know.
Maybe you build a bigger parking garage next to the arena. Maybe you don't worry about it at all, Cub-style.
But would such a real-estate development end the disparity between the massive Cub Nation and the feisty Sox Platoon?
As the White Sox fans with tickets come north this weekend for the crosstown rivalry at Clark and Addison, I wonder if they will notice the neighborhood more than anything.
No doubt Sox have better park
The place known as Wrigleyville is basically an amusement park with a decrepit, ivy-laced ballfield in the center.
The irony Sox fans should be aware of is that as far as comfort goes, the eternally sold-out Wrigley Field scores maybe a 2 on a 10-point scale, while U.S. Cellular gets about a 7.
It's not about the American League or the National League.
It's not ultimately about the success of either club, since neither has won a World Series in a combined 183 years.
No, the second-class status of the Sox is about subtleties such as Tuscany Restaurant being a foul ball from Wrigley's north end, and Bernie's being a mere stagger away, and the Cubby Bear and Murphy's and Gingerman Tavern and on and on.
And it's about the closest Sox haunt, Jimbo's, being a scary night-time walk past that massive parking lot.
It is also about demographics of neighborhoods, publicity and ownership, with Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf still being perceived as a New York carpetbagger nearly a quarter-century after he bought the team, and Tribune Co. chairman, president and CEO Dennis FitzSimons being perceived as ...
Hmm, who the heck is Dennis FitzSimons?
Indeed, the corporate stewardship of the Cubs makes the club a sort of blob with no discernible head, so that punching the outfit means going after lower workers such as Neifi Perez, Dusty Baker, Jim Hendry and even team president Andy McPhail, when the real bosses are somewhere in an oak-paneled boardroom, moving monopoly-style holdings about.
Since the intracity series began in 1997, the Cubs have won 20 games and the Sox 22.
It is likely that if the clubs play long enough, each will average a 50 percent winning margin.
That's baseball.
What's more notable about these series is the disparity in the fan base and enthusiasm for each team. Call it the sizzle.
If the Cubs sweep the first-place Sox, the South Side team will lose luster.
However, if the Sox sweep the sub-.500 Cubs, it won't matter a pea to the multitudinous Cub nuts.
Party at Sluggers!
The stars of the '05 Cubs-Sox edition are not players, oddly, but managers.
Ozzie Guillen and Dusty Baker have more personality and history than any of the guys such as Greg Maddux or Derrek Lee or John Garland or Mark Buehrle (the latter two won't even be pitching this weekend), and they will be the ones who could get the crowd roaring.
Who knows, before the weekend is through, home-field guy Baker could be roundly booed, and the visiting Guillen could get many cheers.
Sox and Cubs are no Marlins
Underlying this event is the dark lining that every Sox and Cubs fan senses but barely can acknowledge: Both teams are losers.
Lord, the Florida Marlins have won two World Series in the last decade.
This makes the Cubs-Sox rivalry more of a brotherhood, no matter how contentious the participants.
The fascinating thing to me is the view from the weekend-vacant U.S. Cellular Field.
Could scenery and food and drink ever turn the Sox into the Cubs? I wonder.
The Chicago papers cover it well enough. The Chicago TV is a disgrace.
Having said that; Carol Marin tried to take Chicago TV in that direction a couple of years ago by putting together a newscast devoid of "happy talk" and fires that focused on actual news and nobody watched. So don't blame the media for not trying to sell what people don't want to buy.
Y'know, now that you mention it, I haven't seen that for years - rumor is that when Eddie Stanky was managing the Sox, he always kept the home-game baseballs cold and damp to level the field when power hitting teams came to town.
Are there baseball fans at WRigley? I thought it was just a tourist attraction for folks from Iowa?
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