Posted on 09/23/2008 11:30:59 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson
CHICAGO -- Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley has yet to solicit Ozzie Guillen's help or advice in relation to fulfilling his ongoing quest of bringing the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.
Not unlike the shoot-from-the-lip manner Guillen has operated under since taking over the White Sox in 2004, the opinionated manager recently offered up his own solution to clinch the bid. It involves the Cubs and White Sox and a special postseason meeting that has not taken place since 1906, which astonishingly also marks the last time both teams qualified for the playoffs during the same season.
"Like I said two months ago, if both teams go to the World Series, the Olympics will go to Chicago," said Guillen, reiterating his theory during a pregame chat with the media on Sunday in Kansas City. "They're going to find out what the city is, what's really all about it, and it's going to have international attention.
"I think it's going to be fun for everyone, a lot of entertainment," Guillen added.
One step toward the first Red Line World Series since Teddy Roosevelt was president already has been taken, with the Cubs locking up the National League Central via a victory over St. Louis on Saturday. With the White Sox opening a three-game set at the Metrodome on Tuesday night against a Twins squad sitting 2 1/2 games behind them in the American League Central, they could take step two with a series sweep or at least set up a second clincher, this time on the South Side of Chicago, this weekend against Cleveland.
Two baseball division champs emerging during the same season in Chicago? It takes place about as frequently as a Republican getting elected mayor of this city.
Since 1980, the White Sox clearly have had the better teams on the field, record-wise. Yet, during this 28-year-stretch, and including results to date, the Cubs have made six playoff appearances while the White Sox have made four.
Of course, the bar was raised in 2003, when the Cubs came within five outs of reaching their first World Series since 1945. That bar then reached the ultimate heights in 2005, when the White Sox captured Chicago's first baseball title since 1917.
Close to 2.5 million fans showed up downtown to welcome home their conquering heroes after the sweep of the Astros. Some of those White Sox faithful had to be thinking, "Now we have the clear-cut bragging rights over Cubs fans" right after, "Now I can die happy."
Clear-cut, that is, unless one of the two teams were to win a championship during a Red Line World Series, nicknamed for the mode of transportation used to get between Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field. It's a possibility this intense rivalry could move to a new level in 2008.
"It would be hard to even imagine," said White Sox reliever Scott Linebrink of the potential World Series matchup. "I remember watching the Yankees and Mets, and that seemed like craziness. I wouldn't know what to expect. I just know what I saw when we played in Interleague. It was a charged up atmosphere. It was fun to be part of it."
"This would be the absolute coolest thing that ever happened in sports in this city," added David Kaplan, a talk show host on WGN Radio, the Cubs' flagship station, and Comcast SportsNet, which broadcasts Cubs and White Sox games. "The '85 Bears was the neatest thing I ever saw, but this would top that because it would encompass everybody on both sides of town. I know there would be Cubs fans absolutely terrified of losing to the White Sox, and vice versa."
At the heart of this rivalry lies the respective fan bases, two groups perceived to represent vastly different demographics.
Yuppies are thought to fill up Wrigley Field. They are the Cubs fans, who simply come to enjoy the ballpark experience, get their face on television and wouldn't be able to disseminate between Ryan Theriot and Ryne Sandberg. Win or lose, Cubs fans come for the libations and the surrounding atmosphere, or so the story goes.
A blue collar sort of group fills U.S. Cellular. Hard-nosed and gritty, they demand excellence from their team and won't show up unless the White Sox are successful.
One common bond forged between these two is a strong dislike of the other side. A popular T-shirt featured during the past couple of decades, on the South Side, as an example, shows off the motto, "I root for two teams: The White Sox and whoever plays the Cubs."
Yet, this bitterness does not necessarily stand out as violent hatred. Back at the end of June, during the second of two Interleague series between Chicago's teams, White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf talked about a significant number of fans who root for both.
Reinsdorf mentioned taking the White Sox to a Bulls game after the 2005 championship and receiving a rousing ovation from the crowd. Not all of those fans in attendance were White Sox supporters.
Don't believe for a second, though, that a World Series matchup between the Cubs and White Sox will play out as a rational "may the best man win" sort of competition. Not where baseball is concerned in this city.
"I've asked a lot of White Sox fans, 'If given the choice of both teams in the playoffs or neither team being in the playoffs, what would you pick?'" said Reinsdorf, speaking on the subject back in late June. "The answer is usually, 'Neither, because I can't take the chance the Cubs might win.' And these [answers] are from some fairly intelligent people."
"We don't hate [the White Sox], by any means," Theriot, the Cubs top-of-the-order sparkplug and starting shortstop, added. "It'd be really great if we won. If we lost it, it wouldn't be great, it'd be terrible. But just to have that chance, to have that chance just to get there and have that opportunity to do something great ..."
Prior to 1997, these intracity battles only were steeped in the hypothetical.
Sure, there were charitable exhibition games that produced strange commercials involving less-charismatic managers than Lou Piniella and Guillen promoting the event. There even was a White Sox Minor Leaguer named Michael Jordan (yes, the same Chicago Bulls legend and the one with six NBA titles) getting two hits during a game played at Wrigley Field in 1994.
Then, Interleague Play began, and the Cubs-White Sox series almost immediately took on the intensity of storied rivalries such as Yankees-Red Sox or Cubs-Cardinals. Just one essential ingredient was missing.
"Having a rivalry that really never sees the two participants playing for the ultimate prize is something lost in translation until they meet in the Word Series," said White Sox announcer Steve Stone, who holds the rare distinction of having pitched and broadcasted for both Chicago baseball organizations. "For instance, this year nothing was decided.
"Three games in each ballpark, and what did it mean? Treading water for both, no bragging rights for either. It didn't help the Cubs or White Sox or hinder them."
What these 66 Interleague games have done, with each team winning 33, is create cult heroes who probably wouldn't have been heard of before and won't be heard of again. Brant Brown, Derrick White (both Cubs) and Mike Caruso (White Sox) won't get to Baseball's Hall of Fame unless they make the drive to Cooperstown, yet they all have launched game-winning home runs in this series.
You can bet any fan standing outside U.S. Cellular on 35th and Shields can describe the exact location of Caruso's long ball off of Rick Aguilera at Wrigley Field. The same holds true for fans sitting at Harry Caray's just outside of Wrigley concerning Brown's walk-off shot against Tony Castillo.
There also are special series moments that live in infamy, ranging from Aramis Ramirez's walk-off home run against Linebrink this season at Wrigley, to Michael Barrett's sucker punch of A.J. Pierzynski behind home plate at U.S. Cellular in 2006, setting off a benches-clearing brawl. Now, a storyline appears to be setting up that only Hollywood could have concocted.
The Cubs, trying to end their 100-year World Series title drought, face the White Sox, spoken of, at times, as Chicago's baseball stepchild, who could win their second title in four years and break the Cubs' fans hearts, as well. And the winner of this battle?
Certainly, it's the city of Chicago, just as it was 102 years ago, when the White Sox won the championship in six games.
"New York already has had [its] World Series," Stone said. "With that precedent set, and the city is still up and functioning, I would expect nothing less from Chicago."
"If the two matched up," added White Sox television announcer Darrin Jackson, who played for both teams, with a wry smile, "it would be one of the best [World Series] since 1905. I think it would be a lot of fun."
Long before my time. The wrong franchise left town, that’s for sure....
Manny and The Dodgers and the Angels say, hold on there.
Yep...we sure were. I sent out an email yesterday. I would love to see this, but I would be in a tough spot: I am a national league fan, but I can’t STAND Piniella.
Win!if the mets are out of it i’d go for the cubs. but i would pull for the red sox if they made it since yankee fans would be devastated. ANYONE but the yanks and the phillies.
and these guys are both over 6 feet and over 200 pounds. they fought their way out. someone came up to them after and said that was the first time they had ever seen anyone escape that scenario without taking the jersrey off.
Being a life-long, die-hard Cub fan, I’d give anything to see us CRUSH the White Sox in the Series.
The thing is, no matter who would win that series, I will say that we will have the Second Great Chicago Fire!
Want to ruin the chances of Chicago being the host for the 2016 Olympics? Have a cross-town series, that’s how. The behavior that would likely be on display for the world would make the IOC run to Tokyo, Rio or Madrid so fast it’ll make your head spin.
I’ve simply stopped going to Soldier Field and now Wrigley. The last Bears game I went to was the Super Bowl in Miami. At least the Indy fans had class.
Will the city install a courtroom in the stadium and provide a judge to hear the criminal cases that result from the fans' misbehavior? Will the fans be allowed to throw snowballs at Santa Claus?
Unless the answer to both questions is 'yes," then as ugly as the behavior might be, it won't achieve the lows routinely set during Eagles' football games.
Are you going to work this into a sermon? BTW, coming from just South of Roosevelt Rd, my family was Sox fans. They lived near Roosevelt & Ashland where Circle Campus now exists. The church, First Immanuel, is still there.
But most of my existing family are Cubs fans today. So be it... And our son having been in for my birthday went to the game last Wednesday before returning to Vegas. Alas, they lost. I couldn’t even watch it on Cable because of some goofy setup Comcast has here in town. It was advertised but not on. I thought I might see Gene & Alicia but no luck.
You must be the only one, because Sweet Lou is undoubtedly the most popular man across the vast Cubs Nation these days.
However, we've just got to keep our heads above the water at the current moment. Too early to think about LCS at this moment - although I've already got my tickets in hand for the first Shea Stadium game of the NLCS (Game 1 or 3 - whichever it may be).
Dream is right. But then he woke up and found the Angels and Phillies playing for the prize.
More likely Cubs-Rays; it’d be nice to see the Cubs win it at last.
If it’s Cubs-Rays, then Piniella would be largely responsible for both teams being there.
More Cubs fans than Rays fans would show up in St.Pete. Have the Rays had even one sellout this year?
I would NOT be able to stand for a RedLine Series.
The fact that we could lose to the Sox is too much to think and IF that actually happened, the SoxFans would achieve levels of obnoxiousness even greater than that of Green Bay fans.
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