Last night I was watching the Cubs-Cardinals game on ESPN and they asked Peter Gammons if the Cubs would be as lovable if they won the World Series. His response was that the Cubs winning the World Series would only further their status as an international brand along the lines of the Yankees and Red Sox. Something's been bothering me for a few years now, and I think it's time I spoke out about it.
Before I say anything else, I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions about Cub fans. The Cubs and their fans have many detractors, and I thought I should address some of the reasons they hate us.
1. Cub fans think it's cute when their team loses. Umm, no. From my earliest days as a Cub fan I wanted them to win the World Series. After the Cubs collapsed in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS I was sprawled on the floor pounding my fist in anguish. True Cub fans don't think losing is cute, they know it's frustrating.
2. Cub fans want everybody to love them and feel sorry for them. Again, no. Perhaps some Cub fans are like that, but the ones I know don't care what everyone else thinks of them. They want a legitimate team that wins on its own merits and they don't feel entitled to anything just because it's been a century since their team last won the World Series.
3. Cub fans are a bunch of bandwagoners who don't know anything about the game. Every team has so-called "fans" like that. Sure, there are those who show up at Wrigley just to hang out and drink beer, but there are also legions who show up at road games to support the Cubs. If you do that you're either extremely loyal or you have way too much free time on your hands.
4. Cub fans blame their futility on curses. I can't speak for every Cub fan, but I'm sick of hearing about that lousy goat. My father even got angry a few years back when FOX was broadcasting a Cubs game and they showed a billy goat graphic on the screen. Blaming your bad luck on curses is an easy out. Mature fans can admit that their team just hasn't been good enough over the years.
Now that I've made it clear where I stand on these issues (and believe most true Cub fans stand), I have something to say: I don't want the Cubs to be like the Yankees and Red Sox. What's wrong with being like the Yankees and Red Sox, you ask? Don't their national followings bring them more money and allow them to contend every year? Yes they do, but they also mean the media treats them differently.
When I became a Cub fan I was still living in the Chicago area and they seemed like your friendly neighborhood baseball club. Sure, their long-running World Series drought was something of a national curiosity, but I didn't get the impression that there was any favoritism toward them in the national media. These days it seems like they give the Cubs more hype every year.
The plight of the Cub fan has more attention drawn to it and more stereotypes are propagated about what we're like. Personally, I don't want to be caricaturized by the media, I just want to root for that team on the North Side. I've seen what excessive media hype can do to fans. It can give them an inflated sense of their team's importance and a tendency to act more arrogant. Just look at the Red Sox. Even before they won the World Series in 2004 their fans were perceived by many as "whiners" due to the media harping on their heartbreaking history. The genuine happiness many of us felt for the Red Sox and their fans when they won that World Series has evaporated for the most part. They've gotten so full of themselves that most of us now think they're just as bad as (or perhaps even worse than) the Yankees.
Like I said before, I don't expect everyone in America to love my team, but I would hope that if the Cubs did win the World Series most people could be happy for them. If the Cubs continue to get shoved down everyone's throats they're more likely to be resented than loved. I don't want my fellow Cub fans to get a reputation like those punks on the East Coast; I want them to maintain some humility no matter how successful our team is. After all, 100 years should be enough to keep anyone from getting a big head.
Maybe I'm too idealistic, but I'd like to live in a world where all teams were treated equally. I wish the average fan cared about each team and not just the media darlings. I love my Cubs, but I don't want people treating them as if they were more important than any other team. They're not. They're just one of 30. Sure, I want them to win the World Series, but they don't deserve it unless they can get it done on the field. If they can't there are plenty of other teams who'd make great stories if they won it instead.
I'm a Cub fan and hope to be until the day I die, but I don't want my team to become one of the faces of all I hate about sports. An international brand that takes itself too seriously doesn't need my support. Sadly, I think the writing is on the wall. I hope the Cubs end their drought while I can still recognize those guys in blue I loved as a kid.
I just found out some sad news: Jerome Holtzman, baseball's first official historian and inventor of the save statistic, passed away on Saturday. A lot of people probably don't know who Jerome Holtzman was, and many who read the article about his passing will probably only find it interesting that he invented the save. For me, this news means a little more.
Back in my early days as a baseball fan I read the Chicago Tribune sports section to keep up with my teams. There was an old guy whose column was always my favorite thing to read. He didn't limit himself to current happenings. He often wrote about old-time ballplayers and added historical perspective when he wrote about what was going on in baseball at the time. His name was Jerome Holtzman. As a kid trying to soak up as much as I could about the sport and its history his columns were a treat.
I remember when I found out he'd left the Tribune to become Major League Baseball's official historian. I was watching a Cubs game when they showed Holtzman being introduced on the field earlier in the day and the announcers talked about his new position. One comment I remember them making was "The Tribune's loss is baseball's gain." While I knew I'd miss his columns I was happy for him.
The only thing I remember about Holtzman's tenure as baseball's historian was that he got Hack Wilson's 1930 RBI total changed from 190 to 191. Apparently there had been some debate over it for a while, but changing one of baseball's "magic numbers" is pretty significant. I think it was a few years after he'd left the Tribune that I learned he was the inventor of the save. I couldn't believe it. For a long time I'd thought he was just a local writer, not the man behind such a widely-used statistic. While I loved Holtzman's columns, I probably would've appreciated them even more if I'd known how influential he was.
To a man who helped fuel my love of baseball and contributed so much to the game...rest in peace, Jerome Holtzman.
Earlier this year I wrote a post about how several Major League Baseball teams were opting for a retro look with their alternate uniforms. This week we saw several teams turn back the clock and wear uniforms specially designed to match the ones from the old days.
Chicago Cubs
The Cubs commemorated the 60th anniversary of their first broadcast on WGN with these pinstripe-less threads. You can see that the Cubs' current design has been around in some incarnation for many years.
Atlanta Braves
The Braves opposed the Cubs in these uniforms from 1948, which also happens to be the last year the Braves won the pennant in Boston. It was the second of only two they won in Beantown, but that Billy Southworth-helmed team featuring star third baseman Bob Elliott and the "Spahn and Sain and pray for rain" pitching staff was a special one.
Baltimore Orioles
They did it! They did just what I suggested on this blog! They celebrated the 25th anniversary of their last World Series title by wearing throwbacks with elastic waistbands! The Orioles organization has made a lot of mistakes in recent years, but this is one thing they definitely got right.
San Francisco Giants
The 70's was not a good decade for the Giants, but the 1978 team that these uniforms are a tribute to was memorable for being in first place most of the year until tailing off in August and finishing in third. Like the Orioles, it's good to see a team that doesn't ignore the elastic waistbands in their uniform history.
San Diego Padres
The Padres remembered the 30th anniversary of the first squad in franchise history to finish with a winning record by donning these throwbacks that actually feature the full team name. The Padres prove why I keep bringing up the elastic waistbands though, because these uniforms would be more accurate if they had them.
Cleveland Indians
Unlike the alternates that only had a retro feel to them, these are actual replicas of the 1978 Indians' uniforms (minus, all together now, the elastic waistbands). Why they'd want to honor that sixth-place team led by Andre Thornton I'm not sure, but the uniforms themselves don't look half bad.
Why do I love throwbacks so much? Why am I such a stickler for accuracy? Why do I want to remind everyone that the goofy elastic waistband uniforms ever existed? I guess it's just the sports history buff in me. No matter how ugly some teams' uniforms used to be, there's something about seeing them that stirs up my romanticism for baseball. That's another reason America's Pastime is my favorite sport; it's the only one that has that effect on me. Here's to the future and the eternal remembrance of baseball's rich history.
It's a sad but true fact that the most popular teams will put some undeserving representatives on the All Star team as long as the fans elect the starting lineup. I don't take the All Star Game seriously enough to be enraged by it, but I have to laugh at the fact that Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis are dominating the votes at their positions. Youkilis is good, but not "almost twice as many votes as Justin Morneau" good. Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz are all leading at their positions as well, though those aren't quite as laughable.
I'd like to blame ESPN and their endless hype of all things Boston, but there is a precedent for this type of thing. Back in 1957 the fans in Cincinnati stuffed the ballot box and got seven Reds starters elected to the All Star team. That's right, small-market Cincinnati. Commisioner Ford Frick actually had to void two of the selections in the interest of fairness. After all, I think we'd all agree that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were better choices than Gus Bell and Wally Post. I have a feeling that these 2008 Red Sox are leading by bigger margins than those 1957 Reds were elected by, but I'll cut Boston some slack since they just won the World Series. When Boston fails to win the Series and still dominates the voting I'll shoot them and ESPN a few dirty looks.
Even though I'm a Cub fan I think it's ridiculous that Mark DeRosa and Ryan Theriot are among the top five vote-getters at their positions. You could argue that both are having pretty good years, but there are plenty of players at their positions doing just as well or better that aren't being recognized. Does it make any sense that Theriot has more votes than last year's MVP, who also happens to be doing better than him this year? How about DeRosa being ahead of Dan Uggla? The only reason so many Cubs are up there is because their team is in first place, they have a national following and it's the hundredth year since their last World Series title. I'm happy for my guys, but it just doesn't look right to see them there.
The biggest mystery to me though, concerns a team that doesn't seem to be getting any special amount of hype. The NL's leader at first base is Lance Berkman of the Astros. No surprise there, as he's having an outstanding year. The second-place vote-getter at shortstop is the Astros' Miguel Tejada. Again, no surprise there. In second place at second base is the Astros' Kaz Matsui. Now there's a head-scratcher. Matsui's never been a star, nor is he having a year that's anything special. Fourth place at third base is Ty Wigginton, also of the Astros. Huh? A guy with two homers and eight RBI? Fifth place at catcher...J.R. Towles? Don't be ashamed if you've never heard of him. He's a second-year catcher with four home runs, 13 RBI...and a .143 batting average. Ouch! The Astros' three outfielders (Carlos Lee, Hunter Pence and Michael Bourn) are all in the top fifteen. Astro fans are obviously doing a lot of voting this year. What's the deal? Do they have more fans than I realized or is there some sort of voting campaign going on?
There's still plenty of time for these rankings to change, but based on these initial showings it looks like we'll have the usual AL lineup dominated by Yankees and Red Sox and a somewhat more honest NL lineup. Like I said before, I don't take the All Star Game that seriously, but you notice some funny things when you watch the vote totals.
As this calendar year winds down I'm starting to reflect on just how much has happened during this year 2007. It seems like such a long time ago now, but I started this blog back in January, and my first post was about how miffed I was that the Chargers were upset by the Patriots in the Playoffs. At that point 2007 was just getting started, and none of us knew what this year held in store for us. Looking back on it all, there were some sports moments in 2007 that I really enjoyed, but just about all of them ended disappointingly.
Let's start with football. I experienced something this year that I never have before: I got to follow my team, the Chicago Bears, from the first game of the season all the way to the Super Bowl. I was surrounded by co-workers who only wanted to talk about the Cowboys and Redskins, but I always stood up for my Bears in football discussions. Once the Playoffs started one of my friends told me that they'd never make it to the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman at quarterback, but the Bears did me proud by proving all the doubters wrong. Unfortunately, the Bears lost to the Colts in the Super Bowl. It wasn't an ideal ending, but the season had been a great ride and there was reason to be hopeful about the future. As it's turned out, the Bears this season have been hurt by injuries and a dismal offense. They're going to finish with a losing record, and it's clear that several changes need to be made if this team is going to return to contention. The best thing you can say about the 2007 Bears was that they beat the Packers twice.
Super Bowl XLI now looks like a missed opportunity that the Bears may not get again for some time, but interestingly enough, it was also the biggest highlight of 2007 for me. I figured if the Bears were going to lose, it might as well be to a team that deserved the title. The Indianapolis Colts were most certainly that. Despite my team's loss, I was happy for the Colts. After having a very good team for so many years they finally got their hands on the Lombardi Trophy, and they did it with class. It was also nice to see the deluded New England fans who liked to say that Peyton Manning would never win the big one and who just couldn't accept the idea that he wasn't a born loser have to eat their words. I'll admit, that part made me feel good too.
In addition to the Bears' struggles, this NFL season has been pretty miserable for me. All five teams I hate (Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Giants and Cowboys) are in the Playoffs. The Patriots are close to going undefeated, but they've had a dark cloud of contempt surrounding them from day one. I'm forced to root for one of those teams I hate in their last game of the season in hopes that the evil Patriots won't pull it off. The Detroit Lions, a true underdog that would've made a great feel-good story, started out the season 6-2 and now could finish with a losing record. The only hope left for lovers of underdog franchises is the Cleveland Browns, who still haven't clinched a Playoff spot. Ultimately though, the only teams that look like they have a realistic shot of winning anything this year are teams whose fanbases have experienced the top of the hill recently enough that they have no underdog appeal. In the end I think it's likely that several of us will be picking a team to root for by figuring out which one we hate the least.
Then there was basketball. As a Bulls fan I was pretty excited when my team swept the defending champion Miami Heat in the first round of the Playoffs. The Heat were treated like a team with some magical formula for stepping up when it counted all season, but the Bulls dispelled that notion in four games. Having followed the Bulls through the post-Jordan years I was proud of those guys. They nearly got swept in the next round by the Pistons, but they hustled their way to two wins before bowing out in Game 6. It would've been nice to see them go farther in the Playoffs, but considering the progress they'd made it was nothing to be ashamed of. Like the Bears, it gave us fans a lot of hope for next season.
We're about two months into "next season" now and things haven't gone as expected. The Bulls have gotten off to slow starts each of the past three seasons, but they've always managed to get it together before too long. This time though, they've stretched out their poor start long enough that Scott Skiles has been fired as head coach and most people already consider this season to be a lost cause. I haven't completely given up on this Bulls team, but I think it's safe to say that even if they do turn things around and make the Playoffs they don't have what it takes to go very far once they get there. It's sad to see a team that started out as a favorite to win the East possibly headed to the draft lottery.
As for the rest of the basketball world, the San Antonio Spurs won their fourth NBA Championship in 2007. The Spurs are one of the most nondescript teams in the NBA. They win championships, but they don't inspire much emotion. The Phoenix Suns, a team that has been on the doorstep of NBA supremacy in recent years, had a chance to beat them in the second round of the Playoffs, but the Spurs ultimately prevailed. It left the Spurs as the only dominant team in the Playoffs and the almost inevitable champion. While I'm not a big LeBron James fan, I was rooting for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, since they'd never been there and the Spurs had. It wasn't even close, as the Spurs swept. When the Spurs won their first NBA Championship in 1999 it was exciting, as several players got their first rings and no former ABA team had ever even made it to the NBA Finals. Every championship they've won since then has been completely anticlimactic. It's like watching a computer win a chess game against a human opponent. This season the Spurs are again looking like the best in the West, while the team that's stepped it up in the East is the Celtics, from the dreaded city of Boston. Out of nowhere they acquired two All Stars in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, giving their ever-obnoxious fans something else to boast about. The Pistons and Magic right now are looking like our only hopes not to have to see them in the NBA Finals.
Of course, there was still the greatest game in the world, baseball. 2007 brought me higher hopes than usual in baseball, only to end with me watching them get crushed successively. First there were my Cubs. They hadn't won the World Series since 1908, but all season they showed flashes of brilliance that gave the optimist in me hope the it could finally be "the year." They made the Playoffs with a mediocre 85-77 record, but as the Cardinals had proven the year before, just getting into the Playoffs is the important thing. Once you're in, anything can happen. After the Cubs fought their way into the postseason, it was as if someone suddenly cut off their supply of "heart" just before they faced the Diamondbacks in the Divisional Series. They seemed completely uninspired throughout the series, and the Diamondbacks swept. In a matter of days all the optimism among Cub fans had turned to disgust.
With the Cubs out of the picture, I decided to pull for another team that had been waiting a long time for "the year": the Cleveland Indians. They hadn't won the World Series since 1948, and they had beaten the hated New York Yankees in the first round. Unlike the Cubs, the Indians had tied for their league's best record, and they looked like they had a real shot at winning the World Series. They went up against another evil Boston team, the Red Sox. They managed to take a 3-1 lead in the series despite some struggles from their best starters, and it seemed as if destiny was on their side. Then it all came crashing down. The Red Sox destroyed them in the next three games to win the pennant and deprive the baseball world of a potentially great story. It didn't help that many members of the irksome "Red Sox Nation" showed a complete lack of class in victory.
I was pretty upset about the Indians having their title as AL Champs usurped by that evil team from America's Most Annoying City, but there was still a glimmer of hope going into the World Series. The Colorado Rockies had spent most of the season playing at a level just below contention, but they'd finished on a tear that took them all the way to the NL pennant. They'd won 21 of their last 22 games going into the World Series, and they were the only team in the NL that looked like a legitimate threat against the superior American League. I loved watching their run, as I'd considered the Rockies one of my "side" teams for years. Unfortunately, they were just starting to cool down as the Red Sox were hitting their stride. The Red Sox swept, and for the first time in my life three teams I'd really embraced lost in one postseason.
I suppose the best way to sum up 2007 in sports would be a year that teased me with the hope of great things to come and ended up as a morass of Boston egotism and the same old teams winning. I'm just glad I've started to follow hockey, as it's been my only refuge in the midst of the disastrous sports scene we're currently surrounded by. I just hope 2008 is better than 2007 was. I don't know if I can take two consecutive years like this one.
I'm a fan of all Chicago sports teams (including both the Cubs and White Sox). When one of my teams isn't playing I'm a big proponent of rooting for the underdog. I'm currently an inactive NBA fan and will remain so until David Stern is out as commissioner. I spend more time thinking about sports than I probably should, so I decided I needed a blog where I could share those thoughts with the world.
