FROM THE BASS'S GILLS
Already midway through an unseasonably cool winter in Chicago and the better half of the city is still topping off their champagne glasses. Temperatures remain well above their normal averages, and the typically brutal Chicago cold has proven itself absent in the face of conditions more suitable to a team from Carolina. After breaking an 88-year championship drought, it appears the city does not want to cool off. Since the World Series sweep in October, Chicago has been a city turned on its head. All the interest and enthusiasm has gone South: parades, a Sox-fest sell out, and the team’s recently reception at the White House dominate the baseball headlines. For a Sox-fan during this off-season, life is easy.
It has been so easy that I have spent little time even thinking bas
eball lately, which is why I was surprised to find it slip into my subconscious during a random dream I had last night. In it, I was sitting with two Cub fan friends when a news trailer came on and WGN anchor Jackie Bang (it must have been the name that vaulted her into my sleepspace) announced breaking trade news for Cubs fans. My two friends leaned forward at the screen and waited, mouths open, before she said the words Miguel Cabrera and his picture lit up, while I watched, cursing. Actually, I think it was a picture of a jellyfish since I don’t know what Cabrera actually looks like, but the words were there, and the message was too. As great as the championship is, nothing could be better than winning a second. And by that same token, nothing could ruin it so quickly like the Cubs responding with a win of their own.
Don’t get me wrong, this in no way means Sox fans are concerned about the Cubs or any pseudo danger they pose in 2006. In fact, it’s fitting that it would take a dream to produce the sort of scare that would make anyone see the now much-less-lovable losers as a threat. In the waking life, I believe the club is celebrating acquisitions more along the lines of Jacques Jones and someone named Simontacchi while still barreling down the wrong way of their 2003 playoff crossroads, more interested now in adding luxury boxes to the bleachers and hosting as many Buffet concerts as possible. Any reports that Sox fans believe the Cubs to be a threat are greatly exaggerated. Still, one team has to win in ‘06, and statistically right now everyone is even.
Currently, it is a new era in Chicago baseball. It is uneven, victory has been conceded by even 
the most die-hard fans. Any Cub supporting friend of mine has to enter my home with the fear that at any time the needle could be ripped from Steely Dan and replaced by the DVD-perfectly queued, of Podsednik’s game two walk off. Better yet, I might have ready the Sox ‘93 VHS with a clip of Bo Jackson and a young Frank Thomas going back to back. That is the other unexpected upshot, even in hindsight all things Sox play the trump card. Ozzie dives, sacrificing his body and flips to Steve Sax, setting off a quick double play. Well, those things are just the building blocks of a great manager. I wonder if there is any available footage of Don Zimmer in the Cubs dugout getting punched in the face.
The point is, the state of baseball in Chicago is just right, and the only thing that could upset that would be the Cubs winning a championship. This should be reason enough for Cubs fans to get up and cheer. The fact that it probably does take a Sox fan to light the fire underneath crumbling Cubdom only reveals the sorry state that it’s in.
We’ll take it as an unfortunate responsibility of being champions, plus, it’s more fun that way. Of course it could be because with all four starting pitchers returning we can already imagine the consequences of a Sox repeat.
posted by Rival Room Editor at
2:47 AM
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