Confessions of a Sox Fan 2: What We Detest About Cubs Fans

Here's what it's like to be a White Sox fan - and what we don't like about some Cubs fans:

At work, we got an offer for discounted baseball tickets to selected Sox games, and since we writers are paid less than Burger King managers, anything discounted causes a stir in a news room. So some coworkers were looking over the availability list and the Sox - Cubs rivalry came up.

"We don't even care about you guys," said this 20-something Cubs fan who sits next to me. "I am heading to New York to see Yankee Stadium one last time and to see them play the Red Sox. Now that's a real rivalry," she added.

Hearing that, I had one of those "Lord help me, I might spew one of my dad's 10,000 cliches" moments, this one being: "These young people today they know everything. They get out of college, and they have all the answers."

But I didn't say anything. It couldn't. See, this woman already had given me that "talk to the hand" motion the prior week, when I teased her about allegedly feeling an earthquake and how her dogs awakened her. That led to her calling me a shit head and telling me not to talk to her anymore.

Oh the nostalgia: It was like getting to re-enact one of my parents' fights.

And it also made me think: This is what you long-time Cubs fans have to deal with. The albatross around your collective neck is that Wrigley is filled with people like the one who sits next to me.

As a Sox fan, on one hand I am glad they root, root, root for your Cubbies.

You Cubs diehards know what I am talking about. These people started to show up in the 80s, when your team began the transition from scruffy fodder for local theater and Mike Royko columns to lovable losers. They changed your neighborhood, gentrified it - and did the same to your team.

The Cubs became part of their lifestyle choice. And, the media being what it is - enamored of the superficial and allegedly glamorous - the Cubs became their darlings.

As my coworker said: South Side types just don’t matter.

Peeing in a trough suddenly was sexy. Urinating on lawns trendy: Your park became a Jimmy Buffett concert with baseball.

We Sox fans had a brand new stadium which no one found charming, unless a mall is your idea of cute. They’ve made improvements and actually it’s not a bad place to see a game, way more fan friendly for families than your place. But you can’t convince nouveau Cubs fans that anything but Wrigley is worthy of paying the cover charge to sit around drinking for three hours.

The Sox stadium got named after a cell phone company. No tears here for Comiskey, a stingy man by most accounts, and US Cellular is a fine local brand, and I get my service from them. But it’s a mid major player, which means as soon as the market gets better in might be sold, and the park will be called who knows what.

The Cubs, of course, play in Wrigley which makes men old enough to remember think about nubile twins chewing Double Mint gum.

And starting in the 80s, women that attractive were moving with their sorority sisters to Wrigley

But nobody finds the area around the Cell sexy – though it is a real slice of Chicago, with a great view of downtown from the walkways at the park.

The yups are trying to take over there, too, tearing down bungalows to build block long mansions in Bridgeport (where the Daleys ruled) and tearing down housing projects to make way for town homes and condos.

But it still feels like a blurring border point, where blacks stayed east of the Dan Ryan and whites the other, and the Chinese are close by, too.

That might be a little too rough for the modern Cubs fan.

The bars, like Shinnick’s and Schaller’s, are mom and pop joints. The most exotic restaurant might be an old school Lithuanian place on Halsted. Despite where the media heads, the fake New Orleans bar Bourbon Street, shouldn’t really count as a South Side Sox spot.

I read once that Sox fans on average actually come from a higher rung on the socio-economic ladder than Cubs fans: think Naperville as instead of Schaumburg. We will forever be thought of as that guy with the mullet who ran onto the field to beat up a coach for the Kansas City Royals – unlike your fans who threatened to kill one of your own for allegedly costing the team a shot at the World Series a few falls ago.

And thanks to the team itself, we will always be associated with the never really cool sounds of Journey, while Metro is just down the block from Wrigley.

All of which has been a long way to explain to you Cubs fans why we Sox fans have chips on our shoulders at least as big as the chunks of concrete that have fallen from your so-called friendly confines.

We are the Sun-Times. You are the Tribune.

Still, we have the object of your desire: a World Series championship, a sweep no less.

And when I went to the victory parade I learned that our numbers are spread out in the suburbs. Heck, the train from Elgin was full, the el parking garage at Cumberland jammed.

Downtown was dressed in black for a day, but not for the usual trendy fashion reasons. The procession went through neighborhoods of all sorts, from poor to rich and whatever is in between.

We have that, Cubs fans, and you don’t.

Of course, once you do, you’ll be harder to take than Boston Red Sox fans. We just went back to being what we are.

Oh, one more thing: the St. Patrick’s Day following the Series I marched in the South Side Irish Parade, in a kilt and a big wool sweater, no less. As luck would have it, Minnie Minoso – resplendent in a full length fur coat – walked with the unit behind us, an SUV with the World Series trophy perched on the hood. Don’t Stop Believing played from the car stereo.

That’s what I have as a Sox fan. And as Louis Armstrong, who once lived on the South Side, used to sing, They can’t take that away from me.

A dream job - and I've been doing a lot of day dreaming lately

A week ago, a friend of mine left for Ireland, where he'll spend two years teaching bartenders how to make mixed drinks. Already a Master of Scotch, he'll be his employer's spirits ambassador to Ireland, which doesn't come with diplomatic immunity but does include an office in Guinness headquarters.

I'm sure every job has drawbacks, but on the surface at least Marty's gig seems like a plum assignment.

But hey, I got paid to look at pelicans last week, making a stop on their way to Minnesota. OK, it's not as glamorous. It was also cold and windy and scary - because the big birds were in a marsh in a forest preserve and forest preserves scare me. How can you be comfortable in a place that is the first they search for missing and presumed dead housewives, where freaks meet to have sex and where packs of dogs have been known to attack joggers.

And there were dobermans the day I went to see the pelicans - albeit with owners who were seemingly wealthy white women and not rappers, though I supposed they could be both.

The birds head north, my buddy flies overseas and I am feeling grounded.

See, I've known Marty for more than 20 years. We met in improv classes back when I had hair and was skinny and would have gotten the arrogant asshole parts had I more talent or a stomach for show business. We were in a show together called Revenge of the Muffin People and did a skit called Art vs. Science, a dance contest between the two staged by a grad student at Andy Warhol University.

Marty, who is mostly a jovial sort, stuck with the comedy and acting thing longer than I did, which meant he did bartending, which eventually led to becoming an expert in Scotch and the job he has now.

We lost touch for a time, after an attempt to be roommates never got off the ground. I went on to pursue a career in what is fast becoming a dying industry. Smarter Marty picked a steadier path: People will always drink, and until they figure out how to get booze for free over the Internet will gladly pay to do so.

My reporting services are a devalued commodity. In fact I'm trying to find a college kid in India to do my job for me for $20 a week, giving me time to attend accountancy classes - or maybe to visit Marty in Ireland.

Or maybe I'd just hang out at the zoo, like I did a week ago Sunday. Note to dads: If you're going to wear nylon gym shorts, where underwear beneath so we don't all have to see the little mouse in your pants bouncing back and forth as you push the stroller. Or maybe you were smuggling out a naked mole rat. Either way, it sets a bad example.

Brookfield Zoo is a good place to go when you're feeling nostalgic. They still sell those wax statues of animals where you put your money in pneumatic injection mold machines. If you are 35 or older you can't call yourself a Chicagoan if you didn't have your parents get you one of these as a kid. These days, it's the parents who are excited to get them - like me, only I'm a barren bachelor farmer.

I picked up a white polar bear and a red giraffe with baby giraffe which I happily put on my desk at work. No one even asked.

I should have left them in the car until they melted - provided it ever gets warm around here. But that's being way too literal with the metaphors.