Chicks Talk Baseball

Beth: Hmm. According to Soxaholix today, lots of hateration for us out in national baseball land.

Kristen: "it's that woe-is-me-and-the-curse-of-the- Bambino-and-don't-get-me-started- on-Bill-Buckner-and-sure-now-we've- got-our-first-World-Series-title-since- 1918-but-we're-still-20- championships-behind-the-Bronx- Bombers routine."

Oh my god, he's totally right. I say this every day! Jesus Christ.

Beth: I totally said that this morning. Right when I got up.

Kristen: It's actually my daily affirmation before coffee.

Also, are we suppose to feel sorry for White Sox fans because the national media/baseball fans/people who follow sports haven't made as big a deal out of their championship drought as they did about ours? I really fail to see why this is our problem.

Beth: Well, as that author states, they didn't win in 1919 because "the breaks didn't go their way." I'm just gonna throw that out there.

Marianne: Besides, they brought it upon themselves, the cheatin bastids.

Kristen: Again:

"But do White Sox fans get anything resembling their share of comfort, consolation and understanding for this? They do not. Do they get scores of books written about them? No. Do they have cable TV shows with solid production values done about them? No. Do they have a "curse," made up to explain away everything that did or did not happen? No. Do they get poets and songwriters and playwrights and screenwriters and every goofball in the literary and/or entertainment industry writing odes to their suffering? Come on. Nothing like this ever occurs."

This is OUR fault?

Beth: Nah, I don't think he says it's our fault--just explains why he has more sympathy for them. Not that I agree with it, but I don't think he's saying it's Red Sox fans' fault. It's more like, one kid's a loser but gets on a telethon...another kid's a loser but no one ever hears of him. After a while you'd give more sympathy to the second kid. But it's not the first kid's fault.

Kristen: Yeah, I guess I see the point, but I dunno. You have to look at the reasons for why that is. Why have the Red Sox gotten more press and attention? Why are the White Sox overshadowed by the Cubs?

Amy: I've had this conversation with my best friend's fiance, who is an Indians fan.  " I don't know what it's like to see my teams win.  They haven't in my lifetime or my dads.  My teams are never on TV.  No one ever writes about my teams."

Well you know, it's not all that old for me and my dad.  And I'm not going to stop loving the teamand wanting to see them succeed because they did win. 

Beth: Well, do we honestly expect Yankees fans to drop the Yankees because WE think they're arrogant, hypocritical, cheating scumbags? No. It's not about what we want Yankees fans to do. It's about justifying our dislike for their team and / or our love for our team. And that Indians fan does have a point--no one does pay attention to the indians, and not as much as the AL east. It's not Sox fans' fault, but it's true.

You can make the point that the WS' drought has different origins to the RS...but I can certainly envision a world in which the CWS fans are dramatized as having borne the sins of their team's grandfathers...as being cursed and cast out of the Garden of Eden because of the Black Sox scandal...I can imagine them having some drummed up "curse" about it, too. It could certainly be the case.

Kristen: I'm not saying it's not the truth, it's just, what do they want me to do about it? The thing is, and apologies if I'm being dumb, but, do the White Sox have a rivalry? Do they have something that creates drama and spills ink? I'm not saying it's right, but that's the way it is. Most everyone I've talked to in the past few days has said that they don't want to see the Yankees in the ALCS, if both of our teams should get there. Not because we don't think we can beat them, but because we're so sick of them. We're so tired of the same thing again and again. I suppose White Sox fans can take solace in the fact that even Red Sox fans tire of the hype. And I would venture a guess that most Red Sox fans, the intelligent ones anyway, know the difference between legitimate attention (like last year's ALCS) and whiny, crybaby, look at me! CHB antics.

Beth: Well, they kinda do with the Cubs. But it's not like the Sox / Yankees where one team always wins etc. they both kind of bumble around sucking and run into each other every so often. I'm not saying you're being dumb. I just don't have the same reaction of "what do they want us to do about it", and I'm trying to explain why.

Sam: The White Sox are not as popular as the Cubs in part because the Cubs took the Red Sox route... get close a lot and then fail spectacularly. The White Sox have historically just flat-out sucked. Hard to get into a team that's never even looking at the playoffs. Also, their park sucks ass and is on the bad side of town to boot. The Cubs and Red Sox both have very nice parks in nice sections of their respective cities, it makes sense that they draw better and have a larger fan base, and therefore more media attention.

Kristen: Right, but the Cubs and White Sox aren't in the same league. The Cubs get all the attention but in terms of head to head matchups, they didn't even start happening until about 12 years ago (didn't interleague play start in '93?)

So to me, that seems more like an rivalry of geography rather than actual battles since there are very few actual battles to speak of. You know what I mean?

Beth: You're right, Kristen. I think Sam also raises a good point about the Red Sox being close and losing before; the red sox are historically a consistently good team, at least since 1967.

Amy: I know I've been thin-skinned lately. But I'm just getting real sick of fans of teams that aren't in our division that barely face us that we've had like no bearing on ripping on the team for things like Fever Pitch. Uhhhh...

Quite frankly, I have more respect for the idiot Yankee fan at work who wore a shirt yesterday that says "Boston Still Sucks" than for someone who is mad about the fact that ESPN wrote a lot a stories last year.

Beth: Why's that, Amy? Can you elaborate?

Kristen: Exactly, Amy. I hate being judged on the basis of the most famous or the most prolific or the most whiny or the loudest "fans." Jimmy Fallon does not speak for me. Dan Shaughnessey does not speak for me. Most of those idiots on WEEI do not speak for me. Stephen King might speak for me but that's only because that man is crazy and I do not want to piss him off.

I hate people who claim to be representative fans. Or media outlets for forcing said "representative" fans on the rest of the world. If I weren't one of us, I'd probably hate us too for the same reasons.

Amy: Because the Red Sox did something to him -- as much to him as they can as a team and a fan. The Sox made his team look like chumps by winning four straight games, two of which NY lost the lead in. Thus, I can totally understand the hatred.

But then again, I have no respect for people who want to start shit on a Sox board. So go figure.

Beth: Yeah, I can see that, Amy. personally, I think there's been a backlash going for a long time vs. Red Sox fans. It's fashionable now to be dropping us like a bad habit on the part of the same media that made a cottage industry out of us in previous years. It's like you wrote in that post a while ago, Kristen, "ESPN, perhaps a therapist can help you work through these issues."

Kristen: Did you know that post got like a bazillion comments? ESPN creates the hype, ESPN bashes the hype. Give me a freakin' break, ESPN.

Beth: Yeah, because you really hit on a nerve, Kristen. It's the same conversation we're having now!

Comments

[paul]

Pay no heed to the Seattle P-I, ladies and gents. It's a failing paper (it's probably gonna be gone in less than 5 years...), written mostly by j-school washouts, that rarely if ever offers anything of substance that's more than about 60% accurate.

And, as that linked article shows, it has an incredibly annoying tendency to rely on shopworn tropes when writing about things it does not understand.

[beth]

thanks for that info, paul--definitely makes more sense to me now.

[ryan]

I know a Chicago Cubs/Sox fan who I once asked about the relative unpopularity of the White Sox compared to the Cubs. I had always thought it had something to do with the Cubs being more traditional-seeming with the ballparks, uniforms etc. He said the stuff that everyone else does, like about the WS being on the bad side of town. But more interestingly, he said that up until the 70s both teams were about equal in popularity, then when TV began to show baseball more frequently the cubs were the only one of the two that was really interested in getting their games broadcast. They were also a lot better at getting their games on the radio (in addition to TV) all around the midwest (like in Iowa and rural Illinois).

I always wonder about those areas that have more than one team. Growing up in New England, no one ever ASKS if you're a Red Sox fan, it's just assumed. The concept of having to CHOOSE is just so foreign, and that one of those teams is also significantly more popular is interesting.

[Boston Fan in Michigan]

I'd just like to clarify that I can't speak for the charm/lack of charm of old Commiskey Park... I was never there. I was in US Cellular however, and that park is just awful. So maybe White Sox games had more charm in the park a while ago, I can't say.

[Jen]

Barely even related, but this discussion reminds me of all the uproar when the Diamondbacks won the WS, how their fans didn't deserve it because they hadn't supported/suffered for their team long enough. I love the generation-to-generation fan stories we get with the Red Sox, but I also love seeing the birth of a fan nation with the Diamondbacks. CHB in particular pissed me off, so much so that I actually bothered to write him a very long email that was alternately vitriolic and sappy. (There was some of the same shit when the Marlins won, but I'm not from Florida so I wasn't as bothered by it.)