If you think “let the best team win” applies to the World Series, you’re mistaken.
The victory should go to the city and fans that most deserve it. Or to the least dislikable city. We know, because we’ve been picking our World Series favorites this way for years. It’s why we hate the New York Yankees.
So, for those who still haven’t decided, here are 10 good reasons why baseball fans everywhere should support the White Sox for the rest of the Series:
1. Chicago ain’t Houston; Illinois ain’t Texas. Some partisans will root for the Sox just because Texas is where President Bush is from. There are other, more compelling, reasons: Texas is a land of insufferable braggarts who think bigger is better and have the arrogance to bask in the notion that one of their football teams is “America’s team,” as if the rest of us should care. They need humility.
2. No other city more deserves a series champion than Chicago. Our two baseball teams have gone a combined 185 years without a series win. Houston has been waiting a mere 43 years. Almost 100 million fans have pushed their way through White Sox turnstiles since 1917, their last win. Astro fans will have to learn to be patient.
3. The sight of Houston fans twirling rally flags is reason enough to hope they lose. Any Sox fan fortunate enough to get Series tickets who twirls a towel or tries to start the wave should, and will, be pummeled. We’re baseball fans; twirlers and wavers are bush league.
4. Minute Maid Park. What kind of name is that? What kind of ballpark is that? Just look at it. A choo-choo in the outfield, like a theme park. A retractable roof that shelters team and fans when it’s too hot, too cold or not just right. It makes the Cell look good, even its critics have to admit. Lean. No nonsense. Real. Except for that exploding scoreboard and its silly races.
5. Sox fans deserve to be compensated for the thrown 1919 World Series. Some folks act as if it was the “game” that was betrayed. No, Sox fans were betrayed. No other team has treated its fans with such contempt.
6. Astros fans call their team “space boys” and ‘Stros. Hey, Dude.
7. The Astros deprived us of our first cross-state series, with the St. Louis Cardinals. It wouldn’t have been as good as a Sox-Cubs subway series, but it sure would come in a strong second.
8. The Astros took our beloved Nellie Fox. He’s listed on the Astros’ Web site under the club’s Baseball Hall of Famers, as if Houston deserves credit for the years of great baseball Fox played in Chicago. Actually, to be fair, the Astros didn’t steal him; the Sox gave him away in 1963 for a couple of legends–pitcher Jim Golden and outfielder Danny Murphy–and cash. No wonder it’s 40 years between series in Chicago.
9. A World Series win for Chicago would show up the national media, which did their best to ignore the American League’s best baseball team. I don’t know how they treated the Astros, but here are just two examples of what Chicago got: ABC’s “Good Morning America,” in the newscast I saw, simply skipped any mention that the Sox were in the World Series, the morning after the Sox clinched. This is shabby journalism, no matter who made it into the Series. Also shabby was Wall Street Journal reporter’s Erik Ahlberg’s explanation in June for why the Sox weren’t attracting more fans: The Cell’s location is across from “some of Chicago’s toughest housing projects.” Erik, they’re not there anymore; miles of them have been torn down. Did you even bother to look?
10. We’re afflicted with Stump, a local sports columnist, who in the spring predicted with “certainty” that the Sox would finish behind Minnesota. He called general manager Ken Williams “loopy” for his optimism, he didn’t “believe” in Jon Garland and his “Cuban clone” Jose Contreras, and he ridiculed the Sox for playing small ball in the majors’ “easiest home-run park.” Now Stump is suggesting that the Sox, “like Houston,” couldn’t have won the pennant “without benefiting from an umpiring snafu.”
Houston, this is Chicago. You guys need a sports writer?
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Dennis Byrne is a Chicago-area writer and consultant. E-mail: dennis@dennisbyrne.net
![Residents and taxpayers of Barrington School District 220 rated safety and security, and a new auditorium at Barrington High School, as priorities for the school district, officials learned as community input was collected in preparation for a potential multi-million-dollar referendum that would be placed on the ballot in the November election. The data was shared with school board members April 2 by EO Sullivan Consulting, which was hired by the district to collect community feedback through phone and online surveys, four public engagement sessions and referendum advisory committee meetings. Information had been collected in three phases and began earlier this […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/PPN-L-bcr-district-220-feferend-002.jpg?w=390 "Residents and taxpayers of Barrington School District 220 rated safety and security, and a new auditorium at Barrington High School, as priorities for the school district, officials learned as community input was collected in preparation for a potential multi-million-dollar referendum that would be placed on the ballot in the November election. The data was shared with school board members April 2 by EO Sullivan Consulting, which was hired by the district to collect community feedback through phone and online surveys, four public engagement sessions and referendum advisory committee meetings. Information had been collected in three phases and began earlier this […]")