For seven agonizing years, Chicago White Sox fans have had a front-row seat, 3D shades, and surround sound for a blue tsunami that crashed across northern Illinois, which ultimately secured the dreaded Cubs World Series win. Across town, they got “the lovable winners” Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. Joe Madden is widely considered the best skipper in baseball. And until this offseason, they even had that ice-cold asshole with the beard, Jake Arrieta.
Theo Epstein strolled in and ripped apart the Cubs with the quest to build a winner. And that’s exactly what he did, developing the system to win for the long term. And the Sox? We got to watch Paulie retire.
During those years the White Sox were lucky enough to enjoy trash heap phenoms like Tyler Flowers, hometown busts like Jeff Samardzija, and free agent toads like Alex Rios and Adam Dunn. Look, it’s been nothing short of painful since 2006. Between signing the corpses of Ken Griffey Jr, Andruw Jones, Manny Ramirez, and Kevin Youkilis, and the world forgetting we exist outside of our cool logo, it’s not been easy putting on the foil and enduring each long Chicago summer.
But things done changed and now we’ve got the bones. We’ve got our own kids to get pumped up about. Who are they? Luis Robert, Michael Kopech, Eloy Jimenez and Yoan Moncada to name a few.
We’ve even painted most of the stadium black because shit’s getting real. We want revenge. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, Chicago. We’re out to make up for all of the garbage teams, the half-filled stadiums, the horror-show trips out west, all of it. We’re tired of being a third tier team and forgotten fanbase.
Let’s be honest, the Cubs fanbase is a bedtime story built on goodwill, good times, and hey, maybe the Cubbies’ll get a win today, but we’ll most definitely get some beers. It’s an infectious outlook for casual dads, but that’s not how White Sox fans roll. Sox fans ain’t fuzzy and we don’t wear Dockers. We’re a blue-collar fan base. We count every dollar, and if we’re going to pony up our hard-earned cash, we at least want to see our guys put up a fight.
Look, when you’re from the south side of Chicago, you’re born with the blues and the White Sox. These are our cultural touchstones. We grew up on Muddy Waters and Mark Buehrle, The Big Hurt and Howlin’ Wolf. Our streets might be a little dirtier and we got glass in the gutters, but we’ve also got the best tacos in town and there’s plenty of shamrocks hanging from the door year round. And the White Sox? The good guys are ours – even when we don’t want to claim them.
When our boys are a bunch of bums, we endure it. We’re not the best at showing the love when the times are tough, and we’ll admit it. Why? Because we’re a working-class community and one thing we can’t abide is going down without a fight. That ain’t worth more than a once-a-year pilgrimage to the ballpark to pay respects at the altar of Comiskey and Fisk.
When the team announced a full-scale teardown, baseball people who aren’t fans of “tanking” threw a fit. But it had to be done. For the sake of the team, the culture and the White Sox’s spot in the city of Chicago. Trading off Chris Sale and Adam Eaton cut deep but it was mandatory. It’s how we got these kids and, believe this, Ricky’s Boys will be a contender in the next year or two.
If the White Sox were tighter, they could have gone 5-1 on their opening road trip. The home opener…we’re gonna need more Miller Lites to assess that. One thing this young squad is is not boring; they’re going to get killed out there more than once. The bullpen is going to fall apart and the guys we expect to be tomorrow’s All-Stars will need to grow into the players we know they can be ala Avi Garcia. It’s going to be frustrating but, we believe in them because we can feel the potential.
Being a White Sox fan might seem rough when the world wants to know what celebrity’s singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” or what fun “Cub thing” Bill Murray is up to now. But they can have that noise. We thrive on the world’s neglect. We’ll be down on 35th Street, taking back Chicago, block by block. We’re gonna bring the trophy back to the south side. I only hope we’ll get to do it against the Cubs. That would be the ultimate Chicago payback.
