Chicago A White Sox Town?…..Yeah Right

The rivalry of the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox never seems to live up to the same hype as the rivalry of the New York Mets and New York Yankees. While the whole cross-town rivalry idea may be exaggerated to begin with, something just seems different about the rivalry of the two Chicago teams. While between the Chicago fans it is a very simple Black or Blue; but, with the players it seems as if they do not really care about the whole rivalry to begin with. It’s not everyday that the “meatball Cubs fan” in me comes out, but an article in the Chicago Sun Times today got my Cubbie Blue blood boiling.

Chicago White Sox beat reporter Joe Cowley wrote in today’s Sun Times that Chicago is no longer a Cubs town when it comes to baseball, it is a White Sox town. The reasons that Cowley gives to support his claim are suspect at best. The only real reason Cowley gave is because  Cubs fans booed general manager Jim Hendry and team president Crane Kenney at the Cubs convention. Cowley obviously should spend some time following the Cubs, as he would realize that most of the Cubs fan base have never been particularly fond of either Hendry or Kenney.

As for the White Sox, Cowley cites that the soap opera between manager Ozzie Guillen and general manager Kenny Williams, as well as the fact that the White Sox are the better team as reasons why Chicago is now a White Sox town. The last time I checked, most fans are annoyed by the back and forth banter between Williams and Guillen. I will go right ahead and say that the White Sox will probably be the better team this year, but that does not make them the popular team in Chicago.  Last season, the White Sox struggled to get their own fans to fill the seats at U.S. Cellular Field. Even though the Cubs attendance did decrease last season, Wrigley Field never reached a point where at the start of a game you could count number of empty seats.

To simply put it, as long as the White Sox are in Chicago, they will never be the primary team of the town. When the White Sox won the World Series in 2005, that was not enough to change Chicago into a White Sox town. So needless to say, a good off-season on paper will not due the trick either.