Not only did the Cubs and White Sox settle into stereotypical roles this summer–the Cubs as losers, the Sox as frustrating contenders–their fans did too. Last Thursday was a “doubleday,” what former Reader colleague Dave Jones calls the rare occasion when the Cubs and Sox are both in town playing games one after the other; I went out to both games, sitting with the hoi polloi, and was astounded at how the fans confirmed my preconceptions. It was like meeting only snooty Frenchmen and officious Germans on a grand tour of Europe.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The Pirates were in town and had won two of the series’ first three games. The team losing the finale would have the worst record in the National League and both of them seemed to covet this title–the Cubs sat Derrek Lee and the Bucs sat Freddy Sanchez, the league’s leading hitter. The fans for the most part couldn’t have cared less. We were seated in the first row of the center-field bleachers, near where Bill Veeck used to sit 20 years ago, and in the expanded left- and right-field sections below us fans talked and mingled and paid little attention to the game. A guy to our right wouldn’t get off his cell phone. He was talking loudly to friends in the grandstand while waving to show them where he was, and he was urging friends outside Wrigley to buy tickets on the street and join him; finally the pals who were with him told him to shut it down. A guy nearby gushed, “Oh my gawd, look at the size of this peanut!” and that was as excited as anyone got all afternoon. A bunch of Notre Dame alums from Philadelphia who’d be trekking to South Bend for Saturday’s Penn State game plotted their weekend. “Dugan gets in at 12:30,” said one, “so we’ll wait for him, if you don’t mind, then head out to the campus.” From time to time they got into it with a crowd of Penn State fans below. Between innings, when “Funkytown” and “Hot Hot Hot” gave way to “YMCA,” one of the Domers yelled, “Yeah, get up, Penn State fans, and sing it!”
Meanwhile on the field, rookie Cubs starter Sean Marshall got rocked and the Pirates pulled ahead 5-0, but as my old UPI colleague Frank Kroll used to say, that’s the most dangerous lead in baseball, and the Cubs went about proving his point. They scored three runs in the fourth with the help of a two-run homer by Aramis Ramirez (at his best with the pressure off). Then fireballing reliever Carlos Marmol hit a home run, and rookie phenom Scott Moore, just up from the Southern League where he’d been the all-star game’s most valuable player, tied the game with yet another in the sixth (atoning for his earlier ole wave at a grounder that went past him at first base for a two-run single).
Buehrle gave up a leadoff homer in the fifth, and Ozzie Guillen tossed his gum into the dirt in front of the Sox dugout as he went out to remove him. Reliever Charlie Haeger, a knuckleballer called up from the minors when the rosters expanded, almost got out of the inning despite an error by Juan Uribe, but a two-out single and a triple made it 7-0 Cleveland. Boos rained down. “Bring back El Duque!” shouted one fan, referring to last year’s departed playoff hero Orlando Hernandez.
