...[The other thing that helped a South Side kid not hate the Cubs too much was that the Cubs played all their home games during the day so you'd get back from school and] on WGN you could watch the last few innings of a long game at Wrigley --- long games especially if the wind was blowing out and the score was like 17 to 15.
Today of course the Cubs are owned by the lowlife Trumpist Ricketts family. Ricketts has used Wrigley for big money Trump fundraisers. He's a total capitalist-fascist pig. I think one of the Ricketts bros (Tom himself?) had a position in the first Trump administration - undersecretary of commerce or something like that. So, yeah the CWS might have a new record for losses in a season but F the Cubs!
Continuation of my response to Robert K (SS is no longer permitting me to write direct replies under comments)... In my household there was little of the Cubs hate you sometimes encountered with Sox fans. Part of it was that the Cubs weren't good enough to hate in the 1960s -- they were the "lovable losers" usually down in the bottom half of the National League. The team I was indoctrinated to hate as bad as I later learned to loathe the Ohio State football Buckeyes was "the goddamned New York Yankees." This was for the simple reason that the Yankees ruthlessly dominated the American League for most of the years between the late 1940s and 1964 [Cleveland slipped by twice and the White Sox once, in 1959]. The CWS were actually quite good during those years but could not get past the "damned Yankees," the joke about which was that "rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for US Steel." This was the youthful experience of my father projected on to me. The irony here is that the Yankees go into a hegemony hiatus in exactly the same year I was first old enough to get into baseball and the World Series: 1965. (I had a hard time hating on the Joe Pepitone and Bobby Mercer Yankees. ) I only came to really hate the Cubs and Wrigley in the 1980s with the gentrification of Wrigleyville and whole Disney-fication of baseball up there --- and the whole "businessmen's luncheon" thing up there. That really was bourgeoisification. And white-ification....the Black fans one used to see up there largely vanished (though this was largely true across MLB as players became much more white and Latin American and baseball culture faded in Black America --- see the brilliant study by the social historian Rob Ruck: "Raceball") As a kid I wanted to go up to Wrigley to see and get autographs from all the National League players I had baseball cards of -- the NL had more stars in part because it had racially integrated further. You'd go to Wrigley to see great Black players like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Bob Gibson, Roberto Clemente, Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell, etc The Cubs also had a regular Lady's Day feature -- women free or half price --- so I could get my mother (never my father until the 1969 season) to take me up to Wrigley. The other thing that helped a South Side kid not hate the Cubs too much was that the Cubs played all their home games during the day so you'd get back from school and on WGN you could watch the last few innings of a long game at Wrigley --- long games especially if the wind was blowing out and the score was like 17 to 15. Today of course the Cubs are owned by the lowlife Trumpist Ricketts family. Ricketts has used Wrigley for big money Trump fundraisers. He's a total capitalist-fascist pig. I think one of the Ricketts bros (Tom himself?) had a position in the first Trump administration - undersecretary of commerce or something like that. So, yeah the CWS might have a new record for losses in a season but F the Cubs!
Response to Robert Kolkebech (Substack is for some reason not permitting to me to do a direct reply under RK's comment). Chicago was still 50/50 Sox/Cubs when I was a grade schooler --- that went away in the 1970s and I suppose now Chicago is at least 70/30 Cubs or maybe worse with Reinsdorf setting a new MLB season loss record.
I grew up White Sox in Hyde Park. Part of the White Sox identitarianism was geographic proximity to Comiskey Park but another part of it was the moral-ideological influence of my jazzbro father. Part of his youthful cultural rebellion in the Republican sundown town that was 1940s and 1950s DeKalb, Illinois was to root for the team on "the wrong side of town," meaning the Black/South side of town. There was also the old narrative of the White Sox being the proletarian/working class team of the packinghouse and steelworkers on the South Side and the Cubs being up on the bourgeois North Side (that narrative shows up even in labor shop floor papers in the 1930s).
There was this very binary world view in my family: Sox good, Cubs bad; the virtuous and oppressed people of the South Side good and the North Side rich and bad; Democratic Party good (even as Mayor Daley disgusted my parents this sentiment held) and Republican Party bad. ). Some of this was a little silly to me as a kid for a few reasons: 1. The Cubs had all kinds of working class fans and at that time (the late 1960s) and still do, 2. Wrigley was a dump (Sox people said "piss bucket") in a dumpy neighborhood where you could easily get mugged (this was pre-gentrification Lakeview) ...you hardly felt like you were hanging out in privileged space at Wrigley Field, with its cheap seats, largely empty until 1969 (when they ran out way ahead of the Eastern division for the first half and had most of the NL infield for the All Star Games). 3. The Cubs had a Black following cuz they had real Black stars: Ernie Banks (two time MVP), Billy Williams, and Ferguson Jenkins. 4. There were obviously a bunch of rich people on the South Side --- mansions just a few blocks north of where I lived in Kenwood.
Baseball is my favorite, and I used to feel the same intensity you have for Mich v OSU with the White Sox v Cubs.
Always hated Wrigley, Tribune, that tourist trap field, and the SNL Blues Bros BS, but could never bring myself to pay for TV to watch the Reinsdorf-Einhorn crappy Sportsvision, that total ass Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, and so much of what came later. Listened to the radio.
But these past two seasons I started listening to some Cubs games, which was possible for me since Santo is dead and in 2023 I wanted to hear the Cubs flame out.
In 2024 I listened to more Ciubs games than White Sox games. Cubs obviously had a better team than the worst in MLB history playing off the Dan Ryan, and the Cubs radio announcers can be entertaining.
I used to be able to recall World Series winners from the early 60s through the 90s. Thought I’d have to look up who won in 2024, but it came to me: Dodgers over the Yankees, in spite of Ohtani’s post season struggles.
Yankee stars made errors.
Black Sox??
Might as well enjoy harness racing, but that’s nearly as dead as I am in Illinois.
Totally frivolous football/basketball story that has a real redeeming point about not relying on people’s personal memories. But you took your time getting to it!
Spot on! Ohio resident...Rooted for Michigan! OSU...so full of themselves...Woody Hayes...such a dick. Thanks for being a life line ...to sanity. Also a social scientist...but...your senior. Keep on keeping on...forward into the breach. Viva le Marx!
Woody Hayes... his insane punching of a Clemson player in 1978 (Gator Bowl?) was pretty much the end, kind of like Biden's debate fiasco this year. Marx would have sided with UM in the Ten Years War.
Interesting bit of bio! If my memory serves me correctly, I spent 68-70 at UM. High point was overnight(1) “occupation” of ROTC building. Thanks for your work. Sincerely, Iggy
continuation of response to Robert K:
...[The other thing that helped a South Side kid not hate the Cubs too much was that the Cubs played all their home games during the day so you'd get back from school and] on WGN you could watch the last few innings of a long game at Wrigley --- long games especially if the wind was blowing out and the score was like 17 to 15.
Today of course the Cubs are owned by the lowlife Trumpist Ricketts family. Ricketts has used Wrigley for big money Trump fundraisers. He's a total capitalist-fascist pig. I think one of the Ricketts bros (Tom himself?) had a position in the first Trump administration - undersecretary of commerce or something like that. So, yeah the CWS might have a new record for losses in a season but F the Cubs!
Continuation of my response to Robert K (SS is no longer permitting me to write direct replies under comments)... In my household there was little of the Cubs hate you sometimes encountered with Sox fans. Part of it was that the Cubs weren't good enough to hate in the 1960s -- they were the "lovable losers" usually down in the bottom half of the National League. The team I was indoctrinated to hate as bad as I later learned to loathe the Ohio State football Buckeyes was "the goddamned New York Yankees." This was for the simple reason that the Yankees ruthlessly dominated the American League for most of the years between the late 1940s and 1964 [Cleveland slipped by twice and the White Sox once, in 1959]. The CWS were actually quite good during those years but could not get past the "damned Yankees," the joke about which was that "rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for US Steel." This was the youthful experience of my father projected on to me. The irony here is that the Yankees go into a hegemony hiatus in exactly the same year I was first old enough to get into baseball and the World Series: 1965. (I had a hard time hating on the Joe Pepitone and Bobby Mercer Yankees. ) I only came to really hate the Cubs and Wrigley in the 1980s with the gentrification of Wrigleyville and whole Disney-fication of baseball up there --- and the whole "businessmen's luncheon" thing up there. That really was bourgeoisification. And white-ification....the Black fans one used to see up there largely vanished (though this was largely true across MLB as players became much more white and Latin American and baseball culture faded in Black America --- see the brilliant study by the social historian Rob Ruck: "Raceball") As a kid I wanted to go up to Wrigley to see and get autographs from all the National League players I had baseball cards of -- the NL had more stars in part because it had racially integrated further. You'd go to Wrigley to see great Black players like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Bob Gibson, Roberto Clemente, Willie McCovey, Willie Stargell, etc The Cubs also had a regular Lady's Day feature -- women free or half price --- so I could get my mother (never my father until the 1969 season) to take me up to Wrigley. The other thing that helped a South Side kid not hate the Cubs too much was that the Cubs played all their home games during the day so you'd get back from school and on WGN you could watch the last few innings of a long game at Wrigley --- long games especially if the wind was blowing out and the score was like 17 to 15. Today of course the Cubs are owned by the lowlife Trumpist Ricketts family. Ricketts has used Wrigley for big money Trump fundraisers. He's a total capitalist-fascist pig. I think one of the Ricketts bros (Tom himself?) had a position in the first Trump administration - undersecretary of commerce or something like that. So, yeah the CWS might have a new record for losses in a season but F the Cubs!
Response to Robert Kolkebech (Substack is for some reason not permitting to me to do a direct reply under RK's comment). Chicago was still 50/50 Sox/Cubs when I was a grade schooler --- that went away in the 1970s and I suppose now Chicago is at least 70/30 Cubs or maybe worse with Reinsdorf setting a new MLB season loss record.
I grew up White Sox in Hyde Park. Part of the White Sox identitarianism was geographic proximity to Comiskey Park but another part of it was the moral-ideological influence of my jazzbro father. Part of his youthful cultural rebellion in the Republican sundown town that was 1940s and 1950s DeKalb, Illinois was to root for the team on "the wrong side of town," meaning the Black/South side of town. There was also the old narrative of the White Sox being the proletarian/working class team of the packinghouse and steelworkers on the South Side and the Cubs being up on the bourgeois North Side (that narrative shows up even in labor shop floor papers in the 1930s).
There was this very binary world view in my family: Sox good, Cubs bad; the virtuous and oppressed people of the South Side good and the North Side rich and bad; Democratic Party good (even as Mayor Daley disgusted my parents this sentiment held) and Republican Party bad. ). Some of this was a little silly to me as a kid for a few reasons: 1. The Cubs had all kinds of working class fans and at that time (the late 1960s) and still do, 2. Wrigley was a dump (Sox people said "piss bucket") in a dumpy neighborhood where you could easily get mugged (this was pre-gentrification Lakeview) ...you hardly felt like you were hanging out in privileged space at Wrigley Field, with its cheap seats, largely empty until 1969 (when they ran out way ahead of the Eastern division for the first half and had most of the NL infield for the All Star Games). 3. The Cubs had a Black following cuz they had real Black stars: Ernie Banks (two time MVP), Billy Williams, and Ferguson Jenkins. 4. There were obviously a bunch of rich people on the South Side --- mansions just a few blocks north of where I lived in Kenwood.
That was a funny story with a nasty bite, Paul.
Baseball is my favorite, and I used to feel the same intensity you have for Mich v OSU with the White Sox v Cubs.
Always hated Wrigley, Tribune, that tourist trap field, and the SNL Blues Bros BS, but could never bring myself to pay for TV to watch the Reinsdorf-Einhorn crappy Sportsvision, that total ass Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, and so much of what came later. Listened to the radio.
But these past two seasons I started listening to some Cubs games, which was possible for me since Santo is dead and in 2023 I wanted to hear the Cubs flame out.
In 2024 I listened to more Ciubs games than White Sox games. Cubs obviously had a better team than the worst in MLB history playing off the Dan Ryan, and the Cubs radio announcers can be entertaining.
I used to be able to recall World Series winners from the early 60s through the 90s. Thought I’d have to look up who won in 2024, but it came to me: Dodgers over the Yankees, in spite of Ohtani’s post season struggles.
Yankee stars made errors.
Black Sox??
Might as well enjoy harness racing, but that’s nearly as dead as I am in Illinois.
Totally frivolous football/basketball story that has a real redeeming point about not relying on people’s personal memories. But you took your time getting to it!
there will be fierce sports rivalries under the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Ohio State versus Michigan in football and the tragic record of UM basketball are matters of profound historical significance.
Spot on! Ohio resident...Rooted for Michigan! OSU...so full of themselves...Woody Hayes...such a dick. Thanks for being a life line ...to sanity. Also a social scientist...but...your senior. Keep on keeping on...forward into the breach. Viva le Marx!
Woody Hayes... his insane punching of a Clemson player in 1978 (Gator Bowl?) was pretty much the end, kind of like Biden's debate fiasco this year. Marx would have sided with UM in the Ten Years War.
Interesting bit of bio! If my memory serves me correctly, I spent 68-70 at UM. High point was overnight(1) “occupation” of ROTC building. Thanks for your work. Sincerely, Iggy
My identification was more town than gown oddly enough for a Burns Park academic brat. :)