That's all, folks

Well, that happened. The Sox winning is not the worst thing in the world, of course, but there are a number of problems that go along with it.

1) We have to hear about how noble and stoic the long-suffering White Sox fans were, compared to the "whiny" fans of the Red Sox and Cubs. No one points out that the difference is that the Red Sox and Cubs have much larger fanbases; is it really any wonder that no one noticed 88 years of griping by the forty thousand legitimate Sox fans in the city?

2) We have to deal with the bandwagon of casual fans who don't bother to pick a side and simply claim whoever's winning as their own. I was IMed last night by one guy who had recently posted on a message board that he was a fan of both teams (to which I replied, simply, "Dude."), and his message was "Well, we won." We??? You didn't win shit, Captain Fairweather. It's silly enough to say "we" unless you're talking about the team from the school you attended, even though I do it sometimes, but to use it when you don't even have a single strong rooting interest? No, no, no.

3) We have to read obnoxious, insulting columns like this one, in which the inimitably bad Scoop Jackson puts down 95% of Cubs fans, calls them out for not hating the Sox enough, and then has the gall not only to wonder why Cubs fans hate the Sox, but to play the race card in discussing it! This isn't the first time Jackson has accused Cubs followers of racism; one of the first posts I ever made in the blog format of this site was a rebuttal to his column suggesting that Dusty Baker was being run out of town for being black. Here's one bit from this column that stands out:

"There's something racial about this," one South Sider says at Murphy's, another Wrigleyville landmark. "It doesn't make any sense for a third of the city to hate the Sox like this."

Give me a fucking break. For starters, you're going to tell me Sox fans don't hate the Cubs? Of course they do! Is it okay because Cubs fans are saddled with the "white yuppie" rep? A couple posts ago, Justin noted in the comments that he knows Sox fans who would curse the Cubs with their last breath. The irrational hate is coming from which side?

Meanwhile, I don't know about you, but I don't hear "Sox fans" and think "black people," no matter how large the minority population on the South Side may be. I think "heavy-set white guy with a thick Chicago accent, possibly with a mustache, broken capillaries in his cheeks, and a blue-collar job." I doubt most Cubs fans think differently. If you have to ascribe the hate to something other than simple fair play - why shouldn't I hate the Sox and their fans when the reverse is so often true? - you could ascribe it to socioeconomic differences, but that's grasping at straws. I don't hate the Sox because I hate poor people. Doesn't that sound ridiculous as even a suggestion? Yet somehow Jackson can write the equivalent of "Cubs fans hate minorities" and get his bullshit published.

I hate the Sox and their fans for one simple reason: they hate me. I think readers of this blog had figured that out by now; Jackson, despite apparently living in this city, doesn't seem to get it. Is he trying to justify his obvious Cubs disdain by pulling the old playground defense of "They started it?" Guess what: that doesn't fly. The hate flows both ways, and if the Cubs had won the Series last night, the beer would not be flowing happily in South Side bars - and if you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself. And you don't know Sox fans.

No one "started" it. It's perfectly natural, and basically expected, for two teams in the same city (or even just the same general area) to develop a rivalry. I challenge you to name a place where this isn't true. It may not always be quite as strong as this one seems to be, but so what? You give as good as you get, and that's how it goes. And that's okay. But Jackson seems to be claiming that Cubs fans are the instigators, which is like calling the chicken a fucker for laying the egg. It's just stupid. The whole point of a rivalry is to be rivals. If I threw a party when the Sox won, what kind of rivalry is that?

In the end, who's whinier? The team that complains about not winning the World Series or the team that spends most of its time deriding the first team and then just can't understand it when they win it all and the first team isn't happy for them? I've got my money on the latter. Am I bitter that the Sox won the World Series? No, not really. But this martyrdom shit they're trying to pull in its wake? That bothers me, along with the fact that - I suppose predictably - it took about two seconds for most Sox fans to invoke Cubs fans in a concerted effort to rub our noses in it. Not only is that bad on its own, but it's going to half-ruin any future Cubs World Series win for me, because I won't just be able to be happy; my thoughts are going to be drawn to the Sox, and their fans, and how thank God this is finally going to shut them up for a while. I have no desire to make the Sox center stage of my celebration, not like people are trying to do to the Cubs with a "let's all point and laugh, children" attitude. You know what? Fuck you guys.

So, okay. We all get it. The Sox won. Good for them. I'm happy for the minority of fans who aren't going to spend the next decade being obnoxious about it. For the rest of them, I don't really care one way or the other. I'd rather not expend any hate on it; it's a waste of my energy, and, if Jackson's column is anything to go by, it's exactly what Sox fans want. They want Cubs fans to seethe, and resent them, all so they can point and say, "See! They hate us!" Come next year, this city is only going to have forty thousand Sox fans once again, and everything will more or less return to normal.

The White Sox won the World Series. Now let us never speak of it again.