I have been an obsessed baseball fan since I was very young.  Starting with youth games and backyard showdowns, to the adolescent fascination with baseball cards, delusions of grandeur on the high school level, finally settling into slightly obsessive behavior involving Yahoo.com.  In 1986 I moved to Chicago from Charlotte, all we had there was a minor league team, but it was so little publicized that I couldn't tell you the name.  For whatever reason I became a Cub fan, that wacky '87 year when they said the ball was juiced (turns out only the players were), Andre Dawson hits 49hrs and becomes league MVP for a last place team. 

I had heard stories about the animosity between Cubs and Sox fans, but I never felt it.  This was a "Hatfields and the McCoys" type of feud that was being passed down from parents to children, being taught from birth and handed down.  The first trip to your family's ballpark was communion.  While I didn't follow the Sox (I missed the '83 season when Kittle was hitting balls on the roof of Old Comiskey and let's face it, the next ten years were pretty rough), I always rooted passively for them to win.  It's good for the City, and during the long dry spells for the Cubs and Sox, we had the Bears for a year and several years of Bulls domination, so the City was a winner, a champion, and that was great.  I remember glancing at box scores, being happy when the Southsiders would get it done, but the Indians ruled the Central in the 90's, and the Sox got screwed in the strike year.  I didn't watch the games on TV, I turned down tickets to games most of the time, it was cubby blue for me, even though the Sox did have cooler hats. 

There was a tie that bound the Cubs and Sox together and it wasn't the rivalry between the fans.  It was losing, mediocrity, failure, for decades on end.  After the Red Sox shocked the Yankees and the Cardinals and broke their streak of ineptitude, only the Cubs and Sox remained (not counting Houston, the poor bastards, you can't lose what you never had!).  Franchises from the early era when the league was in it's infancy.  I was so pissed when the Marlins bought themselves a championship in 1997, they had only existed for a couple of years, it wasn't fair!!!!!  Here we were, the second city, and our baseball teams were definitely 2nd class.  Sure we had a thrill with the Cubs in 84, 89, and 2003 (98 doesn't count damn it!), but there was always this sense that the house of cards would collapse at some moment, and it always did. 

Enter the 2005 Chicago White Sox.  Baseball is now the big money machine, the trophy goes to the highest bidder and Steinbrenner is leading the charge with his $200 million dollar Yankees.  Cub fans not yet awake to the fact that Dusty couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag were feeling cocky as their team began to spend like an organization owned by one of the largest media conglomerates in the country should spend, almost $100 million of our own.  Maybe we could compete, hey we had the cash and the fans right?  Meanwhile the White Sox made one shrewd move after another, going all the way back to 1997 when they acquired a top Cubs draft pick by the name of John Garland for Matt Karchner.  Matt Karchner for Christ sake, as Skoczylas said the other night, the Cubs had to have someone in the organization who could give up home runs (this whole thing is eerily similar to trading Dontrel Willis for Antonio Alfonseca, but we won't go there today).  Jermaine Dye, AJ, Contreras, Podesednik, (excuse the spelling, I am a Cub fan for crying out loud), Blum, Hermansan, the list goes on and on.  This team didn't have the resources or the pressure, but they continued to do one thing right, they assembled a "team", they hired a manager with a history with the organization who left and experienced a championship, bringing it back home with an attitude that made him a fan favorite for years.  They played well, the played baseball.  Fundamentally played it the way it should be done, and they won the most games in the AL.  No A-Rod, no Manny, no Sosa, no Wood, etc. etc.

The only thing I dread is having to deal with the angry Sox fans who will rub this in my face for a while, but I can take it.  They deserve it and their team earned it by being the best at the game of baseball in 2005.  I hope this sends a message loud and clear to the Cubs fans out there.  We are getting cheated by our team from the highest level all the way down to the manager.  These people want to make money, they don't want to win.  The White Sox showed what could be accomplished if they wanted to win first.  The money will come, the fans will come, after all it's a business and people will buy a good product.  But win first.  As Wrigley field gets expanded so owners can line their pockets or even sell this "asset" off to the the highest bidder as the Tribune Company is now discussing, we have learned a valuable lesson.  It's still about baseball, and when you put baseball first, you really are the World Champions.

Congratulations to the 2005 Chicago White Sox and their fans, enjoy it, it's been a long time coming.  But Ozzie, what's with the gayety?  Didn't think you Southsiders went that way...