Baseball in Chicago is arranged under the tidy assumption that Cub fans and Sox fans will never have to suffer the company of each other except on public transportation or during the odd elevator ride when, for lack of other literature to help endure the trip, they might read one another’s T-shirts.
That is often what passes for literacy among the faithful of each team, neither of whom has ever been fascinated by the alphabet but can tell you in an instant how far behind in the standings the other guy’s team is.
There is a comforting reassurance to this natural order of things, for each fan has not only the success of his own heroes to encourage him, but the failure of his neighbor’s to make him feel better.
It is a wonderful system and one that should be protected for the good of all.
When the Cubs are up and the Sox down, as is the most recent arrangement, some gloating is evident. Cub fans take to wearing pictures of cuddly bears and even the name of the city we all share, while Sox fans are stuck with Eddie Einhorn.
The Cubs’ constituency has always felt it had the advantage in these encounters, having one more letter in its last name than do the modern Sox, who used to have a first and a middle name but have recently lopped off color and place as redundant or too taxing to be read all in one sitting.
The Sox are just the Sox, happily truncated and phonetic, a distinction that is sufficient enough to foster a private superiority over the Cubs. No place name is needed to identify Sox allegiance, and even more than casual inspection will reveal no hint of geography.
The Sox know who they are, and so do their fans, who conveniently ignore the city of Boston and its Sox of a different color, as well as the perpetual error of Noah Webster and his heirs, who insist on spelling Sox funny in the dictionary.
Life progresses through the seasons here with mostly civic tolerance to these differences, and outright violence is infrequent, especially since the Sox again started tucking their shirts in and wearing pants that cover their knees.
The Cubs stay in their warren to the north and the Sox in theirs to the south, at least for now, though the suspicion is growing that the Cubs may move south and the Sox north and west, if you can believe anybody who uses the words “new” and “stadium” in the same sentence.
No matter. The point of all this is to examine an announcement that the two teams will confront one another on the field in 1985, a year that is already racing past us.
Plans have been made to have an exhibition game at Comiskey Park on April 29, a date that would otherwise be left innocently vacant of baseball and could be set aside for something useful.
Next year, the two teams would do the same thing at Wrigley Field, though just when has not been determined.
This would appear to be one swell idea, or two if you count home-and-home games separately. Not so.
The only decent thing the Cubs and Sox can do to satisfy their fans is to meet in the World Series. Both teams would have had to put away the rest of their companions over the long season and set up an authentic showdown.
Meaningless exhibitions will satisfy no one. Some arguments should never be settled for fun, or worse, as appears the case here, for profit.
The Cubs and Sox used to play each other often, and the fact that they haven’t for a while has not resulted in a great outcry for them to resume. In the past, assorted charities benefited from the games, which was at least a noble if predictable excuse.
These games will be played not for the fans, or for charity, but for the Cub and Sox payrolls. The two teams will split the proceeds.
In other words, the Cubs and Sox will be exploiting the fragile emotions of their audience for the money, which reduces the whole thing to the level of wrestling, except no one will know ahead of time who the winner is.
But too many people will care.