The Cubs, the White Sox, and A Kind of Redemption

Michael S. was kind enough to respond to my post on the President being a lefty, yet still having the virtue of being a White Sox fan.  In his post, he boldly claims that “the truly Catholic (and catholic, BTW) baseball team in Chicago is the Cubbies." 

Like many other true blue Cub fans, Michael S. would like to see the North-Siders’ history – their sixty-four year absence from the Fall Classic and the one-hundred year draught since their last World Series title – as a kind of extended penance, or as Michael more poignantly put it, “one long Good Friday.”  True enough, every fan of every team has his or her own crosses to bear (e.g. for Yankee fans it is the sin of gluttony and the temptation to fall into hubris, a sin that they seem to now share, ironically, with many Red Sox fans).  And, in truth, one cannot deny that the Cubs and their fans are a long-suffering franchise.

 

 

However, because he sees the world only through lenses that are shaded Cubbie blue, he fails to see that the real story of redemption in baseball can be found in the history of the White Sox who as the 1919 Chicago “Black Sox” tried to undermine the very game of baseball.  More than the simple, venial sin of incompetence, or the more recent attempts to gain competitive advantage through performance enhancing drugs, the sin of the 1919 White Sox was the mortal sin of not actually playing the game in good faith – of putting forth only a counterfeit effort, of only pretending to compete, all the while intending to lose – and to profit from it.

 

 

But with faith, and perseverance, and the strength gained through a long period of fasting in the desert, even the most serious sinner can find redemption.

 

 

Not being a native of Chicago, I did not grow up with the ancient animosities of North-Side vs. South-Side, Cubs vs. Sox.  As someone from Louisville, I was content to see that both teams made use of the finest baseball bats available.  However, my wife’s family hails from the South-Side, so when things got serious between us, I became a committed White Sox fan – a decision which, like our nuptial vows, I have never regretted.

 

 

Although she came from a White Sox family, they were not Cub haters, and indeed, not a few family members are committed Cub fans.  And so, I tend to view the two teams in an ecumenical light.

 

 

Thus, for my own part, I would like to think that many White Sox fans view the Cubs the same way that Catholics view the Episcopal Church:  We’re cheering for them.  We want them to do the right thing, but a lot of the time we don’t know whether to laugh or to cry because sometimes we aren’t really sure they’re playing baseball.