Its Tallest Midget Weekend!

In a town near where I grew up, their yearly festival was called “Dick Tracy Days.” It started in 1990, seemingly to honor the guy who created the comic strip and who happened to die in that town in 1985. More importantly, it was an attempt to capitalize on the fact that the movie was coming out that summer. It was a bit forced, a bit cheesy, but you excused it because there was at least one or two necessary tie-ins that made it make sense and, well, people seemed to be having a good time.

This festival recurred each summer for the next seventeen years.

By my senior year of high school, I had no idea why the hell they felt the need to celebrate a movie that (a.) was pretty much a flop, and (b.) was, by that point, six years in the past. It seemed ridiculous. Yet they did it year after year. After year. After year. ELEVEN MORE TIMES. (Appropriately enough, this same town was the place they filmed “Groundhog Day.”) It became an outdated, boring, and truly pointless endeavor that no longer had any reason to exist. It was the vestigial festival.

So what does this have to do with the Cubs? Simple: the Cubs-White Sox series is the baseball equivalent of the Dick Tracy Days.
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It was fine the first year or two: at the very least, there were now at least three games a season in which people would go into the upper deck at U.S. Cellular Field. Eleven years later, the Cubs and White Sox have played 60 times, the series is tied 30-30, and this “tradition” gets dumber each year. Let me count the reasons why:

1.It ratchets up the stupid obsession some Sox fans have for all things Cub. By this point, everyone knows that a decent portion of the White Sox fanbase would prefer that the Cubs lose even over a White Sox win. This certainly isn't all Sox fans, but it describes a huge majority of the ones who feel the need to show up at Wrigley for the Cubs-Sox series (as well as the ones who would feel the need to angrily respond to this post). It is also clear that a large portion of the Cubs fan base couldn't pick Alexei Ramirez out of a lineup, and even more importantly, don't give a shit. This utter apathy the majority of Cubs fans have for the White Sox absolutely irritates the hell out of those same obsessed Sox fans, and the two series the teams play each year are the opportunity they have to “show them Cub queers what's what.” This, of course, brings out the only-slightly-beneath-the-surface asshat in the Cubs fans dumb enough to really want to go to these games. Yay.

2.There is no respite from the stupidity. For the most part, at any given Cubs game, if you avoid the bleachers you can probably watch the game without (a) the desire to castrate at least four shirtless buffoons who are still wondering why Sammy's not playing today, or (b) some kind of rain slicker to keep the spilled beer off you. Unfortunately, during the Cubs-Sox series, the bleacher fans spill into the rest of the ballpark. At the three or four Cubs/Sox games I've gone to over the last ten years, I've spent equal time loathing ridiculous “O ee O...Magglio” chants (Wizard of Oz references? Really?) and watching idiotic Cubs fans (who are probably the same douchebags who wear the “Horry Cow” shirts) try and match the level of imported south side stupidity in the ballpark. For six games, Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular become the Mecca and Medina of stupid.

3. There is absolutely nothing fun about the games, win or lose. If the Cubs lose, you have to listen to the future William Ligues of the world spout off some utterly creative one-liner like “100 Years!” or the slightly more intellectual “Cubs still suck!” If they win, you get to hear the exact same one-liners. The wins and losses don't even matter—its like the game is secondary to the opportunity for the mouth breathers from both sides of town to hold off on calling into the Mike North show for a few hours and catch a game.


After 60 meetings between these two teams, the only thing I want to know after a Cubs win against the White Sox is what the Cardinals and Brewers did. There is no extra satisfaction, other than the joy of knowing that there is one less piece of ammo for the idiot in the next cubicle who needs White Sox victories to somehow offset the fact that he got passed over for the promotion (again!) by his asshole boss, who happens to be from Winnetka and has a picture of Ron Santo in his office.

So, in an act that symbolizes better than any other the relationship between Cubs and Sox fans, I sold my tickets (at about five times face value) to a White Sox fan. He gets to go to the Most Important Games of the Year, and I made enough cash to pay for tickets to just about every Cubs-Brewers game for the rest of the year.

Sure, I'd enjoy the hell out of a Cubs sweep, but not a whole lot more than a sweep of, say, the Mets. And I'll gladly trade getting swept by the White Sox in exchange for a 22-0 record against the Brewers and Cardinals for the rest of the year...you know, the games that actually make a significant difference in terms of which team from the NL Central will go to the playoffs. Instead, I get to enjoy ten days packed full of the only thing I truly despise about Chicago baseball. Somebody wake me when this is over.