Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Your Bragging Rights Aren't Honored Here, Missy!!

Being a St. Louis Cardinals fan in Chicago sucks. I understand I'm not making an earth shattering announcement here, but the fact remains that between the months of April and October my loyalties take a beating. I don't know if it's years of inadequacy that have generated such a general sense of bitterness and hostility or if it's merely the nature of the rivalry, but I continue to be amazed at how much my allegiance to the Cards is resented by the Northsiders. Cubs fans are PISSED. And rightly so. The last three years have seen their two most hated rivals claim back to back World Series Championships, while the crowning of the Red Sox in 2004 reversed the Curse of the Bambino and sharpened the focus on the nearly 100 year gap since the Cubs last championship. That SUCKS for them. However, generally speaking, I'm not an obnoxious and boisterous follower. I don't seek out public ridicule and scorn by professing my love for Albert Pujols outside the gates of Wrigley Field. I just want to be able to wear my Cardinals baseball cap and not have some jackass tell me St. Louis takes it in the Poo-holes. (I tell ya...these Cubs fans are witty!) Unprovoked, I don't talk a lot of shit. If there's one thing my dad taught me, it's that arrogance ALWAYS comes around to bite you in the ass. So no matter how tempted or provoked I get, I try to keep things civil. However, I've found that despite my best attempts at being a big person and the fact that there is no basis at all for their bravado, I am still mocked incessantly. The more the Cubs suck, the louder their fans seem to get. It gives me a headache.

Nevertheless, I certainly don't expect Cubs fans to take pity on me. We just won our tenth World Series Championship, the likes of which most living Cubs fans have never come close to experiencing. I take a great deal of pleasure in this, which I imagine is rather infuriating. I admit it. When I'm at Wrigley I cheer for the visiting team. Perhaps that makes me a terrible person, but COME ON! You really can't expect me to be neutral. And I know plenty of Cubs fans that gladly return the sentiment. Generally, if I can't enjoy a Cardinals win the next best thing is a Cubs loss. So I certainly expect to be cast under a veil of suspicion and reviled by the frenzied Chicago fan base. I'm an outsider. An enemy infiltrating their city and dirtying their Cubs blue landscape with my obnoxious Cardinal red. I'm an anti-Cub who's more then happy to point out and mock their shortcomings ever step of the way. But all things considered, I'm a harmless anti-Cub. I don't hate the team just to torment its fans. I hate them as a result of loving the Cardinals and live in this city merely by coincidence. I mean, trust me. I don't PREFER to surround myself with drunks in Carlos Zambrano jerseys that abhor my existence. I'm insanely jealous of all those people flailing around St. Louis like maniacs celebrating the World Series Championship in mutual delirious fandom. To celebrate winning game five I went to a party where one guy tried to wrestle a Cubs t-shirt over my head and another poured his beer on me. (And not in a "champagne in the locker room" kind of way.) GOOD TIMES!!!

Ironically, the abuse only serves to thicken my skin and solidify my devotion. However, I actually met people here convinced that once I'd been around long enough, the glow emanating from Chicago's Largest Beer Garden would woo me to the other side. This baffles me for several reasons. First, as a real baseball fan, you don't just change teams. Once a Cardinals fan, always a Cardinals fan. Secondly, it's not the same as moving to Denver and developing a passing interest in the Rockies because you live three blocks from Coors Field. It's the FREAKIN CUBS!! You cannot "become" a Cubs fan just by living in Chicago if you're a Cardinals fan. It goes against all laws of physics. It goes against all laws of morality! (Just for the record, I would be equally disgusted by a Cubs fan deciding to worship all things Albert Pujols. It's just not right.) Lastly, if I were to cultivate an interest in a new team based upon proximity, why would I pick not only the crappiest team in this city, but arguably in all of major league baseball? So much about this doesn't make sense to me. Maybe this is why they haven't won a World Series since 1908. These people are idiots.

But I digress. My point here is not to deride Cubs fans. On the contrary, I admire their blinding loyalty to an institution that has continually failed them year after year. I marvel at the sheer voracity of their belief every spring that "this is the year". As a result of living here, I have a lot of friends that are Cubs fans. I don't pretend to understand them, but I do respect them. Or at least I try until one of them tells me the Cardinals take it in the Poo-holes.

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