Going over to the 'Dark Side'

[Linnwood]

Going over to the 'Dark Side'

Sox winning over a few weakening Cubs fans

 

By Robert McCoppin

Daily Herald Staff Writer

Posted Thursday, June 29, 2006

 

 

Adam Smiley is tempted. A lifelong Chicago Cubs fan who works in Wheeling, he swears he rooted for the White Sox to lose in the World Series last year. But this year, with the continued contrast between the two Chicago teams, he's gone to three Sox games. His 7-year-old son is a Sox fan, and it's getting harder for Smiley to explain to his boy why he supports the Cubs. If the boys in blue don't turn it around, Smiley is thinking about switching allegiances. As he puts it, "I'm very jealous of the dark side right now."

 

With the Sox's championship win last year and continued success this year - and the Cubs flirting with last place - a few Cubs fans have been converting to the men in black.

 

Converts say die-hard Cubs fans are suckers for continuing to support a lousy team. Loyalists, however, brand the new Sox fans as traitors and bandwagon jumpers.

 

With another Cubs-Sox crosstown series starting Friday, choosing a team, both sides warn, is a decision that can split families and friendships, and should reflect the baseball values you hold dear.

 

North Side or South Side? White collar or blue collar? Loyalty or results? Loser or winner?

 

 

Family ties

 

The number of converts is small - just a couple of people admitted switching teams in an informal survey of fans attending a recent Sox game. But their stories illustrate the issues Cubs fans wrestle with as the Sox continue to outperform their rivals.

 

Though Ed Nowak grew up in Calumet City in the South suburbs, his parents were loyal Cubs fans, and so was he as a kid in the 1970s.

 

His family bought tickets at the park, brought their own food and drinks, and enjoyed the game. But the games have gotten much more crowded since the Cubs narrowly missed the World Series in 2003.

 

"Nowadays Wrigley is kind of a joke," Nowak complained. "Nobody there is watching the game. There's all these people who aren't baseball fans."

 

After going to Sox games to see their opponents, Nowak began to appreciate the team's brand of fundamentally sound baseball, and he liked the fans, who he felt knew more about the game.

 

Eventually, he surrendered to his South Side roots.

 

His parents, still die-hard Cubs fans, called him an idiot.

 

His grandfather, who also gave up on the Cubs, got demoted from carving the turkey at Thanksgiving.

 

When the Cubs made the playoffs in 2003, Nowak's parents traveled to Atlanta to watch them play, but Nowak never rooted more against a team.

 

"It's a hard-core family," Nowak shrugs.

 

In Frank Gill's case, his father absolved him of his obligation to the Cubs.

 

Gill, who works in Buffalo Grove and lives in Chicago, comes from a family of Cubs fans. While on vacation in 1984, they watched together in a hotel room, stunned, as the Cubs suffered a crushing defeat in the playoffs.

 

"My dad said, 'You no longer have to be a Cubs fan,'" Gill remembered.

 

Gill was a half-hearted Pittsburgh Pirates fan for a while, then lost interest in baseball for a few years. In 1990, his Sox-fan college roommate converted him.

 

Gill got caught up in pennant chase fever in 1993 and bought a partial season ticket last year, just in time to get tickets to the playoffs and World Series.

 

Why the Sox? "They were the other Chicago team, so it's pretty much geographically the only option," he said.

 

Other members of his family remain Cubs fans, but during a recent visit, his uncle just couldn't bring himself to talk about the Sox winning the World Series.

 

In the office where Gill works as a computer programmer, he put up sports pages of the World Series run last year. This year, he took them down in recognition of a new season.

 

He can let go of the past, and no longer roots against the Cubs.

 

"I think the World Series victory sort of exorcised my demons," he said.

 

Seeing the light

 

For other fans, the conversion to the Sox comes suddenly, like John Belushi seeing the light in "The Blues Brothers."

 

That moment came for former Bartlett resident Nick Scalise during a recent Cubs loss to the Houston Astros.

 

Scalise had grown up in the Sox enclave of Bridgeport and always got a hard time for being a Cubs fan.

 

After Scalise spent a wad of cash on eighth-row seats, a Sox fan friend asked how he could waste his time and money on an organization that doesn't make a consistent effort to win.

 

"That hit home with me," Scalise said. "It finally turned the light on."

 

In the middle of the fourth inning of another losing game, he got up to leave.

 

"Hey, where are you going? We're having a good time!" his friend said.

 

"That's the problem," Scalise answered. "It's all about having a good time, not winning."

 

He walked out of Wrigley Field, hailed a cab and took the train home to Joliet.

 

A week later, he went to a Sox game and bought a Sox hat, jersey, beer cooler and a pennant to hang in front of his house. His girlfriend, a Cubs fan, refuses to go to Sox games, and tried to take the Sox flag down.

 

"People give me a hard time about switching," he said. "Sox fans don't want you, they think you're just jumping on the bandwagon cause they're winning. And Cubs fans don't understand it."

 

Like marital infidelity

 

Thomas Carson, a philosophy professor at Loyola University in Chicago who ponders baseball's conundrums, considers switching sides "immoral."

 

"It's like marital infidelity," he said. "It's the same kind of man who would trade his wife in for a younger woman."

 

"There's a difference between wanting to be with a winner and wanting your team to win."

 

Those who've left the Cubs maintain the team cheated on them first by coasting on sell-out crowds and not trying to field a winning team.

 

If the teams' fortunes were reversed, and the Sox were losing, the converts feel the organization would do something about it - bench players, fire the manager or make a trade.

 

The remaining Cubs fans think the traitors are just following a winner, and will lose enthusiasm as soon as the Sox lose.

 

As with any tribal tradition, many fans make their choice based on where they grew up and the team their parents liked, and then look for reasons to justify that preference.

 

Sox fan Bob Truty Sr. of Morris, Ill., magnanimously tells a joke that pokes fun at both the family component - and the lowbrow Sox stereotype. A teacher asked a young student to name his favorite team and explain why it was his favorite.

 

Little Johnny picked the Cubs because his parents were Cub fans.

 

The teacher said that imitating your parents wasn't a very good basis for choosing a team. "What if your mother was a prostitute and your father was a bank robber and drug dealer?" she asked.

 

"Then" the boy answered, "I would be a Sox fan."

 

Fair weather fans?

 

Success has won the Sox new fans. Attendance is up to almost 35,000 a game, compared to 25,000 at this time last year. Fans say most of the newcomers were casual sports fans or came from another city.

 

Now Nowak fears, "It's going to turn into Wrigley south. This year it's been a little more difficult getting tickets, and you're starting to see a non-baseball fan element coming in. It's a little disturbing for me."

 

Some fans don't care about the rivalry; they root for both teams. Above any team loyalties, they're first and foremost baseball fans and Chicago fans.

 

Still, most Cubs fans stick strictly with their team. Andy Buchanan, co-author of "Wise Guide Wrigley Field," knows plenty of Cubs fans, but not one who's headed south.

 

"It's in your blood," he said. "Despite what Sox fans say about Cubs fans being casual, I have not seen any conversions."

 

What does he think of ex-Cubbies turned Sox supporters?

 

"They can have them. If they're not loyal, I say good riddance."

 

http://www.dailyherald.com/suburbanliving/...y.asp?id=388972

[SoxFan1]

Stay on the f***ing North Side. We don't want you or need you.

Edited June 29, 2006 by SoxFan1

[zygoat]

agreed stay with the flubs and your gods- kerry wood and mark prior

[SoxFan1]

agreed stay with the flubs and your gods- kerry wood and mark prior

Simulated game kings.

[henry wiggins]

Ha ha -- I work with one of the guys mentioned in that article. I never knew he grew up a Cubs fan! He's a rabid, hard-core Sox fan now. Too funny.

[sin city sox fan]

Those who truly switch allegiances are at least tolerable. The ones I can't stand are those who show up at the Cell with a White Sox jersey and a Cubs hat on. Those f***ers should be turned away at the gate!

[mumu]

I thought this line in the article was interesting...

 

"you're starting to see a non-baseball fan element coming in."

 

I was at the Houston game (#2) and noticed four 20 something girls together at the park sitting about 3 seats to me left. They started out having fun, but by the fifth inning looked bored to tears. By the time Crede hit the grand slam they were long gone from their seats (which were excellent seats) and I imagine halfway home already.

 

I'd also like to say that I love meeting Cubs fans that have switvhed allegiances - I think it's great. After all the south suburban Cubs fans I've known (and their have been tons), I get a kick out of meeting people who have been life long North siders, and Cubs fans, who finally got turned off the Cubs and became Sox fans. I live on the north side, and I go out to a bar to watch Sox games up here, and the place erupts when Thome hits a homer. There are more and more north side Sox fans all the time.

Edited June 29, 2006 by mu mu

[WhiteSoxfan1986]

Stay on the f***ing North Side. We don't want you or need you.

 

^^^^^^

[Shamrock4Life]

its the best when a young kid sees the sox winning and tells his parents he is a sox fan and not a cub fan. my little cousin did that and his parents were shocked. awesome. the whole family wears cubs gear, including his brother and sister, and he is in the family photographs decked out in sox gear. great to see.

 

and i am from the north side so sftu, tia.

[Steve9347]

Stay on the f***ing North Side. We don't want you or need you.

 

ha, what a bunch of tools. they should stay on the northside

 

This post has been edited by the Soxtalk staff to remove objectionable material. Soxtalk encourages a free discussion between its members, but does not allow personal attacks, threats, graphic sexual material, nudity, or any other materials judged offensive by the Administrators and Moderators. Thank you.

[FlaSoxxJim]

ha, what a bunch of tools. they should stay on the northside

 

This post has been edited by the Soxtalk staff to remove objectionable material. Soxtalk encourages a free discussion between its members, but does not allow personal attacks, threats, graphic sexual material, nudity, or any other materials judged offensive by the Administrators and Moderators. Thank you.

 

Unnecessary, Steve. :headshake

[DonkeyKongerko]

I like diehard Cub fans alot better than fairweather Sox fans.

[Jordan4life_2007]

The more bandwagoners that come over to our side, the better for the White Sox, I guess.

[Soxfest]

Do not want or need Cub fans EVER!!!!!!!! :finger

[Swingandalongonetoleft]

I don't really mind seeing 35,000+ fans at home games, regardless of whether they used to like the Cubs or not. At some point in time, you're gonna want to see a baseball game, and that can't be had at Wrigley.

[KevHead0881]

Funny story...the guy pictured in the print version of the story is a buddy of mine who is a janitor at the Daily Herald. The picture features him wearing a Sox hat with a Cub tatoo on his arm that is crossed off (as to fit with the story's theme). Well, he's a die hard Cub fan (never switched sides) who didn't know what the picture was being taken for. The Sox hat and the anti-Cub logo were both photoshopped into the picture. Needless to say, we gave him a lot of s*** today.

[Milkman delivers]

Bring on the bandwagoners. We can use them.

[CanOfCorn]

Honestly, who cares about the people switching...we want your children.

 

 

OK, that sounded bad.

 

 

But, we want the kids that will build our fan base for years to come.

 

It's funny how it took a World Series win for Cubs fans to realize that their team sucks...shoot we Sox fans have known it FOR YEARS!

[1549]

Bandwagon fans are part of the game...I'll accept them. Anyone who gives $$$ to the team I feel passionate is ok in my eyes.

[kapkomet]

Bandwagon fans are part of the game...I'll accept them. Anyone who gives $$$ to the team I feel passionate is ok in my eyes.

Haven't seen you for a while. Good to see you!

[1549]

Haven't seen you for a while. Good to see you!

 

Thanks, it has been a while...

 

but I love this new icon

[southsider2k5]

Bandwagon fans are part of the game...I'll accept them. Anyone who gives $$$ to the team I feel passionate is ok in my eyes.

 

That's pretty much how I feel about it. Thanks for Thome, Vazquez, and a 5 year extention for Pauly as far as I am concerned. All of those Cub fans who bought season tickets to see what a world series was like, also funded our $100 million payroll.

[Goldmember]

word.

[MinnySoxFan]

I'll take 'em in a heartbeat. Won't even think about it.

 

More power to them if they want to come over. Doesn't affect the joy I am able to get out of watching them. Accept maybe help by filling the money jar.

[Baines3]

Perhaps they're getting tired of losing all the time and want to join a winner. We'll take 'em.