A requirement of living in Chicago is choosing one baseball team or the other. Every other sport in this town offers one team, and thus everyone who’s a football fan lives and dies with da Bears. The same is true of basketball and the Bulls, and hockey and the Blackhawks. But baseball is a whole different story. It’s the North and the South, just like the Civil War. And also like the Civil War, the good guys are the ones up north.
I imagine, from the perspective of a Cubs fan, that the White Sox fans must really hate Wrigley Field. It’s the embodiment of all things related to the Cubs. It’s the pretty park with the ivy on the outfield wall, and the rooftops all around, and the firehouse across the street. It is all of those things, but to hate on the Cubs is to hate on those things.
A.J. Pierzynski was the White Sox player I always loved to hate. When Michael Barrett slugged him in a Cubs-Sox game back in 2006, he was acting on every Cub fans’ behalf. And every time that A.J. would do commentary on TV, while holding the microphone with that World Series ring from 2005 on his hand, I thought about how much I despised him. He, like Wrigley Field, was the embodiment of the other side in Chicago’s long-running baseball feud.
I shed no tears for the White Sox or their fans when A.J. Pierzynski left town to sign with the Texas Rangers. I even got a good laugh when, opening up a pack of the new Topps 2013 baseball cards that just came out, I saw a rather interesting shot of A.J. in his old stomping grounds at U.S. Cellular Field.
But A.J. has moved on, and White Sox fans are left with the card (not shown here) as one last reminder of him. I only wish that he could take the Cell’s scoreboard down to Texas with him. Good riddance.
Blue Batting Helmet 