Newswriting 301, Spring 2006

The Endless Feud between the Cubs and Sox

By Ryan Morton
Author can be reached at r-morton@northwestern.edu

It's October in Chicago. Light snow combines with harsh winds to cover the west side of the city, but the game must go on. Despite the flurries, thousands of fans pack into the Cubs' ballpark.

The police ready themselves for a busy afternoon. They arrest eight men for scalping tickets, while elsewhere two teenagers are caught robbing a grocery store to afford those highly sought seats. Even Alderman Charles Martin, a White Sox fan, is arrested for fighting with a Cubs fan.

The World Series had arrived in Chicago. The city would never be the same again.

That was the scene on Oct. 9, 1906, according to Eric Enders' "100 Years of the World Series." One full century later, the bitter rivalry between two clubs separated by 9.7 miles remains as strong, if not stronger, as it did in 1906.

Over the course of those 100 seasons, the demographics of the rivalry have changed slightly. Scandals, long droughts, longer droughts, stadium renovations and recent successes have shifted some fans from one side to the other. The character of the rivalry, however, remains intact. It defines Chicagoans from birth, as they will continually be asked, "Cubs or Sox?"

The Early Years
The intense rivalry between the North Side and South Side clubs began decades before the 1906 World Series. In 1876, the White Stockings (ironically the franchise that would eventually be nicknamed the Cubs) established a monopoly on the city of Chicago. For the next 25 years, numerous attempts were made by other major league owners to add a second team to the Chicago landscape. None lasted more than a year, as detailed in "Total Ballclubs" by Nicholas Acocella and Donald Dewey.

Finally, in 1900, Charles Comiskey (who had played for one of those failed Chicago teams), persuaded the National League to allow him to create a new franchise off of Lake Michigan. James Hart, the owner of Chicago's National League club (called the Colts at this time), agreed conditionally: the AL team must play south of 35th Street and it must not use the name "Chicago."

Comiskey agreed to both terms, but immediately began what would become one of baseball's greatest rivalries by choosing a team nickname purely to spite Hart: the White Stockings, a nickname most Chicago fans still associated with the National League team, Acocella and Dewey wrote in "Total Ballclubs."

Comiskey also managed to take some of the National League team's greatest players away from them in the early years. The first Chicago baseball turncoat, Hall of Fame pitcher Clark Griffith, followed a 24-win season with the Cubs (Colts at the time) by moving across town to the White Sox. Many teammates began to follow, a trend that would eventually lead to over 160 players in 105 years playing for both the Cubs and the Sox.

The Losing Traditions
Much of the rivalry between the Cubs and the Sox actually stems from their parallel histories. A few years of dominance, followed by nearly a century of failure.

Both teams were very successful for the first few decades of the 20th century. After the Sox beat them four games to two in 1906, the Cubs won back-to-back World Series titles in 1907 and 1908. The White Sox won their second championship in 1917.

In 1919, the White Sox had another prime opportunity to win the World Series, until at least six players chose to throw the games. The Black Sox, as they were dubbed, disgraced the White Sox franchise, helping the Cubs gain more popularity and respect.

Despite his involvement with the 1919 Black Sox, Shoeless Joe Jackson's outstanding career is still honored by the Chicago White Sox. A picture of Jackson is seen here on the side of U.S. Cellular Field.

The North Siders also helped themselves by playing well enough to compete in five championships between 1926 and 1950. According to Charles Billington, author of "Wrigley Field's Last World Series," the Cubs out drew the White Sox in 22 of those 25 seasons. However, their World Series appearance in 1945 would prove to be a crucial moment in Cubs history: the last time they ever reached the championship.

The late 1940s also helped begin a shift of fans back from the North Side to the South Side. Throughout the 1950s the White Sox were arguably the most popular team in Chicago, dubbed the "go go White Sox," finishing 2nd or 3rd on a regular basis, and going to a World Series in 1959. In the 17 years between 1951 and 1968, the Sox out drew the Cubs 15 times.

Starting in the 1970s, however, the fans turned back to Wrigley once again. Even though both teams in Chicago seemed to have an affinity for losing, the history of the Chicago Cubs (scandal free with ivy) tended to appeal more to the younger crowd, according to Billington.

The new generation in the 1970s and 1980s also benefited from constant exposure to the Cubs. WGN televised every single Cubs game, creating yet another iconic figure for North Side fans, broadcaster Jack Brickhouse.

"I would come home from school, and I would run down Drake Avenue," said David Kaplan, sports talk show host on WGN radio. "I'd get home at 3:15, and the Cubs would be in the 5th inning. I loved Jack Brickhouse. So I was hooked at an early age."

Meanwhile, the White Sox were nowhere to be found on television. When their owners finally decided to broadcast the games, they chose cable television as their medium, a much less accessible luxury in those days compared to today.

The one advantage the Sox had in terms of broadcasting would eventually go down in history as a Cub favorite. Harry Caray worked on the air from 1971-1981 for the White Sox. While at Comiskey he became famous for his wide-brim glasses, his "Holy Cow," and his singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch. When he left for Wrigley in 1982, though, all those White Sox originals went with him, joining the lore of the ivy on the North Side.

Some have tried to blame both teams' misfortune on curses. The Cubs suffered from the Billy Goat Curse, a fabled story surrounding the 1945 World Series, while the White Sox were plagued by the 1919 World Series fix, dubbed the Black Sox Curse.

In 2005 the Sox finally shed those demons by winning the World Series, 99 years after their first victory. By ending their losing tradition first, a new dimension has been added to the Chicago rivalry.

"Cubs fans are becoming much more demanding," said Dan McGrath, associate managing editor of the Chicago Tribune sports section. "They're not the lovable losers anymore. They want the team to win. The White Sox sent a pretty strong message that they want to be the number one team in Chicago."

The Six Games
In 1997, the rules of the Chicago rivalry completely changed as the White Sox and Cubs finally had an opportunity to play for city bragging rights. Interleague play had begun.

Before that year the two teams had only officially faced each other for those six games in October back in 1906. Over the course of the next 90 years, there would be a "crosstown classic" exhibition game played when both teams had a day off, but it lacked any real importance.

"Those games were pretty much just for the fans," Billington said in an interview. "They were the ones who really cared. It didn't mean much to the players."

Interleague play has now given the teams a chance to play for real stakes during the season (as well as a guaranteed sold-out weekend for each club). The intensity of the crosstown classic was recently seen at U.S. Cellular Field, when Cubs catcher Michael Barrett punched White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski. This led to a benches-clearing brawl and four ejections. The White Sox are 27-24 in nine seasons playing against the Cubs.

The newly heated rivalry has created a number of incidents during the past decade. Another example came in June of 2002, when following a crosstown series in Wrigley Field, a four-foot-wide patch of ivy was found poisoned. Many blamed the White Sox fans, even the Chicago Tribune.

Wally Smith, a program vendor at Wrigley Field, has seen a number of fights break out between Cubs and Sox fans in his 22 years working at the ballpark.

"They turned them [interleague games] into day games over night games to calm down the fights," Smith said. "There's less drinking, less fighting."

After nine years of interleague play, the series stands with a slight lead for the White Sox, 27-24 after the most recent series, when the South Siders won two of three games. There are three more games on the North Side starting in late June, though, so the Cubs could tie it.

With so much history culminating in this 100-year anniversary, how would Chicago react to another "L" series?

"I can't imagine what it would be like to have a World Series in this town with both Cubs and Sox in it," Kaplan said. "I think it would be awesome. I just don't want to ever be on the losing side, because that one would be hard. I'd probably have to move."