Sports Bigamy Pt. III - The Empire Slaps Back

2004.

The year that brought to an end 86 years of wanting from Red Sox Nation, 20 and change for me and a little over one for The Girl. I'd be lying if I didn't give serious thought to pushing my future children towards more stable teams, like, oh, the Marlins.

Not only did the Red Sox win, they did so in the most emotional way possible, by quickly dropping the first three games to the Yankees (including Game 3 when I was at a wedding, had to shave in the middle of the playoffs and watched the whole mess spill out on a cell phone's wireless web) and then clawing their way back into the series.

If anyone ever claims to be a true Sox fan, ask them about this series (among other things). Anone who said they had a good feeling heading into any of the final four games is a stinking liar. In fact, I felt worse and worse as the series went along from total apathy in Game 4 (I only watched the last few innings after hearing the first couple on in the background on the radio) to total panic and terror in Game 7 (because there'd have been no better way for them to lose in typical Red Sox fashion than to drop Game 7... after running a big lead... I was a total wreck).

Two thing happened on the streets of Chicago after the Sox started to climb back, reaching a creshendo in time for the World Series against the Cardinals (Enos Slaughter and Bob Gibson's Cardninals - apprently Mookie's Mets had a prior committment).

The first thing I noticed was that Yankee caps all but disappeared (and damn, if I wasn't looking, too) and Red Sox caps with their new cap smell began to emerge. While plenty of Cub fans could relate to the Boston faithful, they hadn't been there through the whole mess. Most of them were too busy calling sports talk radio shows to curse out the goat and Bartman in 2003 to notice that the Red Sox were playing the next night and surely didn't give the loss a second thought.

I'd be lying to say that this didn't drive me bonkers. A year later, all the red-capped Cub fans jumped the Red Line to fill the Cell for Boston/White Sox on a great Saturday. The Sox had become some weird sort of surrogate for thousands of Cub fans and it made my case for dual-citizenship even weaker.

Last year, when the Cubs and Red Sox met in interleague play at Wrigley, I can't count the number of times that people asked what I was going to do, was I excited about the series, etc. In truth, I felt sick all weekend and it turned out OK - two games to one, Cubs, in Wrigley - and it seemed to be a fair shake. The sick thing is one more win there would have broken the tie with the Yankees in September, but who keeps track of these things, right?

For me, that series was the equivalent of having two dogs. One dog you get and love and take care of and then you decide you have the space and the money and you get a new puppy. Do youlove the old one any less? No. Does the new one get second-class status by being there a few years late to the party? No.

Now imagine that you come home and find the two of them locked in a battle to the death - that'd be a Cubs/Red Sox World Series. Imagine you come home and the new dog is missing an ear and the old dog has broken off a tooth - and that someone had told you two months ahead of time that the fight was coming on that day - and you get a pretty good idea of how that went down.

While there are exceptions to every rule, in the towns with AL and NL teams, I think it's not such a cardinal sin to partake in sports bigamy. In addition to amping up hatred for your rival local fans, it makes you a better baseball fan overall. Knowledge of the AL and NL is not a bad thing. Moreover, with knucklehead fans like 98 percent of the Wrigley faithful (Again, most, not all), Red Sox Nation is a great place for baseball. There, Spring Training carries no element of being a hard core fan, while knowing the starting pitcher's name before the National Anthem at Wrigley does.

I guess this was the long way around to the baseline that while the Cubs and White Sox, Met and Yankees, Giants and A's and some selcet intra-state teams all hate each other, it's too simple to just lump all the bandwagon Yankee fans into the same pile with true dual-citizens. I'll stick to my own guns, answering questions from any and all comers on this controversial topic and honestly not feel bad about any of it.

For me, I think there's a special place in hell for the middle of the road, shitsack Chicago fans who claim to be fans of the Cubs and Sox. "I'm a Chicago fan," they'll say and then violate a cat's anus while firing off a handgun at the elderly. Man, do I hate those fucking fans. I can honestly say that as long as you can keep up, back as many teams as you want, just not two in the same city.

Chuck Klosterman made a point on the BSG site about how his teams were more rotational - if he had favorite bands in high school, college and beyond, why not teams to suit you changing lifestyle. Can I see his point? Yes. Is it bullshit in practice? Yes.

It's all about stickin' you find your spot and stand with your respective brothers and sisters and get ready to defend the team to anyone who should think otherwise. And while I can stand with Red Sox Nation when there's an AL fight or with the Cubs fans who are sober enough to talk, it's pretty difficult to find your ground cheering for intra-city teams.

The can of worms is officially open.