The only White Sox fan I know around here is so anti-Cubs I think he’ll be more depressed if they win than he would be if the White Sox were in it and lost. The hatred between those fanbases always kind of perplexed me. They never even played each other until interleague, so what’s the big deal?
I am in full support of the Cubs in this series. The rivalry thing is weird, and I want to let it go. My grandfather and my dad called the Sox the good guys, and hated the Cubs for reasons I don’t know. Sounds like a copout to say that was how I was raised, but that’s the case. I saw the guy with the insulting Cubs sign on TV last night, and there are thousands more like him in Chicago.
(ETA there is a song in Chicago popular with Irish folk bands called South Side Irish which features the line: “…and when it comes to baseball, we’ve got 2 favorite clubs. The go-go White Sox and whoever plays the Cubs.”
It’s ingrained and deep I tell ya.)
The weird part is the hatred, for the most part, is not mutual.
When the White Sox were winning everything up to and including the World Series a few years ago, Cub fans were happy for them. There were all sorts of jokes about being biSoxual.
I think it’s a class thing. The Cubs are seen as the team for the elitist, rich Northsiders as opposed to the more downscale, blue collar Southside.
It doesn’t help that all the sports coverage seems fixated on the Cubs as well. Ask what’s Chicago’s baseball team, and does anyone mention the White Sox first? Noooo.
White Sox fans are the Trump supporters of baseball.
What is wrong with you? 
My Sox fan friends are just so vehemently anti-Cubs that I have to chalk it up to good natured fun and baseball rivalry or whatever excuse I could come up with so I don’t just explode in a fit of rage on them. I have to admit, when the Sox won the World Series in 2005, I didn’t care. I wasn’t rooting against them, but it was, to me, like the Slacksville Sluggers winning the World Series (in other words, some random team I have little-to-no emotional connection to.) I was intellectually impressed by their 11-1 run in the playoffs, but I just didn’t feel anything. However, I’m impressed by the amount of vitriol the Sox fans have against the Cubs in this series, at least among my cohort. They care in a way I didn’t back in 2005. I don’t quite get it, and I grew up and still live in Sox country, so I should somewhat understand the frame of mind, but I don’t.
Born and bred souf sider here, and I’m rooting for Cleveland. Why? Because the American League, dammit. Almost everyone I know is a Cubs fan.
No, they did not beat superior teams in the playoffs – they were the superior team in the playoffs. They beat teams with better records, yes, but that doesn’t mean they were superior. Besides there’s no way to evaluate superiority of one team over another when they hardly play each other in the regular season. That’s why they play the game.
Are your friends South Siders? Things have changed a bit over the years, but I’m 41, and other than my brother, I could think of maybe two or three friends that were Cubs fans. It was year after year of hearing how much the a Cubs suck, especially when they lost every god damn crosstown exhibition game (minus one that ended as a tie in extra innings because they got sick of playing, basically.)
It’s not at all dubious. The dimensions of the park, the lighting, the ceiling in a domed stadium, the way the ball rolls on a turf, the backstop depth behind home plate, how to play foul balls are not insignificant. Yes, they all in theory know how to approach the game but one team is infinitely more familiar and comfortable playing in the park than the other.
Pitching to the park is actually not an insignificant part of the game. If you have a pitcher who’s comfortable giving up fly balls in a home ballpark that is particularly spacious he’s going to be a lot more uncomfortable in, say, Houston which has a reputation for being a hitter friendly park. I would also say that Boston Red Sox outfielders know how to play the Green Monster better than outfielders from opposing teams, especially if they play in the National League and rarely get in a visit at Fenway.
And consider this: since 2003, the home team has won the WS 10 of 13 times. And the two times that the visiting team won, they swept at home. If this series continues on its current trajectory, that would make it 11 of 14.
Definitely a dominant performance by Kluber, who’s going to be a problem for the Cubs as long as they face him in the series. However, the Cubs are a good hitting team that makes adjustments in games and between games. They do a good job of scouting pitchers as a lineup. They just ran into a buzz saw last night - it happens. If I’m the Cubs, I’m a little worried about Arietta, who’s good but not nearly as dominant as he was in 2015. Still, Indians are supposed to be a good breaking ball team and Jake likes to drop in breaking pitches once in a while as an out pitch IIRC. Still, if his location is on maybe he pitches a gem.
As a Cardinals fan, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between Kluber and Chris Carpenter. About the same side, similar pitch selection, and even similar mechanics.
It’s a little early to speak in terms of trajectory after only one game and won by their best starter by far. Now if the Indians win tonight, then we have an established trajectory. With the pitching matchups in this series, Game 1 was nearly a Must Win for the Indians.
Not actually true. The Chicago City Series was a big deal, upon a time, though not directly for many people watching today.
Missed that part of the post, but they definitely played a mid-season exhibition game against each other in the 80s and early 90s. Hard for me to find information on it, but if you scroll down to post #13 here, it confirms what I said in my previous post, except that apparently there were not 1, but 2 ties. White Sox went 10-0-2 in those years. Looks like they also had exhibition games before that, but it’s the “Crosstown Classic” that I remember as a kid.
Sorry, but no.
Home field is not irrelevant, especially in terms of a loud home crowd inspiring the players to greater effort, and the advantage of batting second, but the dimensions and quirks of the park are far, far, far less significant to the issue of home field advantage.
The idea that you would make an argument for the “ceiling in a domed stadium” or “the backstop depth behind home plate” as actual, significant factors is, quite frankly, preposterous. And the lighting? Please. Sure, the green monster at Fenway requires some experience, but that is an incredibly unusual outlier in terms of stadium dimensions and characteristics.
Yes, a fly-ball pitcher will give up more homers in a smaller stadium than a larger one. On average, about 10 percent of fly balls go for home runs, but in larger parks that drops to about 7 or 8 percent. But park factors are far less important here than measures like the type of hits that a pitcher allows, and what type of batter he’s facing.
As this article notes, “Line drives are death to pitchers, while ground balls are the best for a pitcher.” And that is true in a small ballpark or a large one. And, as RickJay suggests, a pitcher will pitch to his own strengths and a batter’s weaknesses; changing that in order to pitch to some nebulous idea about park differences would be absolutely bonkers.
If I’m Jon Lester’s manager, I’m telling him in spring training:
“Son, you are going to learn how to keep runners on first. If you stink at it, you are going to practice throwing over there until you get it right.”
I assume he gets a free pass on this because he’s so good. But if I’m playing defense and somebody is on first, I’d be screaming at him to keep the guy on.
If Cleveland steals something stupid like 5 bases in his next start, Cubs fans are gonna start screaming.
Ah, cool. In-season exhibitions! I miss the one in Cooperstown.
Bullitt:
Are you excluding the Wild Card Game from the category of “postseason”? Because in 2014, the Royals were WC1, not WC2 - the A’s had the (however slightly) worse record.
It seems to me that there is always a bit of animosity among teams that exist in the same city, even if they are in separate leagues. As a Mets fan, I can say that we hate the Yankees as much as anyone (yes, even Red Sox fans); though Yankees fans will indicate that they really don’t care about the Mets that much. Similar reasons as pointed out as the Cubs - White Sox rivalry; the Yankees are seen as the team of the rich and the Mets are more working-class.
Very much the same dynamic, here in the Bay Area. A’s fans are hugely resentful of the Giants success. Giants fans don’t think much about the A’s, at all.
I agree. I and one of my brothers are Yankees fans, my other three brothers are Mets fans. Mets fans hate the Yankees with a passion, while Yankees fans feel the Mets are too insignificant to hate.
It’s even worse between the Yankees and Mets because of the differing success of the two teams. The two Chicago teams have been almost equally futile over most of their history.
Pete Rose says it’s Cleveland’s year. Is he right? If they beat Arrieta, he may be.