Here’s (almost) all you need to know about the Midwestern intercity interleague rivalry that was once one of the biggest in baseball:
Cubs Vs. White Sox: A Rivalry Subdued
36,005.
That was the paid attendance last night on the South Side of Chicago at the ballpark most in the city call "The Cell"; in the 79th meeting between the two teams since interleague play began, it is the first one that was not a sellout (about 4,000 short of capacity). Large swaths of empty seats dotted the left and right field corners, as well as the bleachers in left-center field. Fans of both teams seemed rather subdued most of Monday evening; with the Cubs entering the game with a double-digit deficit in the NL Central and the White Sox seemingly unable to crack the .500 mark, baseball fandom in Chicago these days can be best described with the word "apathy" than anything else.
And this in a city where, since interleague play began, one or both teams were in the postseason in 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008 and were serious contenders in 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2010. This year, neither team looks like it’s going anywhere in October but home.
In past years, you could have seen taunting and fights in many parts of either US Cellular Field or Wrigley Field when blue-clad Cubs fans and Sox fans wearing black got together. Monday night, there were mostly bored yawns from both sides; Paul Konerko's first-inning home run gave the Sox a 3-0 lead and briefly got Sox fans out of their seats, not only to cheer for their team but to hope that Cubs starter Carlos Zambrano would have a meltdown, as he did one year ago in the same location. The three first-inning runs were actually an improvement for Big Z; he gave up four in the first in 2010 before his dugout tirade led to anger management classes and a stay on the restricted list.
Sox fans wound up disappointed if they were waiting for that. Whether it was the classes or something else, Zambrano settled down and gave up just four hits until giving way to Carlos Marmol in the ninth. Meanwhile, the Cubs cut the deficit to 3-2 in the third and then hit two home runs in one inning -- I couldn't blame my television for showing me something I couldn't believe, because this one I witnessed in person -- to take the lead 6-3 in the sixth. Starlin Castro's solo shot was his first in more than two months; Carlos Pena hit a three-run bomb after appearing to ground out to first base (the ball was ruled foul, and Pena got another chance).
The biggest excitement of the evening came when Sox manager Ozzie Guillen came out to argue a play where Alexei Ramirez hit a dribbler in front of the plate and was tagged out by Cubs catcher Geovany Soto. Ozzie (and Alexei, because he didn't run) thought the ball was foul. Plate umpire James Hoye disagreed and tossed Ozzie, causing Ozzie to put on a dirt-kicking show that appeared to be a calculated tirade, similar to the one then-Cubs manager Lou Piniella threw to try to fire up his moribund team in June 2007.
It briefly got the Sox fans in the crowd going, but Zambrano silenced them by shutting down White Sox bats. It remains to be seen whether anything can re-fire this once-lively rivalry.
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