Cubs and White Sox uphold Chicago tradition
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Chicago: The Second City ... or maybe the fifth ... or sixth?
Singer/song writer Steve Goodman once asked: ‘Do they still sing the blues in Chicago?’ Well, what do you think?
The Cubs trail the Dodgers, 2-0, in their best-of-five division series, so it looks like 100 years and counting. Billy Goats, black cats and Steve Bartman will be dissected on (Hot) Windy City talk radio a while longer.
Meanwhile, the White Sox trail the Tampa Bay Rays, 2-0, in their division series. The Tampa Bay Rays! A team that plays in a stadium with a slanted roof. There may even be one or two among the Rays’ fan base in retirement-friendly St. Petersburg who saw the Cubs win a World Series.
The Blackhawks haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1961, a 47-year drought that is the longest in the NHL (though the Kings, as runners-up, are right there to assume the crown). Tampa Bay has even won a Stanley Cup in that time (2004).
Chicago anniversaries worth noting this year: the 1968 Democratic Convention and the Bulls 1998 NBA title, their last, which was followed by the second of Michael Jordan’s three retirements. Next year celebrate the Cubs’ collapse of 1969.
About the only ticker-tape-parade moment Chicagoans have had recently is when quarterback Rex Grossman lost his starting job with Da Bears.
-- Chris Foster
