On Ed Sherman's Coming Out Day

Tribune columnist Ed Sherman came out today as a Sox fan: "In the interest of full disclosure, and to blunt any accusations that I write for the Cubune, I am a lifelong, diehard Sox fan."

That was brave of Ed. It's like standing up in an AA meeting and shouting, "But I like beer." He's probably getting a lot of stares today at the office. From other Tribune employees in their cub-icles.

But Ed also came out for a political reason, because he was about to say something that he knew would have Sox fans all over his sorry hide. It was something, in fact, that no lifelong, diehard Sox fan would ever say, because it was something based on seeing the world through Cubune-colored glasses. Ed said, "I think there's only one story that could knock the '85 Bears from the top spot: the Cubs winning the World Series. Given their cult-like following, a Cubs title would be a local and national story of unimaginable magnitude."

Actually, no it won't. I mean, nationally it would be a big story for a couple days because the Tribune media have the national stage all set for the story — the century of suckage and curses and billy goats and all that nausea. But on the national screen, that ends in a day or two. Blip, it's over, what else is new? In Chicago, the Cubs' championship would also get a lot of play in media pre-programmed to give it a lot of play, but it will never be a bigger story than the Sox championship in 2005, and here's why:

If Ed really is a lifelong, diehard White Sox fan, then Ed knows, as we all do, that all those bloody noses and black eyes on the playgrounds of Chicago (and between Chicagoans on the playgrounds of America) for the last seven or eight decades were not just about which team was better, they were about a race – the race to end Chicago's World Series championship drought.

And that race is over.

No matter who won the fight on the playground that day, the real victor was the kid whose team won the World Series first. We all knew that, Sox fans and Cubs fans alike. And 2005 is a moment the Cubs can never replicate. Even if the Cubs win the World Series, they don't even tie the White Sox. They're just playing catch-up, and they would still be one championship behind.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there wouldn't be a huge celebration if the Cubs won a World Series. There would be an enormous, loud, drunken, stupid, and probably violent celebration, but that celebration would be a little forced. Some Cubs fans would be celebrating sincerely, but a lot of Cubs fans would be trying a little too hard because that's what they think they're supposed to do, and all would be endeavoring to fill an inexplicable inadequacy, for any celebration would be undercut by the inescapable fact of history that the White Sox did it first.

In the recordbooks of Chicago baseball history, no year will shine like 2005, not for at least another century. And I don't think the Cubs can ever match the beauty or enormity of what happened on October 28, 2005, an event the Tribune amazingly still has not registered, with 1.75 million Sox fans on the streets of Chicago, in the middle of a work day, people of all races, creeds, colors, and kinds, celebrating wildly and peacefully. There was only one arrest: a guy trying to steal one of the city's Sox banners off of a light pole. It was the largest public gathering in Chicago history, and the Tribune continues to play it down.

Even though Ed came out as a "lifelong, diehard White Sox fan," he might not realize that he's wearing the blinders that come with that paycheck. He might spend a little too much of his time with the Cubs fans in that tower, and that might skew his view of reality a little bit, not to mention his view of Chicago. Ed thinks a Cubs championship would be a big story because the Cubs have a "cult-like following," but they really don't have a cult-like following. Cults tend to be arcane and mystifying to the mainstream media, like White Sox fans. And cults tend to wear black.

There certainly are lifelong, diehard Cubs fans who are born into the Cubs tradition (a tragic fate) and who cling to it with the same ferocity that we follow our Sox. We've all met them. But anyone who knows Chicago knows that's not entirely who fills Wrigley Field 81 days a year, driving up ticket prices, and it's not who fills the bars of Wrigleyville, endowing them with the relentless charm of a frat party and the unmistakable perfume of vomited Old Style.

The Cubs' following is populated by a preponderance of corn-fed squares who migrate to Chicago from all over the Midwest, take jobs in the Loop, take apartments in Wrigleyville (or thereabouts), and don Cubs gear as the off-duty uniform of the stereotypical young upwardly mobile professional Chicagoan, as that stereotype has been portrayed in the media, thanks largely to the Tribune, but not entirely (See "My Boys").

They root for the Cubs because that's what they think they're supposed to do. Look, let's say you're at a Wrigleyville party. Why do you do that beer bong? Because you feel it in your bones like destiny or religion? No, you do that beer bong because everyone else at the party is doing the beer bong, and now they're all looking at you and shouting "woo, woo." The very same thing is true of the Cubs. Here's the plan: move to Chicago, get a good job, get an apartment off the Red or Brown line, go to the clubs, be a Cubs fan, go to Wrigley, that's the routine. When the routine's over, so is your devotion.

Those Cubs fans look diehard for the moment, because that's how they think they're supposed to look while having fun, but they temper their Cubbie sorrows with quiet allegiances to the Twins (Steve Rhodes), the Cardinals, the Reds, the Tigers.

That's not a cult following. That's a marketing success. And like all marketing successes, it lasts until the next marketing success. Remember the Sony Walkman? It appeared to have a cult-like following too, but now those people have iPods. Statistics showed quite a few members of the Cubs "cult" jumping on the White Sox bandwagon last season, scaring the Tribune enough to spend about $300 million this winter. With the Tribune in the Cubs' corner, the Sox may need a few more championships to be like the iPod, but that's just fine with us. Honestly, our cult-like following will outlast any marketing success for either team.

This is a brave new world, and Tribune reporters can't see it.

The Cubs will never top a 2005 championship that ended nine decades of drought for Chicago. See this trophy? You can't touch this.