If You're Going to Be a Bitch, You Better F**kin' Win

Three or four years ago, as my casual interest in the Chicago Cubs was solidifying into today’s rabid obsession, a fight completely reenergized their season. In a game against the Cinncinati Reds reliever Kyle Farnsworth went high and tight on pitcher Paul Wilson. Wilson took exception to the pitch and charged the mound. Farnsworth, without the slightest hesitation, became a Chicago Cub legend when he speared Wilson to the ground before the poor guy knew what hit him. Benches cleared, punches were thrown, etc., etc.

It’s the last altercation I recall up until today’s incident between Michael Barrett and White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski, but whereas Farnsworth’s ferocious tackle of Wilson ignited an average team into a driven one, Barrett’s blunt right cross only compounded a disappointing and frustrating season for Cubs fans.

I’m as ardent a Blue Blood as there is, but I can’t even begin to justify Barrett’s actions. Sure he took quite a hit from Pierzynski on that sac-fly play at the plate, but it was a clean hit. There was a fair amount of conjecture regarding why Barrett swung on A.J. Maybe AJ slapping the plate set Barrett off. Maybe it was AJ bumping into him after the play. Maybe words were exchanged. Whatever. When you’re the best hitter on the worst hitting team in the Majors, you have to have a better sense of your team’s situation before starting a barroom brawl in the heart of the lion’s den.

Now, I’m sure there are some simple-minded Cubs fans out there who cheered Barrett’s moxie. I found it embarrassing. It’s likely I’m a fool, but I have yet to give up on this season. I still want the Cubs to win. Those Cubs fans who cheer one punch as a victory have so diminished their expectations for their team that I can’t even look them in the eye. I don’t want the high point of my baseball season to be something that has absolutely nothing to do with baseball.

I’ve never been zealous about rivalries, mostly because such zealotry would spoil my ability to watch really great baseball. I guess I could hate the Cardinals, but I no rational baseball fan could ever utter the words “Pujols sucks.” I could hate the White Sox, I suppose, but they’re one of the most exciting teams to watch in Major Leagues. And the fact that today’s incident happened in the heat of the Cubs first series with the White Sox makes it so much more shameful in my eyes.

The White Sox are the best team in baseball, and the Cubs have been playing like a glorified farm team. If the White Sox are an exquisite Rembrant or Van Gogh, the Chicago Cubs are a notebook doodle. Watching these two teams, it’s like they’re playing a different game. Though it would have seemed three years ago that the Cubs would have the pitching staff of legend, Wood and Prior can’t stay healthy and Zambrano needs therapy. Meanwhile the White Sox have assembled a startlingly efficient starting pitching staff to compliment its aggressive offensive style. The Cubs are last in nearly every offensive category that matters. They’ve got a Triple-A pitching staff. Fielding? Nevermind. I think I’ll just stop. As a fan of baseball -- good baseball -- the Cubs are nauseating. When Michael Barrett took his shot at Pierzynski, he was essentially telling the Sox “We can’t beat you at baseball, so we’re going to get our shots in where we can.”

Fuck that. If you’re gonna be a bitch, you better fuckin’ win. The Cubs could not have looked more ridiculous as a ball club today. Leading up to the Pierzynski play, Cubs starter Rich Hill walked the bases loaded. Then Michael Barrett looks like a punk slugging AJ on a clean play (the punch, by the way, did nothing but fire up the Sox as Pierzynski went into the dugout beating his chest and shrugging off the hit). Then, two batters later Tadahito Iguchi took Hill into left center for a grand slam. Barrett’s punch made the Cubs look small; the Sox dominance of the game made them look smaller. The Sox won the day from every possible angle. They took the game 7-0, and the South Siders looked like the bigger (and better) team by letting their play, rather than their punches, speak for them.

I remember learning about the enmity between Sox fans and Cubs fans when I gave my cousin Brian (a Sox fan) Cubs Monopoly for Christmas 2003 (the year the Cubs made the playoffs and the White Sox collapsed late in the season). He didn’t speak to me for three months. At the time, I had no understanding of the intense dislike the teams, and the fans, had for each other. Always looking for the higher ground, I attributed the Sox’ animosity to petty jealousy. How quickly the tables have turned.

While the Cubs flounder with their unearned (and largely undeserved) national popularity, the Sox are actually earning a following (of which I now include myself) by doing the job, by playing fantastic baseball. There has been a sense of entitlement on the North Side ever since our oh-so-close playoff appearance in 2003. While the Cubs coasted on the goodwill afforded them by that miraculous year, the South Siders were busting their asses, working towards a championship.

A what? That’s right. A championship. And they earned it. Up until their absolute dominance in the post-season, despite having the best record in baseball, it seemed that nobody actually thought they would win the whole thing. But they didn’t bitch and moan and cry that they weren’t getting the attention they deserved. They went out and earned the love by playing great baseball, some of the best post-season baseball in the history of the game.

Meanwhile, our Cubs sat in their homes through October, their hands out, wondering why it wasn’t them. Weren’t the Cubs the loveable ones in Chi-town? Weren’t they the team everybody wanted in the post-season? Perhaps, but the Sox went out and earned our adoration, our respect. The Cubs, on the other hand, take our love for granted.

I was frustrated with the Cubs long before this afternoon, but after today I can barely stand to look at them. Today’s melee was sad and pathetic. It was a desperate act of frustration that illustrated the unfortunate mindset the Cubs are in this season. Instead of buckling down and focusing on the game, they’re lashing out like teenagers, and for this Cubs fan, it’s embarrassing.

I’m going Cub free for the next week. I’m not watching a game. I’m not visiting a website. I just don’t want to bother with them right now. I want to watch some real baseball for a change. So I’m gonna scour ESPN and see if I can’t find a good game or two away from those lovable losers (who get less lovable by the day).

Of course, I’ll come back. I still love the franchise. I love the field. I love the city. I love the tradition. But I need a break. I need to see other teams, teams that have their shit together. Maybe when I come back, The Cubs will be ready to play some real baseball. If not, I know there’s a team just across the way that already is.