The soul of the Sox

[Controlled Chaos]

The soul of the Sox

 

By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports

October 24, 2005

 

CHICAGO – Everyone by now has heard that the Chicago White Sox, just two games from defeating the Houston Astros to capture their first World Series since 1917, aren't the most popular team in their own city. The Second City's Second Team, everyone says.

 

And everyone is correct.

 

The real reason is simple, of course. The Chicago Cubs have better bars – or at least bigger, brighter, more youthfully cool bars – surrounding their home field. And there are way more of them, too. Some are so close to the action they have seating on their roofs that look into Wrigley Field – Murphy's Bleachers isn't just a cute name; the place has actual bleachers to watch the action.

 

Jimbo's doesn't have anything like that. It is a small, crowded, classic corner bar – 33rd and Princeton – just down the railroad tracks from U.S. Cellular Field, here on the South Side. It's a quintessential neighborhood joint in the Bridgeport neighborhood and most of the people who jammed the place over the weekend for the first two games of the World Series not only know Jimbo's well, but they also know the actual Jimbo.

 

"He's a good guy," said Nick Contos, 50.

 

If you want to know the difference between the Cubs and the White Sox, you just need to know the difference between each team's landmark fan bar – Jimbo's and the Cubby Bear.

 

One is freshly renovated, has an extensive beer selection and features oversized plasma TVs. The other prides itself on an old ball collection. After games, one turns into a dance club; the other turns up the classic rock. One is where poets and journalists feel most at home. The other attracts plumbers and bus drivers. "F--- Wrigleyville," said Terry Lacino, a 38-year-old carpenter, while drinking a Miller at Jimbo's on Saturday. "You think I want some yuppie pissin' on my lawn?"

 

South Side Pride

 

The way Ozzie Guillen's charmed team has played the last three weeks, almost nothing can bother a White Sox fan. Almost. But the city, and its media's (at least perceived) Cubs bias, has come close.

 

"I read all these stories about Cubs and White Sox fans," said Lacino of the spat of World Series inspired coverage. "How come (each) time the writer goes to Wrigleyville and talks to Cubs fans? Why don't they talk to us? What's the (expletive) Cubs got to do with this?"

 

The one thing you do hear about Bridgeport is that it is a working class neighborhood, and that is mostly correct. But that shouldn't be confused with run-down. While parts of the area (especially the farther south of the stadium you go) are certainly increasingly tough, it is much improved since the 2004 razing of the notorious Robert Taylor housing projects.

 

It is your classic city neighborhood, where you know not just the guy down the street but you knew his father, who probably worked with your dad for the city or at the stockyards or at the Butler Street Foundry. It's where Russo's Deli and Fratelini's Pizza have fed generations after Little League games at Armory Park.

 

"It's the best (neighborhood) because it's where I grew up," reasoned John Reilly, a 43-year-old pipe fitter, as he stood on the corner outside Jimbo's on Saturday night while taking the scene in.

 

While it isn't the loft-filled, hip, college-and-young-professional neighborhood around Wrigley, Bridgeport does lay claim as the home of five mayors, including the current Hizzoner, Richard M. Daley.

 

The alleys may be tight and the homes are on top of each other, but many of the older places here have been beautifully renovated, with kept-up yards and tree-lined streets. The north neighborhood is mostly Italian, Irish and Chinese; the south is more African-American and Hispanic.

 

It isn't a coincidence that one reason the White Sox are so beloved is because they are a mix of races – white, black, Hispanic, even Asian. The general manager, Kenny Williams, is a rare black baseball executive. The loveable manager, Guillen, hails from Venezuela.

 

"Black people don't go to Wrigleyville," said J.T. Williams, a 40-year-old African-American, as he stood outside a house off 38th Street where a Game 1 viewing party was being held. "No one wants to say it. But I'm saying it."

 

Black people do go to Cubs games, of course. Just not in the numbers they do for the White Sox. Really, it is South Side people of all colors who steer clear of Wrigleyville.

 

"I never go up there," said Reilly, who is white.

 

Historic neighborhood

 

"This is just pretty much a hardcore, blue-collar neighborhood," Contos said. "It's real down to earth. Many of these people hand down their buildings from generation to generation. Their great grandparents moved here in the 1800s, (and) they built the subways, the roads. These people were the backbone of Chicago."

 

In contrast, Wrigleyville attracts the young professionals who move to the city for high-paying jobs. Many of them attended Northwestern or DePaul and stuck around.

 

"Wrigleyville is mostly people from Nebraska who take the train to work downtown," mocked Contos. "These are true (White Sox) fans in this neighborhood."

 

True fans, indeed. The Sox may not have won it all in 88 years, but seemingly every house and every apartment has a pennant or a sign in the window. Some Cubs fans may have jumped on the White Sox bandwagon, reasoning they will root for any Chicago team. No one here could envision a scenario they would ever root for the Cubs, though.

 

"Never," Williams said. "Never. Never."

 

Over the weekend, as their team finally played in the Series, Bridgeport was crowded with friends and families at block parties and picnics. Fathers brought their children. Children brought their fathers.

 

And a lot of them wound up at Jimbo's, or a dozen humble places just like it, to watch the game, to grab an Old Style, to witness history and to share in the warmth of the neighborhood on a cold, grey, wet day.

 

There wasn't a dance club or martini joint in sight.

 

"This is the best," said Lacino with a nod.

 

Wrigleyville it isn't. And isn't that just perfect.

[Milkman delivers]

Armory Park? I think they mean Armor.