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I Put On For My City

As pitchers and catchers report and I buy tickets for my annual pilgrimage to Mesa, AZ, it’s hard to escape the feeling that this year could be ours. With the young, revitalized Hawks on top of the division, one has to wonder if it’s time for Chicago to end another drought. As the trade deadline looms in the NBA, we are offered a glimmer of hope towards a Bulls playoff run. Throughout all the trials and tribulations, ups and downs, living and dying with our teams, expecting nothing less than perfection, coping with disappointment and finally rejoicing when a team does it, rooting for Chicago teams is a truly unique experience…

“I hear that Cali never rains and New York’s all the Way”. I’ll let Pac keep cali and Hov can stay in that Empire State of Mind. Give me an Old Style, a hot dog with everything and 10 great songs from one great year. Give me 75 MPH on lakeshore drive…speeding towards The Drake and the Hancock with the water to your left, taking an “s” curve to reveal Navy Pier in all its shimmering glory. Give me wide open express lanes on the Kennedy barreling towards the greatest skyline on earth, emerging from Hubbard’s Cave in the middle of a glass and steel canopy that is the West Loop.

You can have your Coliseum, your Garden, your palatial new Stadium. Give me bricks and ivy, the Madhouse on Madison and a stadium that’s a living monument. Give me the Irish an hour away on I-80 and the Golden Eagles and hour north on 94.

Keep your models, actresses and PoweR Girls. Give me a chick who can drink me under the table, wake up in time Sunday NFL Countdown and really get what I mean when I say “I hate the fucking Packers”.(Holy shit! You’re wearing an Urlacher jersey and you made chili? What’s your name, soul-mate?)

Skip the ultra-lounges, nightclubs, bars with lines and doormen. I’ll take a Lakeview pub, a Jeff Park dive or a backyard. Give me a grill, a pong table (yes, it’s called “beer pong”) and a game of bags*.

I’ve seen most of the “coast” and a lot of the Atlantic Seaboard. I’d rather cruise the bizarre corridor of the Illinois Tollroad from Chicago to Milwaukee featuring such gems as a gold plated pyramid, that “study natural law house”, Apple Holler, The Brat Stop, Mars Cheese Castle and culminates in our neighbor to the north – which is only good for eating yourself into a coma or drinking yourself to death (also not a bad place to catch a ballgame).

When it comes to sports, don’t even fuck with us. This is a city with a sports following so rabid that fights break out between fans of baseball teams that play in the same town. If pitchers and catchers haven’t reported yet, we don’t even waste time on our divisional rivals (but since we’re on the subject, FUCK the Cardinals.) Sports figures and fans can be made or broken in Chicago. Won the Superbowl in ’85? Take my first born! Snatched up 6 rings in the 90’s? You should run for Mayor! Try to catch a foul ball? Pay attention asshole! Bam! Death threats! Beat the Packers this week? You’re a future Hall of Famer! Lose to the Vikes next week? Bench that asshole! Being a Chicago sports fan goes beyond loving our teams, idolizing our heroes and vilifying the failures, it’s about hating (with a vengeance) our rivals. “Get the fuck out of here with that Donald Driver jersey! And look at this asshole! A Favre Vikings jersey!?!?! Do I really have to explain to you all the things wrong with that!?!”

Chicago sports is all encompassing. It covers every major sport, starting on the high school level and reaching all the way up through college to the pros and for every team we love, there’s even more teams we hate. It starts with where you went to high school. If you were blessed enough to come up in the Chicago Catholic League, then all suburban leagues are a joke and the Chicago Public League is a glorified basketball conference. Rivalries run deep in the CCL/GCAC and loyalties are not split. From basketball and baseball to hockey, wrestling, football even volleyball and soccer you won’t find too many fans of the Loyola Ramblers and the Mount Carmel Caravan or The Providence Celtics and Joliet Catholic Hilltoppers. Nobody in the history of Chicago has ever rooted for Regina and Resurrection or Loyola and Mother MacAuley. Whether it’s football, basketball or girls’ soccer, communities live and die with their high school teams.

When it comes to collegiate athletics, the Chicagoland area is a hotbed of competition. To the South, you’ve got The Chief, to the east, The Irish, to the north, The Golden Eagles and to the west, The Wolfpack. You’ve got the Wildcats on the North Shore and the Ramblers and Blue Demons on the North Side with the Flames representing the South Side. Everyone in Chicago has their own allegiances and they stick by their team through good and bad. In Chicago it’s not who you root for or how you root, but that you root.

Chicago’s five major professional sports teams are the proud owners of a combined 23 titles as well as some of the longest title droughts in sports. Luckily, they also have some of the world’s most dedicated, bloodthirsty and absolutely insane fans. Fans who singlehandedly demolished disco in the 70’s, Superbowl Shuffled in the 80’s, rioted in the 90’s and who every year, without fail believe that this could be the year – for all of our teams, whether they last won it all in 2005, 1998, 1985, 1961 or 1908. It’s not about what happened last year, last month, last week, last game or last inning. In Chicago, we live in the now, we expect the miraculous, even the impossible. We know greatness, we know winning and we expect nothing less from our athletes.

Chicago has no casual fans. There’s no room for divided loyalties. We raise our sons and daughters not just to love the Bears, but to hate the Packers and the Vikings (more especially, any quarterback who’s played for both). It’s not enough just to love the Cubs. You must loathe the Sox and the Cards. The Knicks haven’t been relevant in 15 years? Yeah, well Ewing was still an asshole! And don’t even get me started in the mother fucking Pistons. Speaking of Detroit, Hawks fans of all ages will tell you that the most important fact you can know about hockey (more important than the Hawks all-time leading scorer, more important than any stat) is that DETROIT SUCKS!

So let me root, root, root for the home team – and only the home team. Let me down an a Hamms (or a Goose Island if we’re being fancy). Turn up “Saturday in the Park” and break me off a slice of Lou’s deep dish, toss me a fresh Cubbie Blue New Era cap, because there’s no city on Earth I’d rather put on for than Sweet Home Chicago.

*Ever try to describe a game of “bags” to someone not from the Midwest? “So, what’s the point?” “What? You try to get the bags in the hole and the first team to 21 wins.” “Yeah, but when do you drink?” “The whole time.”

-Wild