Dan,

My sympathies and condolences. You must be from Connecticut. So am I. Fate has cruelly made a Red Sox fan of me as well. I got the affliction at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore while watching the Orioles handily whip the smaller and less talented Red Sox. Don Buddin was their shortstop then. Underdog rooters are particularly susceptible to the Red Sox fever. I think it must be a mental defect that causes a person to pick the most hopeless cause, out of all the other causes. To invite such pain.

You fool yourself into thinking each time they get close, that you won't care so much this time. Foolishness. The agony of 1978's Bucky Dent home run, was easily eclipsed by game 6, 1986. I helplessly implored Rich Gedman to ask for the inside heat and get that World Series ending strike three. I watched in despair as he refused to budge from the outside corner. I sat stunned as Mets batters just stuck out the bat and turned successive strike threes into a game tying rally. And finally, Bill Buckner.

What emotional trauma awaits us this year? Perhaps we think we are now immune. Not so. Our optimism will return. We'll believe again.

Let's go Mets!

Ahhh, the radio or TV is on as background noise w/the WS on, Cubs win it, Ronnie has his last moments of lucidity and enjoyment and then passes on happy w/a smile on his face. "And a possible, "They did it!" as his last words.

Should it be that easy for the rest of us.

Question #2: Why is it that the Cubs have become such lovable bums, while nobody even notices that the White Sox have gone almost as long without a title?

Re: White Sox. You're not going back to the series because, in order--
Ed Cicotte
Joe Jackson
Chic Gandil
Claude "Lefty" Williams
Fred McMullin,
Charles "Swede" Risberg
Oscar "Happy" Felsch
and of course
Buck Weaver--not to mention Charlie Comiskey.

Ya did have Disco Destruction Night in the '70s. Be happy.

As a one-time White Sox fan, I have to say-- Go Marlins!

Finally! The baseball floodgates open wide!

Dan, I'm with you on Will and Brooks--these are the arguments of people who've spent too much time on the set of "Meet the Press" and not enough in the (oops, nonexistent DC area) ballpark. Will is a scold who probably stood by the Cubs because it gave him an excuse to be gloomy. Brooks, I dunno, generally I like him but he's not big on the grassroots culture that nurtures baseball mania--too much time in Montgomery County Starbucks with the other bobos.

Who knows why people choose "their" teams? My kid likes the Cubs because he was born in the shadow of Wrigley (though he moved just shy of his first birthday). What does he know? "Sammy Sosa" feels like poetry on the tongue. That's enough for a six year old. Then this summer my sister gives him a kid's "Sports Illustrated" subscription and in the first issue there's a poster of Matsui. Boom, he's a Yankee fan and I'm tearing my hair out. Serves me right for not buying him that Nomar shirt earlier.

To my mind, there's zero correlation between baseball and politics. Zero. Except, maybe, for the fact that when I was a screaming liberal you would never have caught me at a ballpark and now that I'm more of a moderate (or as my friends would put it, fascist)I'm thinking about mortgaging the house to buy tickets to a Cubs-Red Sox world series. I guess that means I have at least as much testosterone coursing through my veins right now as David Brooks. Bring him on!

But if we must bring politics into the sacred grove of baseball, let's do it right. I propose a draft Wakefield for President movement; his motto "Better a Knuckleballer than a Knucklehead in the White House." Who's with me?

BTW, it has been raining heavily here in Chicago. It is God, nature, Karma,fate, etc., mconspiring to make sure the Cubs do not win the pennant.

And if it is a Cus/Sox World Series, and they go to 7 games, you will find me in hiding a church, as it is obvious that the end is nigh

George Will is a congenital liar--there are no liberals in Central Illinois and hence his entire claim is false. I know, I'm the last the last to leave...and I'm Cub fan.

(all meant in jest for the satire impaired)

1. Did the NYT's op-editors insist that Brooks talk about testosterone? Must be in the stylebook or something.

2. Speaking as a lifelong conservative, Yankee-hating Mets fan, equating Yankee financial dominance with the results of a free market is a serious error. Sports is supposed to be about starting out even, and running the risk of failure. Yankee fandom eschews both. One thing I will say, though, is that when I went to a McCain rally in 2000, I saw lots of Mets hats and few Yankees; I guess Mets fans were more drawn to the thrill of the doomed insurgency.

I'm with those who say there is no correlation between sports and politics. How else can you explain the conservative Cincinnati Reds organization's popularity and success during the Cold War?

I'm a lifelong Reds fan who briefly began to root for the Yankees in the mid-70s until I witnessed the orgy of self-congratulation Yankees fans bestowed upon themselves following the 1977 World Series. (I was 14 at the times and I had never seen the Yankees be any good before -- little did I know how obnoxious the fans were.)

After all, there was not this kind of cheering when they were the 1972-74 Oakland A's, was there? That's when I realized Yankees and Yankee fans are black-hearted, mercenary frauds who ruin God's blessed game with their meretricious antics punctuated only by outright cheating. Do the names Arnold Johnson and Jeffrey Maier ring any bells?

Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the Babylonians in the Bible. The angle is less political (left v. right) than existential (evil v. good).

Not that I'm tendentious about the issue.

I've learned from this playoff race that Cub fans are more chilled about their history of futility, whereas BoSox fans actually think that next year might actually BE the year. Well, Drezner, lemme tell ya.........they don't call them the f**ckin' Yankees for nothin'!! See here

Pro baseball fans, passionate? Pfffft. You want to see hate, go to a college football stadium in the SEC. New Yorkers and Bostonians wouldn't last ten minutes at an Auburn-Alabama game.

CRANK: "thrill of the doomed" left me LMAO.
but you are all wet about the money aspects of the Yankee domination. Your beloved Metsies blew a whole lotta dough to end up dead last.

Try growing up in NH, as a girl who likes the Yankees and the Canadiens and for some strange reason becomes a Republican, while her dad is a staunch union democrat who likes the Sox and Bruins...

Can only be rebellion...but I havent changed my views...my dad just thinks I was born to torture him.

Yankees in 7, yanks/cubs..yanks in 5

as someone born and raised with sight and sound of the stadium i think i can safely say that the red sox will never defeat the yankees in a championship series because to do so would be violate the fundamental order of the universe. nothing travels faster than light, oil and water will always separate, frogs sell beer [i miss those lizards] the pope is polish, and the red sox are losers, god's in his heaven and all's right with the world.

"Cub fans are more chilled about their history of futility"

Chilled? "Resigned" might be a better word, and so we go forth and root for our Cubs, hoping that THIS year is the one spoken of when they say "Wait 'til next year," and unsurprised when it turns out that it isn't... again.

It was the damned goat, I tell ya... but THAT curse was transferred to the Houston Astros this year (http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/williams_john/links.htm), so maybe... just maybe...

Go Cubs!

I'm an Angels fan who grew up in Cleveland, rooting for the Indians. It's not political, it's a matter of attitude. Those of us who like Horatio Alger endings are rooting for the Cubs and the Red Sox 'cause underdogs make better stories. The Yankees are perhaps closer to conservative values, but rooting for the Yanks is like rooting for the IRS. You win but you're sorry about it.

Anybody who roots for a team contary to his home-town ties is a person of low character. That's rule number one. Obviously, many folks have no home stake in this one, nor any family members in one of the involved cities. They're off the hook. But anybody who is an A's fan has to be rooting against the Sox, just on principle. Somebody in North Dakota has to be rooting for the team that will make a relative in Boston or Chicago happy.

But if somebody grew up in New England and became a Padres fan, then they're just weird. I don't care what their reasons are. The Conservative/Liberal distinction, in these matters, is baloney.

(PS - I don't normally go for the "insensitivity" arguments, but... Braves fans, stop the stupid war dance, shut up, and watch the game. Your team will appreciate it, maybe they'd stay in the playoffs longer if they were less embarrassed.)

"But if somebody grew up in New England and became a Padres fan, then they're just weird."

Count me weird then. I'm an A's fan (THE A's fan?) that grew up in the Boston area. The Evil Empire may have destroyed the notion of competitive balance in baseball but the Red Sox are surely their accomplices.

Don't know about Fenway, but Wrigley is NOT taxpayer subsidized, unike the $600 million for Soldier Field and $? for Comiskey (er US Cellular). Economically, the Cubs are more conservative than most teams because they do not slop at the trough of public funds for entertainment served up by Democrats and Republicans. On the property rights level, the Cubs are fighting King Daley from declaring Wrigley a landmark prohibiting them from making changes that are not King Daley approved.

RE: some of the Buckner/1986 Game#6 comments. Red Sox fans need to stop blaming Billy Buckner. Boston had already blown a 2 run, 10th inning lead before that play. The blame should be placed with the manager and Calvin Shiraldi/Bob Stanley. Anybody but the Yankees!!!

FWIW Theo Epstein is left-leaning and the Red Sox are owned in some part by the New York Times.
________________________________________________
The Yankees imperial regime of pure evil is the perfect baseball counterpart to the hegemonist illegality of the White House. It is a tough debate as to which George has done more harm to the United States.

The Cubs just had their Buckner moment, with the pop fly being muffed by the fan over the railing as Chicago led with two outs in the eighth. Now they will lose Game 7 to the Fish. It is written, so shall it be.

I say this as a fervent Red Sox fan who feels the Cubs fans' pain. In the nature vs. nurture sports debate. I'm in the nurture department. My grandfather was stationed in Rhode Island when my father was growing up, and they'd drive up to Boston to see Ted Williams at the end of his career. Thus, I was raised as a third generation Red Sox fan (even in Memphis and now Atlanta), and will do whatever it takes to end the reign of the Evil Empire. Yankees suck!

I'm sick of the Red Sox fans looking for a scapegoat for the 1986 World Series. How about acknowledging that the Mets made an incredible comeback? Three straight Mets came up with two outs in that 10th inning and hit clean singles. Mookie Wilson then put together the greatest at-bat in the history of the Mets, fouling off pitch after pitch until Schiraldi finally uncorked the wild one that allowed the tying run to score.

All the Sox need is a little more pitching and they will win it all next year.

Oh, man, Sox fans are talking about next year ALREADY?

The irony is, I now live in Florida, and I've watched the Marlins just enough that they're now my #2 team. It was SO WEIRD watching that game slip away from the Cubs... I've been on the other side of so many of those, I didn't know what to feel, I almost started to feel sympathy for the Cubs fans. Then I remembered... they didn't lose a game, they gained some folklore.

BTW, the real goats of 1986 Game 6 were Clemens, who left early with a blister, and his buddy Calvin "down the middle" Schiraldi. Billy Buck is the poster boy, but the game was already lost.

BTW, that "wait til next year" was a joke. Also, I think Bill Buckner gets a little too much grief for his play, but if he makes the easy play the game is over and the Sox win, so he is in fact responsible for not winning the game. He also was a huge reason why they got to that position so I do not think people should be so hard on him. He shares responsibility for the loss with his manager and many others.

Regarding teams, doesn't anybody have two ? I grew up 70 miles from Pittsburgh, so the Pirates were a natural. Roberto Clemente, a young Willie Stargell, Bob Veale, Steve Blass, et al.

When we were kids ('60s), my best friend and I played innumerable 1-on-1 World Series. One of us got to be the Pirates, the other guy took an AL team. In '67 the Red Sox set the hook, and we must have played 100 Pirates-Sox Series over the next couple of years.

Didn't think much about the Yankees in those innocent days (other than as them being on the receiving end of Bill Mazeroski's home run - heh).

Flash forward to '75. First semester freshman year. Red Sox against the hated Reds (arch-nemesis of the Pirates) in the Fall Classic. My first experience with in-the-flesh Yankee fans - and the Schadenfreudic bile they spewed. The hook set in '67 became a passion.

Thank goodness for the Pirates (though I'll despise Bonds and Bonilla till their dying days).

Thank goodness for the Cowboys. But that's another story.

Go Cubs. Go Sox.

Please !

PS - Never noticed a political connection, other than jerks of a political stripe tend to be jerks of a fan stripe. (See Schadenfreudic bile, above.)

Cheers,

This is a little OT at this point, and late to boot, but re: why the White Sox are also not considered lovable losers like the Cubs -- some unsatisfactory theories follow: decades of not winning the pennant is more par for the course in the Yankees-dominated American league than the National: baby boomers, some of them, can remember the Chisox in the World Series (1959); the White Sox were not as big of losers(winning records every year from 1951 to through 1967); the White Sox were a model of brand inconsistency, changing the style and color of their unis and hats about once every 1.7 years; no long-term beloved superstar like Ernie Banks; the White Sox didn't play up their park as much as the Cubs -- besides Comiskey wasn't as unique as Wrigley, with its ivy and daytime baseball; the White Sox threatened to move to St. Petersburg; the White Sox demolished their wonderful old park for a boring new one.

BG

The game was tied when Buckner made his play (the wild pitch before tied the game). So Buckner "lost" the game, he did not cost the Sox the win.

But the point is that the Sox had the Mets to 2 outs and 2 strikes TWICE.

Let's go Mets!

This post begins with the comment:

Drezner, I would think that as a gung-ho supporter of the free-market system, you would naturally be a Yankees fan. The best rise to the top, right?

No, no, no. Baseball is emphatically NOT a free-market system. If it were, teams would be free to relocate in order to maximize profit, and we would expect them to do so until there were no more high- or low-revenue teams. To put it more simply, there would be five teams in New York City, and none in Milwaukee.

In fact, the league does not let teams move this way, for a host of reasons.

As a result, baseball ends up with the worst features of socialism (the rules do not permit firms to tailor supply to meet demand) but none of the benefits (revenue is not shared to ensure rough equality in the ability to compete).