Cards and Cubs, the I-55 Series

"The Red Sox and Yankees is a tabloid-filled soap opera about money and ego and sound bites. But the Cubs and Cardinals are about... geography and territorial rights." - Buzz Bissinger, Three Nights in August

To start, I am from Springfield, Illinois and extremely proud of it. Land of Lincoln. The kick off point of Barack Obama's presidential campaign Booyah. I find it impossible to believe that anyone outside of this area can appreciate this post for all its worth. This is about the I-55 series or, if you're still reveling in the pre-Eisenhower era, Route 66. However, keep reading because I do not have many followers.

Two words and two worlds: Cardinals, Cubs. Central Illinois is the Berlin Wall of baseball rivalries. I chose West Germany.

Sure, Chicago will blabber on about Sox and Cubs, Southside Northside, whatever I get it and I don't really care. Your fate was primarily decided on your neighborhood, central Illinois isn't like that. We are conservative and liberal, Christian and Lutheran, right-brain and left-brain. Gray area. Boggles your mind. Above all - there is a choice and it is guaranteed you will choose against someone you love very dearly.

Beginning at childhood your world is turned upside down and the manipulation begins by adults pursuing you to sway towards the bright light.

Concerned adult: "Who do you like better, the Cardinals or the Cubs?"
Ignorant child: "I like both?"
Now exasperated adult: "YOU CAN'T LIKE BOTH."

I chose Cardinals. Well Dad chose Cardinals and what four-year-old chooses against Dad? Especially when this Dad had a mustache. I absolutely watched the Cubs' afternoon games with my Grandma and swayed to Harry Caray's drunken rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Some of the best memories of my life. For me though, trips to St. Louis took a day and we frequented the Arch City often. Score one for the Cards. The tradition of losing by an unsaid team probably helped solidify this lasting allegiance. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in '96. Enough said.

This excerpt is from George Will at a commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis - down the street from my own alma mater at SLU. If you don't know who George Will is, and I will carefully let it slide if you don't, he is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist with a history at both the Washington Post and Newsweek. He was also referenced in "The Jimmy" episode of Seinfeld but that's either here, nor there.

"I grew up in Champaign, Illinois, midway between Chicago and St. Louis. At an age too tender for life-shaping decisions, I made one. While all my friends were becoming Cardinals fans, I became a Cub fan. My friends, happily rooting for Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, and other great Redbirds, grew up cheerfully convinced that the world is a benign place, so of course, they became liberals. Rooting for the Cubs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I became gloomy, pessimistic, morose, dyspeptic and conservative. It helped out of course that the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908, which is two years before Mark Twain and Tolstoy died. But that means, class of 1998, that the Cubs are in the 89th year of their rebuilding effort, and remember, any team can have a bad moment."

Amen sir.