Chicago White Sox: An Open Letter to White Sox Fans

The Cubs have won the World Series, and the City of Chicago seems to have forgotten the Chicago White Sox as a result. White Sox fans are mad at the Cubs craze, and rightfully so.

On Wednesday night when the Chicago Cubs clinched their first World Series, I felt a wave of mixed emotions as a Chicago White Sox fan. Part of me felt relieved that they had won, because with the current roster that they have assembled, a World Series win was almost inevitable for the Cubs, and I was kind of tired of waiting for the other foot to drop, per se.

Another part of me was actually happy that some of my closest friends would get to see their beloved baseball franchise win a World Series, and share that special moment with their loved ones. My Uncle Andrew shared a picture of his son A.J. wearing his oversized Cubs hat on his head, exclaiming his joy that he made it home from work in time to watch the Cubs make history with his young son by his side.

That picture made me feel a way that I had never thought that I would feel about a Cubs championship. It made me remember how I felt when my beloved White Sox won the World Series in 2005. It made me think of how special it would be to share that with my children now that I am a father.

It made me think of my grandmother, who somehow growing up in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood like myself, managed to become a Cubs fan, and how she felt right now after waiting for so long to see what we witnessed on Wednesday night. The third emotion that I had was the overwhelming feeling that the Cubs media monster was going to gobble up and spit out all of my memories as a White Sox fan.

In the last 48 hours that feeling came to fruition, and as I sit here and watch the coverage of the Cubs parade overtake my morning television destination, MLB Network. I feel like I need to say a few things to White Sox fans. Before I do, here’s a quick disclaimer for the Cubs fans reading this article: This is not meant to take away from your moment, but rather to air out some thoughts from the other side of the spectrum, some thoughts that you should be familiar with given the lengthy amount of time without a World Series championship that you endured.

Okay, now that I got that out of the way let me get to the thick of things. Sox fans, just breathe! It’s going to be okay, and this Cubs media craze will pass in due time. Let them have their moment; they really have waited long enough.

Yes, just about every major and local media market is seemingly omitting the White Sox 2005 World Series championship team. Without a doubt the White Sox fan base is being slighted by the media right now. Countless “Chicago has waited 108 years for this” stories have flooded our news feeds across the board. Chicago itself has only waited 11 years for a World Series championship.

I have watched a crazy amount of White Sox fans exert an exhausting amount of energy trying to will the Cubs to defeat over the last month, and especially during the World Series. For what? The games are going to play out unchanged by the thousands of memes or emotions.

I enjoyed every minute of the Cubs/Indians World Series matchup this past week and a half, because it was excellent baseball. So many White Sox fans spent so much time wishing on every eyelash they could find for a Cubs defeat, that they missed the best World Series in many years.

In the same respect, every fan is different, and each one is entitled to their opinion as well as how to express it. I’m not going to tell someone how to cheer or not cheer. The most beautiful aspect of sports is that it draws out the competitive human aspect in all of us, allowing us to engage with one another on a common topic outside of life’s trials and tribulations.

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That being said, life isn’t going to end because the Cubs have ended their championship drought. If anything, maybe it will remove the chip on their shoulder that caused some of their fans to be so hateful towards White Sox fans.

Like it or not, as far as numbers go, the White Sox are in fact Chicago’s “second team” for now. So are the Mets in New York, the A’s in the Bay Area of California, the Royals in Missouri, etc. Who cares? Who really cares how those outside of our fan base perceive us?

It’s not our fault as fans. We have an incredibly passionate, knowledgeable and diehard fan base here on the south side of Chicago. If a finger has to be pointed, point it at Jerry Reinsdorf. Point it at Kenny Williams. The duo of Reinsdorf and Williams have crippled this ball club with tight budgets, mediocre free agent acquisitions, and a chronic incapability to develop a sustainable farm system over the course of nearly 20 years.

On the Reinsdorf/Williams plan, we have been limited to individual rises to prominence, followed by the inevitable sell-off the following winter.

If we had Theo Epstein on 35th & Shields, it’s highly likely that we would be experiencing a reversal of roles in Chicago right now. For the Cubs, it all started when an owner who actually wants to win purchased the Cubs, and made the moves necessary to put a winning product, and more importantly a sustainable product, on the field.

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What’s worse than the Cubs winning this World Series is the Indians being almost nearly as stacked as the Cubs, coupled with a newly acquired chip on their shoulder, playing in our division! We have to play the ultra-talented and angry Indians 19 times in 2017, and we all know how divisional opponents have fared against the White Sox in recent years.

I’m an angry White Sox fan. I made that abundantly clear a month ago when I thrashed the White Sox organization from top to bottom in a published article. You should be angry White Sox fans as well. We have plenty of reasons to be angry with the current state of the organization. But as much as we want to, being mad at the Chicago Cubs isn’t going to make us feel better.