Street vendors outside Wrigley Field did a brisk business in “Cubs Suck” and “Sox Suck” T-shirts during last weekend’s interleague series between the two teams. It’s a pity they weren’t selling shirts that read “Cubs Suck” on the front and “Sox Suck” on the back: by the time the three-game set began, the high hopes of fans on both sides of town had been dashed by inconsistent play and unaddressed weaknesses.
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The annual interleague series has frequently been the conduit for a shift in fortunes or–as Phil Jackson used to term it–energy between the two teams. The Sox’ surprising sweep in 1999 sent the Cubs tumbling from their 1998 playoff season and boosted the Sox toward the 2000 playoffs. Last year the Sox saved face after an abysmal start by winning both Cubs series, at Comiskey Park and at Wrigley. But how could power be transferred from one team to the other this year, when neither seemed to have any?
The blase response to the series on both sides of town stood in marked contrast to the provincial mania that usually fuels the rivalry. As I crossed Clark Street to Wrigley last Friday alongside a couple of Sox fans in matching hats and jerseys, the bitter response of two Cubs fans on the corner seemed entirely de rigueur. “Look at these Sox fans coming to our ballpark,” one said, and the Sox fans marched past with nary another word spoken. Neither side could muster up the malice to take it any further.
Buehrle suddenly lost it in the bottom half. Alex Gonzalez led off with a single and Mueller blooped the ball down the right-field line to send Gonzalez to third. Lieber bunted Mueller to second, Gonzalez holding, and that brought up the weak-hitting Darren Lewis, playing in place of Patterson against the left-handed Buehrle. Lewis quickly fell behind in the count, and looked like a man battling a cloud of gnats as he fouled off three pitches with two strikes. Then he fought off an inside slider, looping it into left to tie the game at two.
