| 16 July 2010
It's Friday, and I bet you thought that we were done with the Guest Posts for the week. Well, I'm happy to say that you're wrong. This post comes from Vince over at my favorite Brewers blog, Miller Park Drunk. Things are a little different over at MPD, but that's what makes it so great. It also helps that the writing is top-notch, whether it's an inspired piece about Father's Day or a satirical look at the Corey/Prince power "duel" (dating guides aside, of course). Make sure to check it out. Thanks for the post, Vince!
I used to live in Alabama. This was a cold, dark time in my life that I've never truly recovered from (tractor accident), but while living there I got to see the intensity that is college football rivalries. In college football fans will fight, shoot each other and even go so far as to steal each other's crystal meth in the honor of their team. It's completely insane and stupid and I loved every minute of it. They do this because they're stupid people, but also because rivalries impassion us. Rivalries among fans are one of the greatest things about sports and the fact that a few crazy people go so far as to want to hurt and murder makes it all the better.
In baseball, we have a few of these rivalries as well. There is the one that Fox never shuts the hell up about (Mariners-Padres, natch), the one that started in New York and sort of continues on the west coast (Giants-Dodgers), the one where the one team chokes all the time and the other team is the Phillies and the friendly one where everyone really likes each other that Will Leitch wrote a book about (Cardinals-Cubs). Living in Wisconsin and maintaining a blog about the Brewers I am supposed to buy into the notion that the Chicago Cubs are our hated, natural rival. Despite the fact that, you know, we've only been regularly playing each other since 1998 and have only been in like one(-ish) pennant race.
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I can accept this because there is a certain satisfaction that comes from beating the Chicago Cubs in Miller Park when many of their fans decide to take the drive up. Have fun driving home, we'll say. Try not to get a DUI on the way back jerkholes, we'll tell them. (Unfortunately, the complete opposite is true when you lose in your home park when it's filled with Cubs fans.) The truth is I always know how the Cubs are doing because I always know how the Brewers are doing. When they played last month I knew that a strong showing by the Brewers would mean they would pass the Cubs for third place, a hopeless and way too far under .500 third place, but third place nonetheless. I know that we are currently tied for third place at a horrid 40-50. These are the things we do as baseballs fans.
Still, the Chicago Cubs are really pissing me off this season. The Brewers? They have missed their chances at contention. They are not going to make the playoffs and should probably trade two of their best players. I have accepted this, but the Cubs sucking? That is something that I can not accept. You see the thing about hating your rival is getting satisfaction from beating them. With the Cubs routinely losing games by 5 or more runs, not spending a single day over .500 all season and experiencing career worst seasons from two of their best players, it's hard to take much satisfaction in beating them because everybody beats them (just like everybody beats us). Sometimes it's fun to revel in your rivals failures, but not at a .444 winning percentage. (Especially when you have one too.) It's like when Timmy fought Jimmy on South Park, there is no winner.
I have friends that are Cubs fans and I look at them with their sad eyes and I can't help but to feel sorry for them. They, like every season, really thought that this was their year. It's cute how they think continue to do this when the world and nerdy guys with headphones on have clearly decided that their year will never come, but after three straight seasons in contention and a loaded roster with a big payroll it's easy to see how they couldn't have seen this coming. So I feel sorry for them. I really do because the thing about rivalries is that we know each other so well that it's hard to truly hate them. We play them so many times, we know the lineups, we know the rotation, the bullpen and everything else. We know their team as well as ours and while we want to beat them oh so very badly, we don't want them to be so bad that beating them isn't fun. If our team is bad the least they could do for us is to be good and give us a chance to ruin things for them by beating them. We don't want them ruining their own chances at the playoffs, we want to be the ones that ruin it with a late season sweep. We root for them because we want to beat them on the biggest stage possible. If your rival sucks, then you suck and what fun is that?
