Baffoe: I Am The Miserable Crosstown Cup
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Inanimate objects aren't supposed to have existential crises, but here I am. What the hell is the point of me? Seriously.
When the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox first began playing each other in actual regular season games back in 1997, this series was new and fresh. The bloodlust of both fanbases to finally have statistical proof of superiority over their crosstown frenemies was palpable. Fans wanted to eat their adversaries' still-beating hearts in public. Now it's like the series is a resignation to leftovers in the fridge.
"I think it's fun for everyone," White Sox outf… first b… large person Adam Dunn said. "It's fun for the fans, but it's a lot of fun for us. I know that the stadium will have electricity and it will be pretty much of a playoff atmosphere." Whoa! Let's watch the spicy language there, Adam! I know emotions run high with these games and all, but let's keep this civil.
"It's such a strange circumstance to play four games in, obviously, the same city but in two different parks," said Cubs manager Dale Sveum (while likely frothing at the mouth and applying tribal war paint to every area of his body except that which was covered by a loin cloth). "There's no other way to do it now, and there's nothing you can do about it. But it's kind of funny how it comes that way with the crosstown rivals."
How can they even focus on baseball with such a passionate desire to see the opponents' heads on pikes on the Dan Ryan?! I could even feel the heat leading up to these four games. "Hey, it's Cubs/Sox this week," I mentioned in passing to a coworker.
"But it's Monday," he cried not looking up from his Sudoku.
"Yeah, they're putting it during the week now."
"What the… eh, whatever," he heart-brokenly sipped his coffee.
With the exception of a Michael Barrett cold cocking or Carlos Zambrano jumping up and down and throwing feces, there soon existed little to no anticipation of dissolving a distance of a few miles between ballparks and bringing the city together in chaos-turned-distaste-turned-ennui. A solution of was needed. Something to whet the civic appetite.
Thankfully the marketing people rode in on their majestic khaki steeds. "We shall incorporate a shiny trophy thing! Surely then the people will have their interest rekindled!"
Thus I was spawned, looking like something a Trekkie and a yearbook photographer created during a drunken one-nighter. And I needed sponsorship because people just assume that because I glisten like the tears of the Third World children that built me that I'm a diva. In a move that couldn't have been any more fusterclucky, I was whored out to BP. Then they spilled oil all over the Gulf of Mexico and my reputation shortly before I was to be trotted out for a bunch of adult millionaires to pretend to give a crap about.
Do you have any idea what that's like? To be unappreciated if not downright loathed from the very start of your being? Unless you're Guy Fieri, I doubt it. But that's me. That's my life. On a bad day I'm mocked. On a good day I'm ignored. Often I'm even disliked.
Consider that. I am the very symbol of a 180 turn from the biggest annual sports story in Chicago to the "Oh, this garbage again?" I didn't ask for this, and I hate you as much as you hate me. You with the attention spans of a four year old on cappuccino. Too damn bad. You built this thing up to proportions so comical that there was no other way but down. I'm a flipping trophy, for Veeck's sake! What is this? A college event?
I am your Frankenepstein's monster.
I'm not even the most famous cup in this town. Lord Stanley's is all any Chicago sports fan is concerned with right now. Yeah, from that fringe sport. The one that completely destroyed the ratings for the first game between the Sox and Cubs. Have you any idea what it's like to be an inferior receptacle for liquid for a minute. Not unless you're in Patrick Kane's apartment on a Sunday morning you don't, Allysyn.
Tuesday night was some of the most fun I've ever had in this joke because of a damn rain delay. Comcast Sports Net played games from the series from years ago, and I laughed along with the local branch of Twitter at forgotten names of Cubs mediocrity and Hawk Harrelson with less battiness. It had all become satire.
And that's what I've been reduced to. How depressing. I'm a pawn in a tired battle between two divorced apathetic parents.
Are you having fun yet this week? Because I'm certainly not. And I don't plan to anytime soon.
Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa before earning his degree from Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @TimBaffoe , but please don't follow him in real life. He grew up in Chicago's Beverly To read more of Tim's blogs click here.
