West Side Stories — Baseball Bench Coach

There’s nothing like neighborhood sports rivalries. I’m sure everyone has been a part of one — little league, high school sports, club sports, to name a few. You tend to get sky high when you play your rival. It’s not that you want to say “see there, we won”, but rather you don’t want to hear your rival say “we’re better than you”. Is it ever okay to cross the rivalry line and root for your rival’s success when they play others? I must say that I remember a lot more baseball games than musical productions, but the plot line of “West Side Story” comes to mind. Maybe the love story of Tony and Maria suggests that rivals like the Jets and the Sharks can co-exist. Let’s take a look at some of baseball’s city rivalries.

When people first meet in Chicago you often hear the question, “Cubs or Sox?” I admit to asking that way too much. Typically, the answer is geographical. “North Siders” tend to align with the Cubbies, while the Sox faithful are mostly on the South Side. Indeed, the White Sox introduced their MLB City Connect uniforms to their fans last year with the script “South Siders” across the front of their jerseys. Sometimes though Chicago baseball fans cross the geographical boundaries. If your family has always been a fan of one of the teams, you stay loyal to that team. And of course, there are transplants to the Chicago area who may have baseball roots in either the National or American League and find it easier to relate to the NL Cubs or the AL Sox.

This past week the Cubs hosted the White Sox at Wrigley Field in the final two games of the 2023 Crosstown Classic. The rivalry goes back to 1902 when the American League was formed. Charles Comiskey brought his St. Paul Saints to Chicago as one of the original AL teams. He renamed them the White Stockings, which happened to be the original name of the Cubs from 1876 to 1889. From 1903 to 1942, the Cubs and White Stockings played each other in a best of seven post season City Series. The only thing at stake was bragging rights in Chicago. Indeed, the only time the two teams met each other in World Series play was in 1906, when the White Sox “Hitless Wonders” defeated the Cubs in six games.

Games between the two teams stalled until 1985 when the clubs began to play in an annual exhibition game deemed the “Windy City Classic”. One such game in 1994 was particularly noteworthy when the White Sox invited a fairly well known basketball player, Michael Jordan, to play right field for the Sox at Wrigley. You see, Jordan had taken some time off from his NBA career to try his hand at baseball with White Sox affiliate, AA Birmingham Bulls. MLB interleague play began in 1997, starting a new era of Cubs vs. Sox annual series of games. In 2010 the Crosstown Trophy was introduced for the first time. The winner of the season series would take possession of the trophy. On Wednesday night this past week the trophy moved back to the North Side as the Cubs won in walk off fashion, capping a 4-3 win and a 3-1 2023 series victory.

A city rivalry with a little less history is in Los Angeles, the Freeway Series between the Dodgers and the Angels. The Santa Ana Freeway (Interstate 5) links these two teams’ ballparks, the third (Dodger Stadium) and fourth (Anaheim Stadium) oldest ballparks in baseball. You might be curious why the Angels have gone by different names, first the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels, and now the Los Angeles Angels. The answer is that the Dodgers have always opposed the use of “LA” for any other team. Resentment remains today.

The ”LA” teams have never met in the World Series, mostly because the Angels’ playoff appearances have been few and far between. The Angels have appeared in one World Series, the 2002 Fall Classic. Many describe it as the “Dodgers Nightmare Series”, since the Angels faced off against the Dodgers’ bitter rivals, the Giants. The Anaheim team took that Series in seven games. Most recently, the LA teams are defined by some of the great players in the game. In 2014, the Angels’ Mike Trout and the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw won their respective league’s MVP awards, and Trout and the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger repeated that in 2019. The Angels’ Shohei Ohtani stands today as the best player in the game, maybe ever. It would be the “Angels Worst Nightmare” if Ohtani signs with the Dodgers as a free agent this offseason.

Another City series dating back to the early 1960s but with much deeper roots is in New York, the Yankees vs. Mets. New York has had a long love affair with baseball, having teams since 1903 representing three buroughs, Dodgers (Brooklyn), Giants (Manhattan), and the Yankees (Bronx). When the NL Dodgers and Giants left for California in 1958, MLB quickly gave New York a new National League team, the Mets in 1962. The Mets hoped to capture the New Yorkers who supported the Dodgers and Giants by adopting the Giants’ NY insignia in orange against a cap of Dodger blue. From 1963 to 1983 the teams played in the Mayor’s Trophy Game, an in-season exhibition game.

1997 brought interleague regular season play to the teams. The year 2000 stepped the rivalry up a notch. On July 8, the teams played a day night doubleheader, the day game at Shea Stadium and the nightcap at Yankee Stadium. The Yanks won both games by a score of 4-2. Both teams won their league pennants that season, the Yanks’ fourth AL title in five years and the Mets first NL pennant since 1986. The Yankees took the Series in five games. This rivalry was not the fancy of the rest of baseball, as the 2000 Subway Series received the lowest television ratings in decades. Most recently, these two franchises moved into new ballparks in the very same year, 2009, the Mets at Citi Field and the Yanks in new Yankee Stadium.

As a transplant to Chicago, I must say that I love hearing the stories of Cubs and Sox fans who despise the other team. While for me it’s “Go Cubs Go” when the teams meet, I enjoy following the Sox too (well, maybe not so much this year). What I love is seeing the game of baseball any chance I get. The Jets and the Sharks can truly co-exist.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach