Curses, Part II

The following NY Times article about the White Sox was sent by my Cousin Jeff...

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

April 3, 2005 Sunday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section BB; Column 1; Sports Desk; BASEBALL PREVIEW 2005; Pg. 3

LENGTH: 1438 words

HEADLINE: Worse Than Cursed? A Legacy of Losing in Anonymity

BYLINE: By BILL PENNINGTON

DATELINE: CHICAGO

BODY:


They are the cursed Sox nobody cares about, uncelebrated in pop culture, overshadowed in their own city and lacking a mythical nation of fans wallowing in their woe. They are the cursed Sox who have not won a World Series in 88 years, a drought longer than the one the now-resplendent Boston Red Sox endured.

They are the Chicago White Sox, the cursed Sox nobody wears, especially on the sleeve.

They were once a cornerstone franchise of professional baseball, a team with a storied, colorful past that included championships in the early 20th century, exploding scoreboards, zany uniforms with short pants, and a disco demolition promotion that ended with on-field anarchy. They had 17 successive winning seasons at midcentury, lorded over Chicago baseball and made historic, dogged pursuits of the great Yankees teams.

Oh yes, they are also the only team found to have tried to lose a World Series.

And yet the fact that the White Sox last won a World Series during World War I is an afterthought in baseball. The Red Sox had the Curse of the Bambino, a badge of honor dating to 1918, worn proudly in New England and known around the country. For years, New York fans mocked Red Sox players by chanting ''1918!''

The White Sox have not won since 1917, but no one bothers to chant the date at their players.

It may not register anyway.

Before a spring training practice in Tucson, White Sox pitcher Jon Garland was asked what he knew of White Sox history.

''Not much,'' he said.

Told that the championship drought extended to 1917, Garland replied, ''Been awhile, huh?''

The White Sox curse is so overlooked it does not even have a name.

''It is a real curse, tragic and ongoing,'' said Richard Lindberg, the White Sox' unofficial team historian and author of four books about the team. ''We're just off the radar -- in the flyover zone.''

Or, as Rick Lopatim, a 50-year-old lifelong White Sox fan, said as he surveyed his team's workout in Tucson, ''Maybe the curse is being a White Sox fan.''

The White Sox have not waited the longest for another championship. That distinction, famously, falls to the crosstown Cubs, who last won a World Series in 1908. There is little question that the White Sox suffer in comparison to the Cubs, who are perceived as losers so lovable it is as if they were plucked from a Charlie Brown cartoon.

The Cubs also have a name for their curse, which helps tremendously in the business of jinx marketing. During the Cubs' appearance in the 1945 World Series, Bill Sianis, the owner of a place called the Billy Goat Tavern, was turned away when he tried to bring a goat into Game 4 at Wrigley Field. Insulted, Sianis put a curse on the Cubs, saying they would never again win a World Series.

So the Cubs have embraced the Curse of the Billy Goat, and not insignificantly, they have had any number of ignominious near misses trying to make it back to the World Series. The heartbreak of getting close to doing something about a curse, but failing, does seem to be pivotal in building a curse's legitimacy. It was the trademark of decades of Red Sox teams.

The White Sox, who have gone to the World Series twice since 1917, have had limited exposure to postseason anguish. In 1959, known as the Go-Go Sox, they won the first game of the World Series, then lost four of the next five games to the Los Angeles Dodgers. They made it to the postseason in 1983, 1993 and 2000, losing each time in the initial round.

But the White Sox do have a World Series legacy that no team can match, albeit for its shame value: the Black Sox scandal of 1919.

Eight White Sox players were barred from baseball after being accused of fixing the 1919 World Series, which was won by the prohibitive underdog Cincinnati Reds, five games to three.

It is no minor moment in American sports history. Hollywood made one movie, ''Eight Men Out,'' about the Black Sox scandal, and in another film, ''Field of Dreams,'' a central character was Shoeless Joe Jackson, the best known of the eight barred players.

Maybe Chicagoans have missed an opportunity by not embracing this pox on their Sox. Could it be that Shoeless Joe, barred despite hitting .375 in that World Series, cursed the White Sox?

The White Sox, and their fans, are not buying it.

''It's not a curse,'' said White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen, who played 13 seasons for the team. ''It's just bad baseball.''

Outfielder Aaron Rowand said, ''Inventing a curse now would be an excuse.''

First baseman Paul Konerko said he did not think it would work anyway.

''There's only so much frustration one city can muster up, and Chicago has had plenty of it,'' he said. ''Our fans might be so numb to the fact that there hasn't been a winner for so long, they've just stopped talking about it. You can't make something up now.''

Besides, saddling the White Sox with a new official curse would be hazardous business in Chicago, because it smacks of something more suited to the Cubs. And it is the dynamic between the South Side White Sox and the North Side Cubs that may be at the crux of the White Sox' status as unheralded underdogs.

It was not always so, but in the last 20 years, the Cubs have come to dominate Chicago's sports culture. They are the most popular team in the city, and because their games have been televised for many years around the country on the cable channel WGN, they have also become a national phenomenon. They are owned by the Tribune Company, owner of The Chicago Tribune and WGN.

The White Sox acknowledge that they are the second citizens in the Second City.

''In the off-season when I'm home, someone I meet might ask me what I do, and I'll say I play baseball in Chicago,'' said White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle, who lives in Missouri. ''And they'll go, 'You mean?' And I'll say: 'No, not that Chicago team. The other team in Chicago.'''

It is generally conceded that the White Sox' ownership made several major missteps in the last quarter-century, weakening the franchise. One was to put the team's games on a paid cable television network in the early 1980's at a time when most baseball games were broadcast over the air for free. It was revolutionary, but the White Sox did it 10 years before it was widely accepted, and they paid the price with a diminished fan base.

Then, in August 1994, a strike shut down baseball with the White Sox in first place. Many White Sox fans, rightly or wrongly, have never forgiven Jerry Reinsdorf, the team's owner, who was singled out as a leading advocate of the hard-line stance taken by owners in the labor dispute.

The standing of the two franchises is evident all over Chicago. In Niketown, a multistory sports-apparel store in the heart of Michigan Avenue, Cubs and White Sox jerseys, T-shirts and caps are displayed. There are three times as many displays for the Cubs' gear.

The Wrigleyville neighborhood surrounding cozy Wrigley Field is active with numerous restaurants and bars: the Cubby Bear, Bernie's Tap and Grill, Casey Moran's, Murphy's.

For 80 years beginning in 1910, the White Sox played at Comiskey Park, the kind of quaint, quirky ballpark that modern retro designs try to emulate. But in 1991, the White Sox replaced Comiskey with a large modern stadium now called U.S. Cellular Field. The Bridgeport neighborhood enveloping the ballpark, which sits next to a busy expressway, has gone through a slow renaissance. But there are no restaurants or bars nearby. Vacant lots are common.

''The White Sox are really a small-market team in a big city,'' said the White Sox fan Rick Mikuta, 48, of Berwyn, Ill., as he ate lunch at Harry Caray's Restaurant in downtown Chicago in March. ''The Cubs have every advantage -- financial, media coverage, location.'' White Sox fans, stewards of the most unnoticed championship drought in baseball history, seem happy to leave their failures uncelebrated.

Sue Kuzlik, 45, a White Sox fan from Evergreen Park, Ill., drove to U.S. Cellular Field in March to buy dozens of tickets to several White Sox games for her and her family. As she left the ticket window, she was asked if she knew when her team last won the World Series.

''Um, 1917?'' she said. ''Just before the Black Sox scandal.''

Did she think her team was cursed?

''No,'' she said. ''No way.''

It was pointed out to Kuzlik that she was standing beneath a mammoth poster of Jackson, who was being honored as part of the White Sox' all-century team. On the wall next to the ticket window was a framed display of a ticket stub from Game 1 of the 1919 World Series.

Kuzlik shook her head.

''Leave that stuff to the Cubs fans,'' she said. ''Let them have their curse. We'll win in due time.''