Tough choice

If I've been asked once, I've been asked a thousand times recently...

"If the White Sox play the Cardinals in the World Series, who would you cheer for?"

Before I answer, let me provide some background info for my friends from outside the US. The folks for whom baseball is that "American thing."

Yes, the White Sox are a Chicago team, the hometown heroes (for this season, anyway). But here's the thing about the White Sox: their fans are cretins. Drunken, violent, rude blemishes on the baseball fandom scene. White Sox fans don't attend Sox games and when they do, they scream obscenities at the Sox and beat up parents in front of their children. Okay, we're not even going to MENTION the whole run-on-the-field-and-beat-up-elderly-coaches thing.

'Nuff said.

The Cardinals? Well, let me give you the proper full name of the team from St. Louis? They are the Rat-Bastard St. Louis Cardinals.

I used to attend the Cubs-Cardinals series in St. Louis every year, but stopped after a weekend a few years ago due to the inhospitable nature of the surroundings.

The Busch Stadium announcer gave the St. Louis lineup and I waited for the Cubs lineup to be announced. His voice dripping with condescension, the announcer said "And now, for the Chi-ca-go Cuuuubs."

Later in the game, the flashy electronic scoreboard featured the shell game except with Cardinals hats (three hats, one ball hidden under a hat, the hats fly around and fans guess which hat the ball is hidden under). Fine. Mindless fun for the attention-span deficient in the crowd.

Next on the scoreboard was the Cubs version, Cardinals' style. Three Cub hats and one ball. Except where the hats flew wildly in the Cardinals' shell game, the Cub hats drifted in a humiliatingly (?) slooooow motion with arrows pointing to the correct hat as if to imply that the Cubs were incompetent and simple-minded.

I'm all for rivalries among fans. That's where it should be, between the fans of respective teams. The organizations should stay out of it. Because, as the saying goes, "sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug."

Back to the original question, "who would I cheer for if the White Sox and the Cardinals meet in the World Series?"

My answer? The Chicago Bears! (yep, I'll be a football fan.)