kansas city sports sanity and kurt vonnegut.

i'm starting to realize how cubs fans actually do it - how it is that they can go for 100 years and counting without winning a world series and still be as passionate as ever about their team.

it hasn't even been two years since the chiefs limped into the playoffs with a measly 9-7 due to a denver crumble and a last minute 49er field goal on new years eve. the royals haven't played a post-season game in my lifetime. i've been fortunate to have been a cardinals fan for most of my life, but now that i've seen them win it all i really feel as if my true loyalty is with the royals. i'm a kc fan. thats just the way it is.

with immense failure comes equally immense disappointment. after a while that disappointment turns to humor. cynicism? perhaps, but at some point the missed tackles, strikeouts, pitifully immobile quarterbacks and hopeless franchises start to make you smile. expectations flip upside down and you find yourself rooting for alex gordon to strikeout so that it will enhance your argument that teahen should be moved back to third and alex should go rip it up in AA again.

i'm realizing that when you truly love a team and they have the collective ability of eric warfield there comes a point where their disappointment is no longer abrasive to your emotions, but it is almost somewhat warming and fun - like an 4 year-old who gets caught coloring murals on the walls - you'd rather the kid didn't, but let's be honest, it's pretty funny.

how do the columnists do it? how about the cubs columnist who's worked for the chicago tribune for 40 years following 40 years of inept chicago baseball? how do they want to write another depressing article about the team's past, present and probable future? doesn't jason whitlock ever get tired of writing to fire carl peterson? doesn't joe posnanski ever tire of covering the royals' latest "hope" coming up in omaha? imagine that stretched out over 40 years! the only possible articles the worth writing would be at the sake of humor.

this is when kurt vonnegut comes in:
"laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. i myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."

"humor is an almost physiological response to fear."

does the man hit the nail on the head or what? where else is there to go but to the funny papers with this? i tell you what, if someone had started a comic strip called "wrigley field" back in the early 1900's they would've just made a killing over the last century through all sorts of dark humor. maybe someone should work toward a strip called "arrowhead" or "collapsing with carl" or "youth movement".

i will hope and pray that the chiefs and royals improve, but in the meantime i'm just going to chuckle and root for john buck. he's my coping mechanism. God forbid someone else takes him away from us.

-ap.

wrigley.

highlight of my trip to chicago: wrigley field.

baseball in chicago is like an illness that you’re just bound to catch. i got to experience it in full force on thursday night: cubs vs rockies. it was a back-and-forth game, but ultimately errors ruined it for colorado as the cubs put up a few unearned runs to seal the victory, thus convoluting my baseball loyalty even more than had already been done.

you must know that i was raised a st. louis cardinals fan. my father’s father’s father was a fan and the fandom was passed on to me. due to the fact that I was a fetus when the royals beat the cardinals in the 1985 series, I have no understanding of the I-70 rivalry. cardinals fans dispute a bad call at first base and royals fans have nothing else to brag about and no one else to hate but the cards. i’m stuck naively in the midst of a tentative fued already.

so i’m an I-70 fan. when the kc/stl interleague series happens i’m not sure who i’m for. my heart pulls me toward kc, but my roots run deep with the cardinals.

cardinals fans,have bigger fish to fry than the guppies in kcmo. the cubs/cardinals rivalry is the only one in the majors that can even hold a candle to the yankees/red sox. and it isn’t one-sided like the cards dispute with the royals – this rivalry is decades old. these are two baseball cities. their fans are die hard and don’t go to the games for hot dog races or chunky DH replica jersey giveaways. they go for the baseball. there is no need for any special promotions or gimmicks to draw a crowd; both cities sell out their games regularly with nothing but the game. they love baseball, and i love that. kansas city doesn’t love baseball; they don’t understand and I don’t resonate with the kc baseball mindset. there is passion and energy and camaraderie in chi-town that kauffman stadium just doesn’t possess. it’s also very contagious.

so here i am rooting for the home team at wrigley field and just lapping up the excitement in the place. Everyone comes together all up and down Clark to celebrate cubs baseball. all of wrigleyville is blue and white flying huge “W” flags to celebrate a cubs win over a less than terrific rockies squad. i can’t imagine what things would be like against the cards. I’d be thoroughly shaken. the cubs have clever memorabilia, tradition, and Old Style draft. it is classic baseball at its finest. everyone is into the game – people STAND AND CHEER without the assistance of a flashy “NOISE” or bogus “FAN-O-METER” graphic. kansas city folk don’t understand baseball. they just don’t get it. it goes beyond the game. It’s the atmosphere.

am i a cubs fan after thursday’s game? not necessarily. but i respect their fans and wish i could be apart of their environment. kauffman stadium is weaksauce. royals games typically contain 5 highlights for me: the condiment race (1) and each time john buck comes to the plate (2 through 5). but those aren’t things i’m on board with 40.000 people with – heck the condiment race even creates disagreement amongst like-minded fans – and although jb-fever is sweeping the nation and explodes for 4 at bats each game, it doesn’t make the other 23 outs in the game any more exciting*.

my loyalties are so messed up nowadays, but I’m fine with that. Hate if you want, i’m just a fan of baseball and the atmosphere it creates. and if you share my excitement for the game then i’m a fan of yours too. so here’s to you north side chicago – you do it right and I hope I can be a bigger part of that atmosphere in the years to come.

-ap.

* - this is an incredibly subtle jab at the royals and jb. harsh really.