Beisbol a reminder this week’s weather isn’t permanent, but Sox/Cubs fan distaste for each other not fade away

On this wintry Wednesday when the arctic chill is taking a Midwestern vacation and giving us the potential of wind chills making it feel like it’s 50 degrees below zero, I’m taking my relief from thoughts of how it isn’t that far off before we have the return of springtime and baseball.

Upcoming reminders of baseball … 

Seriously.

I TOOK PLEASURE in the fact that officials were able to reschedule the Caribbean Series, with only a minimal delay. Real live championship-level baseball will be played beginning Monday.

… and the return of springtime

For those of you to whom the thought of championship ballclubs from Latin America is just a little too alien to contemplate, consider that both of our city’s professional ballclubs have held their winter fan conventions – and both managed to spew rhetoric instigating their fan bases into distaste for each other.

From Chicago Cubs infielder Kris Bryant calling St. Louis “boring” (as in the most boring city he visits during the season), to Chicago White Sox outfielder Nicky Delmonico responding to a question about the “most annoying fans” in baseball by saying, “Cubs fans.”

Nicky (left) already knows truth of Cub fandom

These are moments not quite as intense as that 2006 slugfest on the field between catchers A.J. Pierzynski and Mike Barrett. But in terms of getting the fans all worked up, they rank up there somewhere near all the cheap shots one-time White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen took at Wrigley Field (“rat infested museum” may be the nicest thing he ever said).

BRYANT: Thinks St. Louis is boring?

AND THE FACT that Bryant and Delmonico felt compelled to keep the rhetoric flowing is merely evidence that the hostile feelings the teams have toward each other are not only ongoing, but they’re on their way back.

By early April, the two ball clubs will be again playing games that count – with spring training set to begin in just a matter of a couple of weeks down in the deserts of Arizona.

I'd argue Cincinnati choice make it lamer

Literally, right after the Caribbean Series – which is the annual championship played by the top teams of the professional leagues in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela, along with Cuba and Panama. Venezuela was supposed to be host, but officials wound up moving it.

TO PANAMA CITY, where games will be played at the Estadio Rod Carew. When combined with long-time New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera (a Panama native) getting inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year, it would seem 2019 will be a memorable year for fanaticos de beisbol in Panama.

Yes, I’ll actually be making a point to try to watch the games. The sight of real, live baseball being played during winter is something I get a kick out of. These games beginning Monday and running through the week will be a sporting kick to help tide me over until the resumption of play.

Stadium will host baseball next week

Although for some people, it’s going to be the ongoing verbal sparring between the Chicago fans as they accept the fact that the Bears are through for the year, and both the Bulls and Blackhawks are too pitiful to waste much time on.

So is St. Louis really “boring,” as Bryant puts it? Or are the Cardinals fans (the ones who openly boast they're the 'best fans in baseball,') correct when they say Bryant and other ballplayers who engage in cheap shots are “losers.”

PERSONALLY, I’D THINK Cincinnati would be a more depressing place to have to visit – largely on account of the local fan base wishing to forevermore think Pete Rose is heroic in nature. And not just a guy with a gambling problem who can’t quite acknowledge that reality.

Panama's other reason to celebrate

As for Delmonico’s thoughts, I’m not surprised that Cubs fans would be bothered – largely because they go through life thinking that everybody the world over comprehends their absurd support for a team that for so many years was pathetic on the field.

Which isn’t different than them trying to diminish St. Louis as being “boring,” almost as though they think the world of baseball is all about themselves and no one else.

When it’s really so much bigger than the activity of Clark and Addison. Such as the games running from Monday through Feb. 10 that will produce a Latin American champion – with the first spring training exhibitions scheduled for just two weeks later!

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White Sox to be on visiting end of Oakland Athletics’ 50-year celebration

It will be interesting to see just how many people show up for the Oakland Athletics ballgame April 17 against the Chicago White Sox.

A half-century of Oakland baseball

This season will mark the 50-year anniversary of the date when the one-time Philadelphia Athletics left their later home in Kansas City, Mo., to find a new residence in the less-glamorous part of the San Francisco Bay Area.

THEIR FIRST BALLGAME in California was played April 17, 1968 against the Baltimore Orioles – Baltimore beat Oakland 4-1, with an attendance of just over 50,000 fans to see their new ball club.

To mark that date, the Athletics plan to play their April 17 ballgame this season, against the White Sox, in front of a crowd that doesn’t have to pay its way into the one-time Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (I can’t keep track of what the corporate identity of the stadium is now).

Seriously, tickets are being given away for free. Athletics season ticket holders will get their seats up front. Anybody else interested in going to the game can get free tickets from the ball club beginning Wednesday at 10 a.m. (Chicago-time, that is).

Can the Athletics mark the beginning of their most recent chapter in team history (the ball club, like the White Sox, date back to the American League’s founding as a second major league for the 1901 season) with a capacity crowd of free-loaders?

WILL THEY LITERALLY find fans wishing to experience a ballgame without having to pay the often-exorbitant prices that tickets now cost these days?

The first major league ball club to consider Oakland home

I actually wonder if any White Sox fans would think of taking a northern California sojourn that day just to catch a ballgame for free. Some might figure if they can get airfare at a dirt-cheap rate, it could be worth the trip to Oakland in order to see the team.

Or just have a California adventure – although I suspect many will prefer to think of it as a San Francisco-area trip rather than a journey to Oakland; a city that has many people speculating whether they will lose their ball club what with the ongoing quarrels over the need for a new stadium and an inability to find a northern California community capable (or even willing) of financing such a deal.

The game nobody saw -- April 29, 2015

I do find one oddity in this situation – that it would manage to include the White Sox in a second fluke ballgame involving odd attendance.

THE WHITE SOX would get to be the visiting team in a game with no cash receipts (although I’m sure Athletics’ concessions will be pushed extra heavy to produce some sort of revenue from that date).

Just like on April 29, 2015. That date was when the White Sox were in Baltimore to play the Orioles and the attendance that date was zero. As in nobody was in the stands. The regulation game was played before nobody.

Now before we get any lame gags about White Sox attendance, keep in mind that game was played at a time when there was racial unrest in Baltimore and officials restricted movement from place to place.

Which caused the Orioles to decide to not even let fans into the ballpark, so that they wouldn’t have to worry about trying to travel there and get back home safely.

IT WOULD PUT the White Sox in a second so-called historic situation while playing games on the road.

I do find a couple of things interesting about that “first ballgame” in Oakland some five decades ago. Although the Athletics had finished in 10^th (and last) place in the American League their last year in Kansas City, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris and Reggie Jackson (stars of the Fightin’ A’s teams of the early-to-mid 1970s) were already with the team for that first Oakland game.

Future Hall of Fame mgr. was pinch-hitter

Further evidence that a rebuild that develops future stars such as what the White Sox are trying to pull off these days could work? Let’s hope so.

There was even a pinch-hitting appearance in that first game by none other than Tony LaRussa, who was a totally forgettable ballplayer but went on to begin a Hall of Fame managerial career with the White Sox.

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