Baseball has found a way to make the Chicago ‘city series’ feel lame

Remember back a decade or more ago when Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski wound up getting popped in the jaw by Cubs catcher Michael Barrett when the former went sliding hard into home plate to try to knock the ball free and score a run?

Remember how after being ejected from the game, Pierzynski tried getting fans at then-U.S. Cellular Field all riled up against the Cubs?

THAT MAY HAVE been a high-point in the intensity level for the so-called Crosstown Classic that has been played every year since the mid-1990s between Chicago’s two major league ball clubs.

But there’s one thing I can say definitively – we’ve hit the low point now.

Major League Baseball may be trying to shake up the way it does things, create a little controversy and maybe even rile up the fans. But the way the White

Sox/Cubs matchup this year was handled practically guaranteed it would come off as irrelevant.

This year, the two teams played a three-game weekend series back in May at Wrigley Field. Which means there need to be additional games between the two teams at Guaranteed Rate Field.

THOSE GAMES HAVE finally come upon us now – in the third weekend of September when many people already have written off baseball for the season.

Seriously, after this weekend, the White Sox have three more games to play in Chicago (against the Cleveland Indians), before finishing the 2018 season outright in Minneapolis against the Twins.

I know some people have tried to stir up interest from the White Sox perspective by pointing out that wins against the Cubs could become the ones that ensure the ’18 Sox don’t lose 100 ball games this season.

There also are those who take a bit of joy out of the idea that the White Sox could “pour it on” hard and sweep a series – and quite possibly could be the ball club that screws up the Cubs’ chances of taking a playoff spot, thereby ensuring that there won’t be a chance at a World Series in Chicago this year.

AS MUCH AS I personally have little use for the Cubs, or anything connected with the National League, I can’t quite get all worked up over this match-up so late in the season.

This is the time that many sports fans in the Second City get all absorbed with football and the Chicago Bears and fantasies that “da Bearz” could win a Super Bowl for the first time in 32 years.

Has it really been nearly a third of a century since the days of “Sweetness,” “Danimal” and “the Fridge?”

To derive any excitement from baseball this weekend, one is literally going to have to look back nearly as long ago for the days when Bridgeport vs. Lake View seemed like a grudge match.

NOT THAT FANS of the two teams have any love lost for each other. But it just seems the baseball feud has mellowed out a bit – at least until we get some lasting evidence that the rebuilt White Sox will provide worthy competition and smack the baby blue bears back into a role of submission.

Despite that, I couldn’t help but notice the crowds expected for this weekend’s ballgames.

I contemplated attending one of them (possibly the Saturday night game where Sister Mary Jo Sobieck again does first-pitch duties to try to once again unleash the wrath of God himself upon the Cubs), only to see that Guaranteed Rate Field was offering up standing room-only tickets.

And even those were at a cost of $75 – which to me seems like a ridiculous sum to pay to stand in the outfield concourse behind the outfield seats, as we move yet another year away from 1906; the season that baseball came down to a White Sox/Cubs brawl and one that Cubs fans will never be allowed to live down.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: 10-4 on Friday, and a White Sox Winner! The beginning of a Sox sweep that makes them the Cubbies' spoilers, or a lone victory that will be the highlight of an otherwise dingy 2018 season?

Does the secret to Chicago sporting success lie in the form of the “sisters?”

Remember back just a few months ago to “Sister Jean?”

In the form of Jean Dolores Schmidt, the nun at Loyola University who made a spectacle of herself as the ultimate Loyola Ramblers basketball fan and who became the lucky charm, of sorts, as the team worked its way all the way to the Final Four of the NCAA championship tournament.

PERHAPS THE CHICAGO White Sox ought to follow the lead of Loyola and create the perception that none other than the Lord himself has a stake in the team’s future development.

Now in all honesty, the success of the White Sox’ efforts to rebuild themselves into a championship caliber ballclub is going to depend on the skills of management in finding the right combination of athletic talent – along with a few lucky breaks to ensure all the “talent” currently with White Sox minor league affiliates pan out the way they’re anticipated to.

The Blues Brothers (remember they were on a “Mission from God”) were on a more legitimate holy crusade than the White Sox, or any sports team, could be.

But Sister Jean and her appearance at courtside all through the Ramblers’ trip created an image that gathered much public attention. Probably to the point where most people thinking back now, and forever more, will have the sister stand out in their mind more than any of the actual players.

COULD THAT BE what happens to Sister Mary Jo?

Good form?

As in Mary Jo Sobieck, who along with her religious duties is an administrator of Marian Catholic High School in suburban Chicago Heights.

She’s the nun who Saturday night gained herself national attention (I’m not kidding, I lost track of the number of local and national television stations that felt compelled to put her moment on the air) for doing the “first pitch” duties for the White Sox prior to their game against the Kansas City Royals.

Because unlike most people who are called upon to perform such a task, she didn’t throw it wildly away and over the catcher’s head, or bounce it in front of home plate. Such as did Joe Mantegna, the actor, who handled the duties the last time I went to a ballgame at Wrigley Field.

Sister Jean provided lead for Ramblers' success

BROADCASTERS OF ALL sorts praised her toss as being a perfect 12/6 curveball – as in a pitch that drops straight down as it crosses home plate so that a batter can’t judge it properly and winds up swinging his bat at the wrong level.

For what it’s worth, the MLB-TV channel went so far as to compare video of Sister Mary Jo’s toss to that of the first actual pitch of the game thrown by Sox pitcher Dylan Covey.

The overwhelming preference? Sister Mary Jean rules! Lots of gags about how the sister, who actually played volleyball and softball back when she was a schoolgirl.

Just as Sister Jean was once athletic (volleyball) in her younger days before taking her religious vows.

The 'high' point of Mantegna's effort

ONE DIFFERENCE – SISTER Jean is on the Loyola payroll, and serves as the Ramblers’ chaplain. Sister Mary Jo has no official connection to the White Sox – other than being invited for one night’s duties.

Although maybe it would be a nice touch if she were to become a part of “White Sox Nation” – that segment of Chicago’s sporting world that has absolutely no interest whatsoever in the Chicago Cubs.

Can sister add to Sox' collection

Maybe we need that “touch of faith” to think that the White Sox rebuilding program will succeed – rather than produce a string of ballclubs that will consider themselves completely successful if they can avoid losing 100 ballgames (the Sox need 18 more wins this year to avoid that niche).

Then again, no matter how much it may sound ridiculous, perhaps it will require a “hand of God” as the final piece in the White Sox puzzle to become a ballclub amounting to something worthwhile -- although the arrival of top-level pitching prospect Michael Kopech come Tuesday could be the momentum-changing move.

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