There aren’t many things I love more than talking shit. When we were at the Rockies/Cubs game on Saturday, Ben started making fun of the White Sox fan sitting nearby, because he was eating a hot dog with ketchup on it. Making fun of ketchup on hot dogs is only one way Chicagoans assert their superiority over everyone else in the world. I don’t even eat hot dogs and I can list the acceptable toppings, which include mustard, onions, pickle relish, celery salt, sport peppers, and tomato. Ketchup on a hot dog is a sin against humanity, rivaled only by New York style pizza that is cut in triangles and supposed to be folded (the thought of folding a slice of pizza is terrifying and wrong, like the Yankees).
So Ben lays into the Sox fan, who’s just sitting there in a sea of Cubs fans, minding his own business. He really shouldn’t have started, because Coors Field is overflowing with Cubs fans, and really, they make fun of themselves. I’ll see you one ketchup-eating hot dog guy and raise you one crazy tan woman with a Cubs jersey and white short shorts up her ass. White shorts up your ass is like the Big Joker of stupidity — nothing can beat that. But just in case, I’ll include woman with off-the-shoulder-elasticy Cubs jersey and 900 nondescript white dudes with random facial hair who wear their Cubs hats and cheer for the team like they’ll turn into pumpkins at midnight if the Cubs don’t win but couldn’t name four Cubs players without looking at the scoreboard.
It’s not that I hate the Cubs. I don’t. I love Carlos Zambrano. My dear, sweet Nana (you didn’t call her grandma) was a Cubs fan, and afternoons at her house were always filled with the drone of the Cubs announcers. My mom’s family is from the north side, and I’m from the north side, so I was born to be a Cubs fan (although, to be fair, my dad’s wacky Lithuanian family is from, well, Lithuania, but later the south side).
Unfortunately, I wasn’t into sports when I was a kid. When I got older, I hated when the Cubs had night games and it was impossible to park anywhere. When I grew up and got a real job, I hated all the drunk-ass Cubs fans crammed into the Red Line when I went home to Andersonville. It was all just too much.
It was too much last week when the Cubs were here. Coors Field was packed with ass shorts and annoying guys who booed when Jamey Carroll hit a grand slam (Who does that? Say it with me in your best Dan Hawkins voice, “IT’S JAMEY CARROLL!”). At Beers of the World, they ran out of Sierra Nevada and Five Barrel, so I had to get a Guinness. Getting tickets sucked, so on Saturday we had to sit in the bleachers, where some ridiculous teenager who didn’t know what the “H” and “E” on the scoreboard meant got a big glob of nacho cheese on the back of my sweet-ass custom White Sox shirt and spent the whole game talking about how bored he was and asking where all the bitchez were.
At least the five other Rockies fans and I got to witness the team blowing out the Cubs 15-2, which I suppose made suffering through the infestation worth it. I just don’t know, though, who all these Cubs fans are. Are they from Chicago? Is it trendy to be a Cubs fan now? Are the Cubs the American Idol of baseball — something that millions of people are into even though it’s lame? Is being a Cubs fan a rite of passage for Lincoln Park Trixie and Chad types, no matter where they live?
I don’t know, and I shouldn’t hold the fans against the team, but sometimes I can’t help it. I wouldn’t even be talking shit like this right now if Ben hadn’t started in on the guy with ketchup. We White Sox fans may be a minority, but we look out for each other and we don’t wear white shorts up our asses.
