Astros, White Sox Deserve This
By Jim Caple
ESPN.com, Page 2
The crucial difference between fans of the Red Sox and Cubs and those of the White Sox and Astros is that the latter had the decency to keep their suffering to themselves.
The White Sox have gone longer than the Red Sox went without a world championship, but did Stephen King write about their angst? Did Jimmy Fallon make a movie about their pain? Did their fans whine about some ridiculous curse? No. In fact, if you so much as bring up any nonsense about a curse, the White Sox will set you straight.
"We didn't have a curse to deal with," White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf said. "We just had failure to deal with."
The Cubs haven't been to a World Series since 1945 and haven't won one since 1908, but really, how much worse was that than what Houston fans endured? Until this week, the Astros had never been to the World Series in their 44-season history, or longer than most of their fans have been alive. They suffered five flatlining postseason losses so painful they would make even Ernie Banks say, "I don't want to play today." But did Houston fans burden the rest of the world by constantly bitching about their pain? Did they blame any of their losses on a fan loyally rooting for them along the left-field line? Of course not. They considered themselves fortunate if people simply acknowledged their existence.
The Astros and the White Sox. These are two sets of fans who have suffered even more than viewers who sat through the entire Red Sox makeover episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy."
You want pain? Before this week, the White Sox were primarily known for three things: Throwing the 1919 World Series, Disco Demolition Night and the father-son tandem who beat up the Royals' first base coach. The most famous player in their history was permanently banned from baseball. They've played in one World Series in the past 86 years. They threatened to move to Tampa Bay. And they not only wore those god-awful pajama tops, they wore shorts one day in 1976. Talk about winning ugly.
You want misery? The Astros gave the game AstroTurf, indoor baseball and those infamous rainbow jerseys that would one day serve as the basis for the Department of Homeland Security's color code. The nation's terror threat level is at Jose Cruz home jersey. Even when they moved out of the Astrodome, they moved into a stadium named for Enron with a plaza named for Halliburton. Nolan Ryan left them as a free agent. J.R. Richard suffered a stroke and ended up on the streets. Don Wilson committed suicide.
Worst of all, the team appeared in "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training," inspiring perhaps the single most ridiculous scene in a baseball film that does not include Fallon. The one at the Astrodome where Tanner Boyle pulls a Lou Piniella act on the field and Bob Watson and the fans chant, "Let them play! Let them play!"
Which is at least one good thing the White Sox had going for them. They inspired two of the best baseball movies ever made, "Eight Men Out" and "Field of Dreams."
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=caple/051021