Every 9 years or so.

Every nine years or so when the White Sox are playing poorly and the Cubs are coming out of a several year hibernation in the cellar, I switch baseball allegiances. Sort of. I will Love Frank Thomas, Tadahito Iguchi, Joe Crede and the rest of the White Sox both erstwhile, inactive and otherwise to the day I die. I mean the day I Jermaine Dye. I have loved the White Sox since that fateful day in 1973 or 1974 (work with me, I was much younger and did not think I'd have to remember the exact year) that I garnered free tickets for perfect attendance at school and wen to my first White Sox game with my father. If memory serves Dick Allen hit one of his vaunted roof shots and the palehose (one of several ways of saying White Sox, when you just don't want to say White Sox every 3 words) prevailed over the Baltimore Orioles (also known as the birds when you live in Baltimore and don't want to say Orioles every 3 words). I hopped on the Southbound express of Allen, Jorge Orta, Ed Hermann (not the same one who plays the grandpa on Gilmore girls but by now he's about the same age) Beltin' Bill Melton (named that way for his hitting prowess. Amy's convinced he'a a wife beater but wife beaters generally are not given nick names.) and have not hopped off in the 3+ decades that have followed.

So what is all this then about switching allegiances? Well the truth is that the pale hose weren't my first baseball love. I was born and raised and nurtured in a Cubs family. Before 35th and Shields became my home away from home, I had a familial association with the friendly confines of Clark and Addison. I was a firm follower of Ron Santo, Don Kessinger, Jose Cardenal and other 70's Cubs. But on that fateful day of 1973 or 1974 I switched allegiance to the Sox for good. Why? Why, you ask me. Because of one incontrovertible fact. The Cubs stank and the White Sox, well they did not stink as much. Now I could bore with you statistics showing how bad in the course of my life time the Cubs have been in comparison to the Sox. But I figure if there is anyone still reading this that I am boring you without statistics so why work harder?

My parents also think I just did things to be different. That may be true for food. When you live in a family of 7 people and you have a voracious appetite, you keep things in the pantry or the refrigerator that no one else will want. I mean what good is your favorite snack being nutty bars when they have a shelf life of 3.2 seconds? But Sardines, prunes, Pork rinds who's going to eat those? Well, me.

So, every year I attempt to do the impossible, love the Sox and not hate the Cubs. My wife, Amy (maybe you've heard of her) does not even believe I like the Cubs. She hears me make fun of the players and make jokes about the teams ineptitude (such as the old standard, anyone could have a bad century) and think I can't possible like them. What she fails to grasp is that this is precisely how Cub fans act. I, unlike almost every other White Sox fan on the planet, cannot take joy out of the Cubs' futility. I ache with every Sox loss. With every Cubs loss it's more like a sigh of resignation that the team I dropped like a hot potato is no nearer to respectability then when I dumped 'em.

So this year, as in 1998, when the Cubs are playing well enough to win their division and the Sox aren't playing well enough to do division. (I mean simple division like Tadahito had 10 apples and wanted to give them out to the 5 staring pitchers. how many would he give to each one so each pitcher had the same amount. I am serious! That's why he was traded!) I start to live and die with the Cubs. Maybe this will finally be their year! After all, this is a new century.