Wait till next year

That Chicago's baseball teams have had the worst collective startin memory hasn't dampened the historical rivalry of Cubs and Soxfans. The only difference is that this year, they're fighting overwho has the right to feel more miserable.

Cubs fans probably figure that they've got a lay-down, havingset a National League record for the longest season-opening losingstreak. But White Sox fans can argue that the Cubs, being the Cubs,are expected to lose, year after stinking year. This was to be theSox' year. The only thing that's worse than being hopeless from thestart, and living down to expectations, is being shown the mountaintop and getting kicked into the abyss.

Only in Chicago can such questions be debated. Players,managers, announcers and commentators who haven't spent their livesin this valley of darkness can't be expected to understand why.It was a sensitivity lacking in, for example, the explanationoffered by someone for why the Cubs started the season so poorly:They went against two tough teams, including the Florida Marlins.The Marlins?! A team that has been around only - what? - four years.Compared with the Cubs, who have been around for 120? Here it is, 89years since the Cubs last won the World Series, and we're supposed tobelieve that 1997 still is a rebuilding year? How the hell long doesit take to figure it out?No other American city having a history of two or more baseballteams has come even close to our record of futility. The New Yorksand Los Angeleses have soared to the heights of personal and teamgreatness. But Chicago meekly prostrates itself at the Hall of Famegates, like some Charles Dickens orphan huddled against the storm,supplicating year after year, please, please, grant us this one boon- take in Nellie Fox.My father's despair begat my despair, which begat my son'sdespair. Despair here is biblical.My Sox haven't won a World Series in almost 80 years. (Thatcould have been 78 years, but they threw that one.) Their gettinginto one almost 38 years ago set off great rejoicing because the lastone they played in was 40 years before that. At this pace, we're duefor more appearances in 1999 and 2039.Consider the Cubs. The last time they won a World Championshipwas 1908. If the fans back then had to be as patient as today's, theprevious World Series win by the Cubs would have been in 1820, beforethere was a Chicago to play in.I have no truck for out-of-towners - in baseball or the media -who tell us how bad our teams are. They haven't lived it or earnedit. The year of my birth - 1942 - must have been an omen, when theCubs and the Sox combined for a total of 134 wins and 168 losses, areally special .444 record. It was merely a prelude for disasters tofollow. From 1947 through 1951, the teams combined to lose aboutthree out of every five games they played and regularly occupied thecellar. The worst was 1948, when both teams glided to last-placefinishes, with the Cubs finishing with a 64-90 record, 27 1/2 gamesout of first, and the Sox, at 63-91, 44 1/2 games out.I was 6 and my big brother Bill was 8. These are our formativeyears, when boys are fashioning their self-worth, seeing themselvesas their heroes, stroking one over the left-field fence or divinginto the hole for a stop. Instead we were a generation burdened withthe sights and sounds of a booted grounder, a double-play ball peggedinto the grandstands and runners stranded on third.The climate was grim. When I'd visit the family upstairs, I'dbe warned, "Don't bother Grandpa Fassenmeir now. He's listening tothe Cubs and's in a bad mood." Remember, this was when the "nationalpastime" was virtually the town's only sport. We had no Bulls torescue us from our despond, to ease us through childhood, to defineour collective spirit.This is not to berate the players, managers or owners. But aswe seem prepared to surpass the worst-ever 1948, this is to help themunderstand our frustrations. And why, if they don't get off theirdamn butts, we're coming out onto the field to kick a few.Dennis Byrne is a member of the Sun-Times editorial board.E-mail: dbyrne@suntimes.com