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Baffoe: I Can't Deal With A Cubs-White Sox World Series

By Tim Baffoe--

(CBS) Let's get this out of the way real quick for you the reflexive dismissive:

A) To borrow from Dennis Green, I'm not crowning the asses of the Chicago Cubs right now, even if all signs suggest they are what we -- the less-than-middle-aged local columnists and fans -- thought they were going to be since we were told so five years ago. Nor am I declaring the Chicago White Sox anything more than a very good baseball team conjuring up really good feelings right now, for that matter. Both teams have more than 130 games to prove what we are seeing now is sustainable, and it's a foolish Chicago sports fan who counts eggs before hatching. 

B) I harbor no ill will toward the White Sox. Yes, I'm a deeply scarred Cubs fan living all three-plus decades of my life on the Southwest Side of town who has been verbally and psychologically abused to the point where I should hate everything Pale Hose. But I'm a really great guy, so I don't. In fact, I root for the White Sox because I enjoy good baseball in general, and going to U.S. Cellular Field is always an enjoyable experience. Plus, it's just good for business -- this stupid little corner of the Internet can never have enough to write about, and when the White Sox are good, you're more inclined to want to read my future armpit fart of a column on manager Robin Ventura, postmodern comedic genius.

We are #blessed to have our city be the nexus of Major League Baseball right now. After waxing the would-be challenger Pirates in a three-game sweep in Pittsburgh, the Cubs are a juggernaut unless the Washington Nationals this weekend prove otherwise (and probably still are even if the Nats win three or four). The White Sox are an American League-best 19-9 and seem to have overcome the Adam LaRoche escandalo that threatened to rock the franchise to its very core. I'll put pitchers Chris Sale and Jose Quintana up against any AL 1-2 punch with confidence, and the White Sox aren't even hitting yet.

Fun times right now can't help but bring pesky visions of October baseball on the South and North sides. And with those springtime delusions of grandeur comes the inevitable percolations of a mythical crosstown World Series.

And while it's only early May, I'm going to get out in front of this and be real here. I don't want a Cubs-White Sox World Series, at least not this year.

I'm not proud of that admission, and I'll wear the selfishness of it. The Cubs need to own this spectacular thing they have going for at least a year. None of us -- not even the most nasty, Napoleonic of White Sox fans -- can say they have seen a team in Chicago like the 2016 Cubs.


If a documentary hasn't already begun filming this team, some otherwise enterprising filmmaker dropped the ball. Hell, start making a movie on the White Sox, too. Four games ahead in the AL Central on May 5 without Drake LaRoche, John Danks and Jose Abreu's bat? I'd watch whatever that flick becomes, so long as it ends in heartbreak in Game 7 of the ALCS.

Because I can't deal with White Sox vs. Cubs in October. The common refrain is that the city will burn if both teams meet in the World Series. With hot takes, it sure damn will. I'm not ready for all the fapping ink that will spill from that. And I damn well don't need the reductive conversations and mundane pissing contests that will ensue between the worst of us in black and blue pinstriped personalized jerseys. Leave that to fill up the Crosstown Cup.

Sudden White Sox fever has been picked up nationally.

From USA Today's Bob Nightengale on Wednesday:

Now, here they are, enjoying life in the shadows of the Cubs, knowing they'll be seeing one another in a four-game home-and-home series in July, and who knows, perhaps again in October.

"We're having a good time here, and I know they are too," said Frazier, who celebrated his first off-night in Chicago on Monday by getting a delivery of Five Guys burgers. "All I know is that we've got something special going. You can feel the energy in here every day.

"And I'm telling you, it's not going away."

I like to hear that, Todd. Take that energy all the way to Jose Bautista hitting a bat-flipping walk-off homer to send the Toronto Blue Jays to Wrigley Field if that's where at least three World Series games are scheduled. Stupid sibling rivalry doesn't have a place in this yet. A juxtaposition with the White Sox in October 2016 can only serve to suck the awe and joy from this round of patience Cubs fans have sat twitchily through to fruition.   

This truly isn't White Sox hate, and while I picked the White Sox to be a playoff team, I didn't see them worrying me in such a good way as they are right now. That they look so legit is the reason I'm even writing this.

If the Cubs lose the NLDS (fine, I'm crowning them Central champs at least) and the White Sox are still playing, I'll don my figurative black and white cap (or the blue one that Chance the Rapper designed if someone buys me one). But should the Cubs do what odds give them the best shot of doing, I need it to be free of the city Civil War narratives and gratuitous Red Line video shots and national and local media pretending they care about any part of this city south of 35th Street. I need the Cubs to own this for now. 

Divorce yourself from the rooting interest in the White Sox for a second, and I think you can see where I'm coming from. Then immediately go back to demanding a White Sox championship in 2016 as you should. 

Give me a Cubs World Series championship free of the intracity distractions. If that happens, be it this year or (better damn well be at least) next, then I'm all for the family feud noise and pizza joint comparisons and national media making the whole city its plaything for two weeks.

Until then, let me enjoy this.

Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.

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