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Cubs fans -- gotta love 'em

Posted by: Tony Bleill

Wednesday, July 2, 2008 12:42 PM

One of the more interesting parts of the Cubs' rise to prominence in the last 15 months is watching their fans creep out of the woodwork and show up in opponents' ballparks in great numbers.

Oh, they've always been there to some degree. But not like this. When your team is in first place, you're much more willing to fork over the cash for high-priced tickets to watch your team in person. That's human nature.

But Cubs fans are showing up by the thousands in opposing teams' parks, so much so that it is drawing great interest -- even derision -- from the host team's players, fans and broadcasters.

A couple points: First, it is stunning to listen to so many broadcasters -- and I'm not referring to the Cubs' broadcasters -- utter something along the lines of, "Gee, look at how many Cubs fans made the trek from Chicago for tonight's game." Uh, dude, they're not flying in from O'Hare. They live in your neighborhood. Cubs fans are everywhere. Chicago is the third-largest city in the country. Chicago products live in every nook and cranny of this country, just like New York fans and Los Angeles fans (although, it must be said, California has its own baseball vibe, which is another topic for another blog.)

When you mix in the "WGN effect" -- so many Cubs fans outside of Chicago have been created because they watched the team on WGN every day (once upon a time, anyway) -- you suddenly have a large, sprawling fan base. (Same thing goes for TBS, for that matter. Braves fans who have never set foot south of the Mason-Dixon line are scattered across the country.)

Second point: If you're not a Cubs fan, and you're perturbed by all those Cubs fans showing up in "your" ballpark, don't be. I'm a fan of another NL Central team -- not named St. Louis -- and I get quite a kick out of seeing all those Cubs' rooters in my team's ballpark. Why? Because they're helping my team's payroll. They're buying tickets, and that money goes into my favorite team's coffers. (Love that word, coffers.) Even if Cub Fan buys his tickets from a scalper, a ticket broker or e-Bay, the demand for those seats increases their value, which is a good thing for my team. Plus, there's this: It's so much fun when my team beats the Cubs and sends those fans home unhappy, that I almost feel guilty. Almost. (You might have noticed the Cubs are 17-24 on the road, so most of the time those fans aren't waving their little white "W" flags on the way out of the ballpark.)

Really, there isn't much of a downside. Worried that those loud Cubs fans will be a factor during the game? Don't be. They're not. Of all the major professional sports, baseball is less affected by crowd noise than any. Because of enclosed arenas, fans can truly have an impact in hockey and basketball (particularly when a visiting player is trying to shoot a game-winning free throw with one second left on the clock.) In football, the crowd can make so much noise that the other team's quarterback can't communicate with his team. That's tangible. But in baseball, even home team crowds of 45,000 have very little impact. The biggest advantage that home teams have in baseball is that A) they get to bat last; B) they're comfortable because they're sleeping in their own bed, while the visiting team has been on the road for the last week or 10 days).

So, if your favorite team loses at home in front of 6,000 screaming Cubs fans, rest assured it had nothing to do with those folks chanting "Let's go Cubs!" It had much more to do with Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Zambrano.

--On a separate note, have you noticed the Chicago-flavored voting in the NL All-Star balloting? Online voting ends tonight, and the Cubs have been well-represented.

Nowhere is the influence of Cubs' fans more conspicuous than in the voting at shortstop and outfield. As of June 30, the Cubs' Ryan Theriot was in third, behind Hanley Ramirez and Miguel Tejada. What's shocking is that Theriot is ahead of Philadelphia's Jimmy Rollins, the reigning NL MVP. Rollins is unquestionably one of the best shortstops in the league, though he is having a subpar season (Theriot is hitting about 50 points higher).

In the outfield, Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome were running 1-2 for much of the voting, although Fukudome has since fallen to third, behind Ken Griffey Jr. Here is where Fukudome Mania is wildly out of control, as he clearly is not deserving of an All-Star berth. Thankfully, the more-deserving Ryan Braun appears to be in position to chase him down for the final outfield spot in the remaining days.

Comments

You must be having trouble with your editing system. Somehow the phrase "injured for the first month of the season" failed to appear next to Rollins' name.

And somehow the phrase "clearly is not deserving of an All-Star berth" is not next to the name Ken Griffey Jr.

Posted by Wenalway on July 2, 2008 at 11:14 PM