Us and Them

 If you come to Chicago there are three facts you need to know:

• The Lake is always east.
• Never put ketchup on a hot dog.
• You can't be a Cubs fan AND a White Sox fan. *

Last week one of our city's favorite events, the "Crosstown Classic", a series between Chicago's two Major League Baseball teams took place at Rate Field (I think that's what they call it these days), on the South Side. Part two of the series will take place at Wrigley Field, on the North Side in August. From what I could tell, Cubs and Sox fans came together and stayed without their profound differences getting in the way of having a good time for all, although there was one ugly incident involving a player and a fan. The fans even found something they could all agree upon, NFL football and Chicago's team, the Bears.

But they didn't outwardly express their love for the hometown team. Instead of roars of "Bear Down", the chant heard 'round the ballpark was "Green Bay Sucks", referring of course to the Chicago Bear's chief nemesis, the Green Bay Packers. 

Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred.

The Bears/Packers rivalry goes back to the origins of the NFL as both teams are charter members of the league. It's a heated rivalry as both teams compete against each other in the same division, their two cities are geographically close and their states border each other.

The Cubs and Sox represent the same city, but they compete in different divisions of different leagues, meaning that unless they are playing each other, the fortune of one team does not adversely affect the fortune of the other. However, the two teams can actually help each other in the standings by defeating division rivals, so for example if the Cubs are playing the Tigers who are in the same division as the Sox, or the Sox play say, the Brewers, in the Cubs division, it makes sense for a Chicago fan to root for their hometown rival against one of their teams' own divisional rivals. 

But that doesn't always happen.

Sox fans are fond of saying that their two favorite teams are the White Sox and any team (presumably even a division rival) playing the Cubs. While there is similar animosity on the other side of town, I've never heard a Cubs fan say their second favorite team is any team playing the Sox. The reality is most Cubs fans don't care who's playing the White Sox on any given day unless of course, it's the Cubs. 

What the White Sox and Cubs also represent are two distinct parts of the city, the South and the North Sides respectively. South Siders have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to the North Side, as that part of the city tends to get most of the attention, as does its baseball team. It's much like the rivalry between the old Brooklyn Dodgers and the other New York City teams before the Dodgers and the Giants moved to California in 1958. When the Dodgers were founded, Brooklyn was still an independent city. In 1898 when Greater New York City was established uniting the five boroughs, the team (who wasn't yet known as the Dodgers) proudly kept their association with Brooklyn, which has often been treated as the poor step brother of its swankier neighbor across the East River, similar in a way to the relationship between the South Side of Chicago and the North Side.

My son, a Cubs fan, happens to work at Rate Field (what a silly name). He's told me how on many occasions, late in the season when the Sox are out of contention, which in the last few years has been after the Fourth of July**, the fans in the stands, well some of them anyway, openly root against the Sox if they happen to be playing one of the Cubs' division rivals, just to spite their hometown rival.

What dawned on me when he told me that was that these folks' hatred of the Cubs was greater than their love of the White Sox.

It's an old cliché to say that sports are a microcosm of life, but in this case I have to agree.

To put it simply, hate is a stronger, more easily stoked emotion than love, for some people anyway.

It's true in sports, in our relationships with other people, and especially true these days with political ideology.

I recently read a question and answer in an online site. The question was: "Why are we MAGA folks considered idiots by the other side, after all didn't we win the election?"

The answer I read didn't concern itself with the "considered idiots" part, but directly addressed the "we" part. 

The responder began by saying: "You, (emphasis mine) did not win the election, the candidate(s) you voted for won the election."

His response didn't include a sports analogy but I will. Voters identifying with a political party are much like fans identifying with a sports team. While I contribute nothing of substance to any sports team, except occasionally paying money to see a game, I still identify with the teams I root for. I may not agree with the choices the front office makes, or the way the team is managed, or the way the players perform on the field, but I still root for them as they are my team win or lose. 

While I love my city, from Howard Street on the north to 138th Street on the south, I identify myself as a White Sox fan and not a Cubs fan, thereby declaring my camaraderie with other Sox fans, even though I live a mere three blocks from Howard Street, go figure.

Rivalries are what make sports fandom exciting and fun, and second only to betting, they are the reason why spectator sports exist in the first place.  

It's human nature to associate with people who share our values, who think like us, and are "on the same page" in sports as well as in politics.

So I don't have a problem with folks identifying with a political party or ideology.

The problem begins when the hate part comes in.

In sports, as much as we may claim to "hate" our rivals, any sports fan with half a brain knows that without rivals, there would be no game. Without them, our team would have nobody to play. What would be the point of that?

However in politics, especially in the recent several years, the hate is real for so many of our fellow Americans who believe, (thanks in part to politicians who stoke fear and hatred) that the people on the other side are trying to destroy our country. Therefore they are the enemy, and should be put down by any means possible.

Sports fans who understand the true nature of "hating" a rival team, whether they admit it or not, are fans of the game first, followed by being fans of a particular team. Win or lose we root for them, but if our team does something to hurt the game, as the 1919 Chicago White Sox did by having members of that team throw the World Series for money, it is perfectly reasonable to stop supporting them, at the very least until they clean up their act.

What the responder to that online question was getting at is that in American politics, we may identify with a party, movement or ideology, but it's important to remember that we are Americans first. And when the party or movement you identify with does something to hurt our country such as wage insurrections and illegal wars, making a direct assault of the free press, declaring that everyone on the other side is an "enemy of the republic" just to name a few, it is incumbent on the movement's followers as Americans first, to step back and say no.

There is certainly room for debate on some of the issues I bring up, but for the life of me I can't see how anyone, even the most self-interested voter, could be oblivious to the rampant inflation caused by this president's dubious and illegal war with Iran, never mind the unconscionable suffering this war has brought to so many people. 

If the party and ideology I identify with did all that, I would have gotten off the bus years ago.

To use another sports metaphor, it would have been enough to make a Cubs fan out of me.

* OK I know some of you will get on me for these "facts" so here are a few clarifications:

• The Lake is always east unless you are in the extreme southeast neighborhoods of Eastside, Hegewisch and South Deering in which case the Lake is north. And also east. 
• Yes it's still a free country so you can put whatever you want on a hot dog in Chicago, even ketchup. But local food culture is a serious thing here as it is anywhere in the world. Try ordering a pizza with a topping of ham and pineapple in Naples. 
• There are no exceptions to the third fact. 

 

**But not this year. Go Go White Sox!!!

Rams Clip Porky's Wings

I learned a new word today. 

The word is adynata, the plural of adynation, From the sound of it you can probably guess it comes from the Greek language. It's not a common word in English, even my spell check doesn't recognize it.

But it's a very useful word as it means a figure of speech used to describe a highly unlikely or impossible occurrence.

Perhaps a more common English term for adynata would be "idioms of improbability".

Here are some good examples:

When hell freezes over.

The Twelfth of Never.

When pigs fly.

As I'm on a bit of a Shakespeare kick right now, here's a good one from the Bard:

Will all Neptune's great ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?

From Macbeth, referring to the character's inability to escape his guilt represented by the literal blood on his hands.

Last September I learned a contemporary term that in some circumstances could be related to adynata. Here's what I wrote about the term "hot take":

A hot take is a statement, opinion or prediction that is edgy, outrageous or simply uninformed. A good example of a hot take would be a sports commentator confidently predicting that this year's Chicago Bears are headed for the Super Bowl.

Now in my defense, that post was published on September 14, the day the Bears were crushed by their division rivals the Detroit Lions, 52-21. The week before in the first game of the regular season, they lost to another division rival the Minnesota Vikings 27-24.

Personnel wise, with some key exceptions, the team was essentially the same as it was the year before when they finished the season with a record of 5-12.

The Bears also hired a new head coach, Ben Johnson, previously the offensive coordinator of the Lions, who promised to bring a new winning culture to the Bears. But after the shellacking by his former team, the new culture at 0-2 bore a remarkable resemblance to the old one.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

A week later, after the Bears solidly beat the Dallas Cowboys, I still thought the idea of the Bears making it to the Super Bowl this season was preposterous and had no intention of re-writing that line. Same for the following week when they beat the Raiders, in that case sneaking by a weak team by just one point. 

The following game would be their first real test I thought, the Washington Commanders who last season beat the Bears on a game ending come-from-behind "Hail Mary" pass by their quarterback Jayden Daniels.

This season it was the Bears who had the game ending come-from-behind score, although not nearly as dramatic, a 38-yard field goal by their replacement kicker.

For the first time this season it dawned on me that this was a game the Bears would have easily lost last  year, or the year before, or the year before that, or in fact the past several years. I would have that same feeling many times this season. After that win in DC, the Bears would remain above .500 (having won more games than they lost), for the rest of the season.

I think that for any Bears fan at the start of this year, the idea of the team finishing over .500, even by just one game would be considered a step in the right direction.

The fans looking for more than that started to make a little noise, but their team still hadn't beaten anybody with a winning record up to that point. Two weeks later they lost to the 1-5 Baltimore Ravens by two touchdowns. That loss brought everyone back down to earth.

Then the Bears started to make a little noise of their own, winning the next five games including the Black Friday game, beating the defending Super Bowl champion Eagles in Philadelphia.

It was at that point I remembered my cynical comment about the Bears' chances this year and resolved to write a post to address that statement. But a friend told me not to as it might jinx the team. As I'm very superstitious when it comes to sports, I heeded his advice and am glad I did.

You're welcome, Bears fans.

The following week the Bears lost to their most bitter rival, the Green Bay Packers. It's always tough to lose to that team. I know, we've done a lot of that in the past oh 30 years or so. But this time, like they famously had done so often this year, the Bears came back from what seemed to be an insurmountable deficit and had it not been for a drive killing Packer interception in the end zone, Chicago could have walked away winners of that game.

In previous years, the Bears would not have come close to being in that situation.

There's another adynation that came to my attention this year. It goes something like this:

Chicago will have a Pope before they have a 4,000 yard passer.

We came so close to getting both this season.

We all know about the Pope who is presumably a Bears fan. The second part of that statement has to do with the fact that the Bears have never been known for their great quarterbacks. Well at least not in my lifetime.  

The last bona-fide superstar Bears Hall of Fame quarterback was Sid Luckman who retired in 1950. What so many pundits love to point out is that between 1992 and 2022, the Packers had two starting quarterbacks, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, one in the Hall of Fame, the other still employed as a player as of this writing and certainly destined for it. In that same thirty-year period, the Bears had 216 starting quarterbacks. 

OK that may be a slight exaggeration. 

This year marked the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Bears winning Super Bowl XX. That was definitely a team for the ages, despite the fact that they only won the NFL Championship once. 

I haven't heard anyone compare this Bears team to that one. 

But in my humble opinion, there are two pieces of this team that stand head and shoulders above their counterparts from forty years ago. First there's the aforementioned head coach Ben Johnson who has proven his mettle in his first year by turning a 5-12 team into a division champion. Mike Ditka certainly deserves a lot of credit for leading the 1985 Bears to the Super Bowl Championship but the reality is that team was dominated by its defense, which was led by Coach Buddy Ryan.

The other part of the 2025 Bears I'd take over the 1985 model is their quarterback Caleb Williams. This isn't to diminish Jim McMahon "the punky QB" and clown prince of the game, who had a phenomenal season in 1985. He may have had a phenomenal '86 season as well had he not been molested by Green Bay Defensive End Charles Martin in the cheapest shot I've ever seen in a football game.

This is only Caleb Williams' sophomore season in the NFL but he is fast becoming noticed as being among the best quarterbacks in the game, largely for his knack of turning the impossible into the possible, in many cases the probable, and in some cases the inevitable.

It has been pointed out ad infinitum that this year's Bears won seven games (six regular season and one post season), while trailing late in the fourth quarter. What is usually not mentioned is that in at least four of their losses, they also mounted a late game comeback including that game in Green Bay, where they came up just short. If  they had done that in two or three games, it could be considered luck or circumstance. But eleven games, no.

And much of the credit for that has to go to Caleb Williams. He's called "The Iceman", not because he belongs to the president's goon squad of rogue storm troopers who create mayhem in our cities, killing people who get in their way, but because of the ice water that seems to run through his veins during high pressure moments when the game is on the line. 

Much like a baseball closing pitcher, he seems to thrive on that extra pressure. Check out this Caleb Williams highlight reel from just the month of December.  If you're not interested in watching nearly 20 minutes of poetry in motion on a football filed, go directly to the 10:03 point in the video to view what in my opinion is one of the greatest sequences of plays in Chicago Bears history, at least up to that moment. 

It came during the second meeting of the Bears and the Packers this season at Soldier Field in Chicago. The winner of that game would end up division champion. 

This is what you don't see in the video: Having trailed all game and down by ten points with 1:59 left in the fourth quarter, Bear's kicker Cairo Santos kicked a 43 yard field goal to cut the lead to a touchdown. The next play was an onside kick, a short kickoff where the kicking team tries desperately to recover the ball. On side kicks almost never work. But indicative of the way things had been going for the Bears this year, they recovered the ball. 

Now to the video. The final play of the drive found the Bears with 26 seconds left in regulation time and fourth and four on the Packer six yard line, meaning the Bears had to get the ball at least to the two-yard line on that play or the game would be over. 

Did the Bears convert that fourth down? Of course they did, on a brilliantly designed play (with the help of some Packer miscues) leaving the receiver, Jahdae Walker so open in the end zone for the touchdown, I probably could have hit him.

Game tied.

The next play in the video could very well have been the greatest single play in Bears history.

Up to that moment.

It needs no explanation, just watch the video. And listen to Tom Brady, no slouch of a quarterback himself, lose his mind over the throw by Williams and catch by D.J. Moore to win that game in overtime and the NFC North Championship.

It turned out the Bears would win only one more game in this magical season, but what a game it was, the first game of the playoffs against who else, the Green Bay Packers. 

This time the Bears were down 21-3 at the beginning of the second half, meaning Caleb Williams time. If you understand football, you know that trailing by three scores, the offense led by the quarterback can't do it all on their own, they need the defense to stop the other team from scoring, something the Bears defense hadn't done all first half. At halftime I walked into the kitchen where the radio was still on and the pundits and fans were aghast, blasting the Bears' "D" saying the first thing the team needs to do in the offseason (which they assumed would start at the end of the game) is trade Montez Sweat and the rest of the Bears' high priced defensive players because they weren't doing anything. 

Well they did something in the second half. The Packers got the ball to start the third quarter and Mr. Sweat and Company forced Green Bay to punt on their next four possessions, two of which were three-and-outs. 

Nevertheless, the Bears were still trailing 21-6 at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Caleb Williams must not have gotten the call, let's try again, Caleb you there? Good. 

In the fourth quarter it was the Bears' turn to be unstoppable; in their four possessions of the quarter, they put up a field goal and three touchdowns. 

But after their final touchdown, ahead for the first time in the game, there was still over a minute left on the clock, plenty of time for the Pack to march down the field and score their second touchdown of the quarter for the win. The defense would have to step up one more time. 

As I said, this was not the 1985-86 Chicago Bears defense which took no prisoners. If you watch highlight reels from that year, at least half of the plays you'll see feature the defense either sacking the quarterback, forcing fumbles, or making interceptions, many of those plays resulting in a Bears touchdown. Of the sixteen regular season games that year, the Bears defense allowed ten or fewer points in eleven of them, and two of those were shutouts. Even more impressive, in the post season the Bears shut out both of their opponents in the two games leading up to the Super Bowl, where they only gave up ten points. 

By comparison, the 2025 Bears held only one team, the lowly Cleveland Browns to under ten points. 

Bend but not break has been the mantra of the Bears defense for quite some time now. That means they may give up a lot of yards and even field goals, but not a lot of touchdowns, the first half of this game being the exception. The bottom line is the Bears' D this year played well enough to keep the team in the game in all but one, maybe two games this year, which is very respectable. 

So it wasn't unexpected that with over a minute on the clock, Packer QB Jordan Love would lead his team down the field to be in a position to score the winning touchdown. With seven seconds on the clock from the Bears 32 yard line, Love would have his chance. Unfortunately for him he dropped the snap but as the Bears were only playing three men on the line, he had what seemed to be an eternity to find a receiver in the end zone He found one, but he turned out to be wearing the wrong uniform.

Like most of the year, the Bears' Defense wasn't overpowering, but it got the job done.  

The next game was the biggest test of all, playing hands down the best team the Bears faced all season, the LA Rams. Winning that regular season game against the Packers meant that the Bears would have home field advantage in that game. All the better, the temperature was predicted to be just barely in the double digits. 

Bear weather. 

Which warmed the hearts of old Bears fans like me who remember 1986 NFC Championship game like it was yesterday. Same opponent, same stadium, same weather.

Would history repeat itself?

Well not exactly as this Bear team wouldn't think of blowing out their opponents 24-0. That would be much too boring.

Again, trailing, seven points behind, do or die, fourth and long, 27 seconds to go in the fourth quarter, then this happens. 

The single greatest play in Bears history. 

Up until now.

That play tied the game, forcing overtime. All that was left was get into field goal position, kick the field goal, then on to Seattle. The Rams even obliged, not scoring on their first drive of overtime meaning any score wins the game.

It was inevitable, the Bears have been there and done that all year in the games that really mattered.

But not this time.

Caleb Williams did something he doesn't do very often, he threw an interception.

Some blame it on D.J. Moore who didn't run his route correctly. Some say he was dogging it. Others point out that he did spend some time in the blue tent earlier in the game being evaluated for a concussion.

Maybe he shouldn't have been playing.

Or maybe the coach shouldn't have left all those points on the field by "going for it" unsuccessfully on fourth downs when they could have kicked easily makeable field goals.

Or maybe the defense's aggressive blitzing after the turnover left too many receivers open for their quarterback Matthew Stafford to find.

Or maybe the football gods were displeased that the refs didn't call pass interference on Cole Kmet for pushing off the defender before he caught that unbelievable pass to tie the game.

It really doesn't matter, we all knew it had to end sometime.

One thing is certain. The Bears would never have gotten where they did without Caleb, DJ, Coach Johnson, the Defense, and all the other pieces of the team I didn't have space to mention.

Caleb Williams - AP Photo by Jeff Robertson

In this most wonderful, unlikely of football seasons that brought this city together like hardly anything else could, pigs almost flew. 

Thank you Bears.