El Crosstown Clásico
By Sinhue Mendoza
Growing up in the Chicago suburb of Mundelein I wasn’t even aware of the Cubs-White Sox heated rivalry until I became old enough to understand there was a cultural difference in our loyalties. The Crosstown Classic is not just about two teams playing an interleague series in the same city. If you live in Chicago, the city of neighborhoods, it really is about where you’re from and your identity. It’s working class vs. white collar.
For Latinos in the Windy City the series is much more than about baseball; it’s about our ‘identidad,’ identity. As my barber, who is a Mexican-American Sox fan, said to me last week, “baseball in Chicago is much more about who we are than it is about baseball.” My barber arrived from Mexico to the south side Mexican gateway neighborhood of “La Villita”- “Little Village.” Everything about Cubness annoys him. “If I want to get drunk and crazy, I don’t need to go to a baseball game,” as he explained his perception about the Cubs fan experience.
The decision has to be made early on in life. Will you be the yuppie Cubs fan or identify with your immigrant working class roots and the White Sox? Yes, of course I identify with my immigrant working class roots. I proudly state my father was a union man and, as opposed to the loafers I wear daily, my dad wore work boots to his two jobs as a baker.
In retrospect the Cubs’ American baseball experience WGN sold in their Cubs broadcasts is exactly what I wanted to be a part of. Some day I wanted to earn enough money to go to Cubs games and spend money in the expensive concession stands. Is there something wrong with this? One of the things my father told me early on and stuck with me throughout my life is “El que quiere puede.” “The person who really wants it, can have it.” I believed him. Becoming the perception of the Cubs fan to me meant success. I was going to become the crazy Cubs fan in the sun-soaked bleachers singing “Take me out to the Ballgame” with the rest of the group.
My paisanos south of Madison St., the street that officially divides Chicago’s north and south, would say the Disney-type perception with a happy ending is exactly why Cubs culture is so annoying. The brutal realities of working-class life is the White Sox’s identity and the surrounding neighborhoods where a strong majority of Mexicans live or grew up in.
Who can go to a day game at 1:20 p.m.?
How could a hard-working Latino think it’s OK to miss work for a baseball game?
Ridiculous. Part of me laughs at what my parents would think of missing work to go to a sporting event. It is this divisiveness and identity crisis that makes the crosstown classic more unique than any other interleague regional series in the majors. It’s North vs. South. It’s the ongoing reality of life with Latinos in America. It’s the working class versus the white collar. It’s El Trabajador vs. El Jefe, The Worker vs. The Boss.
As for me I will always love my Cubbies and I will always love going to day baseball games. In fact, by lunchtime on Friday, I may have even skipped work to be sitting at Wrigley Field for the first game of the 2018 Crosstown Classic for a scheduled first pitch at 1:20 p.m. because that’s Old Style.
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