Ready for an avalanche of tired narratives?
Even though these teams are both in last-place in their respective divisions heading into this weekend interleague series, they will still receive a lion’s share of national attention.
Predictably, Saturday night’s game is on FOX (7:15 p.m.) and Sunday night’s game is on ESPN (8 p.m.). With that in mind, it would be almost too easy to construct a drinking game based on words, events and people that you’ll hear repeated over and over again.
Theo Epstein (former Red Sox GM, now Cubs president), Bill Buckner, Steve Bartman, Babe Ruth, a billy goat and Curse of the Bambino are the prop bet favorites for being mentioned the most by Tim McCarver, Joe Buck, Ken Rosenthal, Terry Francona, Dan Shulman and Orel Hershiser this weekend. You are also sure to hear that Wrigley Field was built in 1916 (2nd oldest park in MLB behind Fenway) and the Cubs haven’t won a World Series in only 103 years.
More annoying fan base, who ya got?
You might think that we have the market cornered on pink hats and insufferable fans but Chicago can surely give Sox fans a good run for their Fenway bricks. If Fenway has become an amusement park in recent years then Wrigley most closely resembles a college party. I’m convinced that many of the fans that shuffle into Wrigley summer after summer do it mostly for the social aspect: You drink some cheap, watered-down beer in the bleachers, make some new friends and try not to get heat stroke. If that’s not bad enough, the Cubs feature the one song in MLB that can rival the nauseating “Sweet Caroline” at Fenway. During the 7th inning stretch, the Cubs have a “celebrity” sing perhaps the most played out baseball related song in the universe: “Take Me Out To the Ballgame.”
Oh, right:?The games.
This series will be fun since it’s the first time since 2005 that the Red Sox have played at Wrigley. Odds are that we’ll never see that dream Red Sox-Cubs World Series in our lifetime, so this will have to do.
Because the Cubs are the worst team in MLB (heading into Thursday’s action), the Red Sox need to win at least two of three. Friday’s starting pitcher for Chicago, Ryan Dempster (2-3, 2.31 ERA, 1.03 WHIP), is having a great season but his team can’t win games behind him.
Wide receiver Jeff Samardzija (5-4, 3.96 ERA, 1.35 WHIP), who gets the ball on Saturday for the Cubs and is matched up against Jon Lester, is proving that choosing pro baseball over pro football was certainly a wise decision.
