Why are Chicago sports teams so bad?
The Bulls, with Michael Jordan's departure, are the doormat of the NBA. They have a lot of money to offer free agents under the salary cap rules, but they can't even get free agents to return their calls.
The NFL Bears are 0-3, and the team is already looking forward to 2001.
The NHL Black Hawks are not much better than an expansion team.
The Cubs have Sammy Sosa and absolutely nothing else.
The only glimmer of hope for Chicago fans lies in the White Sox, who will clinch the AL Central Division any day now, but don't appear to be able to beat the Yankees in the playoffs.
In fact, the long-term ineptitude of Chicago sports teams can be illustrated using baseball as an example. The question is: which major league baseball team has gone the longest since their last pennant?
Now, we are not counting the eight teams - Seattle, Tampa Bay, Arizona, Anaheim, Houston, Colorado, Montreal, and Texas - which have never won a pennant. Which team has gone the longest since the last time they won one?
The answer is the Chicago Cubs, who won their last flag in 1945.
What's more, the American League team to go the longest without a pennant is also from Chicago. When the perenially horrid Cleveland Indians finally pulled it together and won two pennants in the 1990s, they left this unwanted designation to the Chicago White Sox. The Sox last won the league title in 1959.
The Chicago clubs have also gone the longest since their last World Series wins. The White Sox won their last Series title in 1917, when they had Eddie Collins and Shoeless Joe Jackson in their lineup, and the Cubs haven't won a Series since they defeated Ty Cobb's Tigers in 1908.
So, both of baseball's most historically inept teams come from Chicago. Now, I dismissed this as mere coincidence until I realized that the longest-suffering teams in hockey and football are also Chicago teams!
In the National Hockey League, the New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings won Stanley Cups in the 1990s, leaving the Chicago Black Hawks with the longest championship drought. The Black Hawks have won only three Cups (1934, 1938 and 1961) in all their years in the league.
In football, the Chicago Cardinals won the NFL title in 1947, and have never won another. They haven't even won a playoff game since the 1947 title game. Even mediocre, poorly-managed teams like the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles have managed to win titles since 1947. I know that the Cardinals have since moved to St. Louis and then to Arizona, but they are a Chicago team at heart. At least the Bears won a Super Bowl - fifteen years ago.
Fortunately for Chicago, two other teams passed on Michael Jordan in the 1984 NBA draft and allowed the Bulls to pick the greatest basketball player ever. The Bulls won six NBA titles, reversing the trend set by all of Chicago's other sports teams. The longest-suffering NBA team is the Sacramento Kings, who won the NBA championship in 1951 when they were the Rochester Royals. However, the Bulls won't win anything soon, and probably not for a very long time.
Anyway, at least the White Sox are doing well this year. You'd think the fans would be excited about the Pale Hose, wouldn't you?
Well, you'd be wrong.
Attendance has been picking up lately, but for most of the season the Sox were drawing less than 20,000 fans per game to see a winning team. The new Comiskey Park, built next to the old one, sits in a bad neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, and the upper deck is so steep that the team management is thinking of tearing it all out and replacing it. What's worse, the fans have never forgiven Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who convinced the other clubowners to cancel the 1994 World Series. Reinsdorf also threw away the 1997 season when he sold or traded most of the team's stars in July when the Sox were only three games out of first place.
Consider, too, that Reinsdorf also owns the Bulls and dismantled that championship team at least two years too soon. Most of the criticisms of Michael Jordan's departure from basketball are laid at Reinsdorf's feet, and reflect back on the White Sox. This combo of a bad park and a hated owner keeps the fans away from Comiskey Park in droves.
In contrast, the Cubs are successful at the box office despite their ineptitude. There are many fans who like to see games at Wrigley Field, and they fill the seats no matter how bad the team really is. They'll come out to see Sammy Sosa drive in two runs and kick in three more in the field. Cubs management doesn't fear criticism from the main newspaper in town, the Tribune, since the Tribune Corporation owns the Cubs. Management, therefore, has no incentive to better the ballclub, so they don't bother.
I thought Cleveland fans (last World Series win 1948, last NFL title 1964) had it bad, but I'm happy I'm not a Chicago sports fan.