Chicago has long been self-conscious about its
second-class status,vis-a-vis”The City”of New
York, with 4 World Series in over one hundred
years among its two teams compared to a
robust 28 World Series titles to the two teams
in the Big Apple.

By Amaury Pi-GonzálezBut Chicago’s inferiority complex is understandable
when you see the sketches throughout the years on
popular television programs like Saturday Nite
Live(which by the way originates in New York City)
on “Da Bears”or the hapless Chicago Cubs or on
the always “black sheep of the family”in Chicago the South Siders, White Sox.

Hey, how can you explain the locals in Chicago
devotion to stuffed Pizza ? When we all know that
the best Pizza in the world is at any of the thousands of Pizzerias in New York !

So Chicago has The Tribune Building and Wrigley
Buildings and the Sears Towers. New York has
Rockefeller Center, The Chrysler Buidling and
the granddaddy of them all, the Empire State Building,
probably the most famous building in the world, even though the Sears Towers is the tallest they
do not have the cache of the Empire State Building
who has been photographed and documented in
numerous movies from King Kong to Sleepless
in Seattle. Let’s face it Chicago, the Art Decco
buildings of New York are way above by class
and style to anything you have in the Windy City.

Then we come down to baseball:
So the Cubs have not won a World Series since
1908 when they beat Detroit Tigers in seven games and the Chicago White Sox of 1917 when they
took the New York Giants in six games. This
was Chicago’s greatest baseball moment,
beating a New York team in the World Series !

OK, so in 1945 the Chicago Cubs went to the fall
classic again but lost to the Detroit Tigers in
seven games and since then…nada, nothing
for the Chicago teams in Postseason titles.

Not to mention the 1919 Black Sox Scandal,
the biggest scandal ever in baseball. When the
Chicago White Sox lost to the Cincinnati Reds
in that year’s World Series 5 games to 3,
but wait a minute ! Eight members of the Chicago
team conspired with gamblers to fix (intentionally
lose)games. Because of its corrupt and dark nature, history has it as the “Black Sox Scandal”.

In 1919 eight players from the Chicago White Sox
were accused of throwing the series vs. Cincinnati
Reds. It has never been clear as to all the details or the
extent to which each of the 8 players wereinvolved causing them to be banned
from professional baseball for life. This was front
page news all over the country, by far the biggest
scandal in baseball history.

In 1919 radio wasn’t around yet, television wasn’t
even a dream. Image a scandal of the magnitude
of 1919 in today’s baseball ? With 24-hour television Sports networks, talk shows with
geniuses on the air day and night dissecting everybody’s quotes. Image the fun that ESPN
and CNN and FOX and everybody would have today
if a team fixes the World Series ? In today’s media
world that would make this steroids controversy
we are living today a Page 45 story in the
New York Times (notice I didn’t say Chicago Tribune)let’s go with the paper of record, and that
is…yes, the NYT.

But let’s talk also about Cincinnati and a man
called Rose. The Cincinnati Reds have another
unforgettable scandal. In 1989 after Pete Rose
became manager of the Reds, baseball Commissioner Mr. A.Barlett Giamatti, had him
investigated for suspicion of betting on games.
Later in 1989 Giamatti banned Rose from baseball
for life. So Pete Rose who finished a stellar career
with 4,256 hits, more than anybody in the
universe, is not in the Hall of Fame. Pete Rose,
who incidentally was born in The Queen City of
Cincinnati, is not in Cooperstown.

So there you have it folks, taking a break from
steroids we remembered two of the greatest
(maybe the greatest) black marks in baseball
history that happened in Chicago and Cincinnati.

Chicago has its inferiority complex to New York,
Chicago a town where dead people vote in each
election, where there is almost acceptance in
history that Richard Nixon was cheated out of
the Presidency in the 1960 election against
John F. Kennedy with the help of Mafia Capo-Tutti-
di-Cappo Sam Giancana. Chicago where going
to Wrigley Field is like going to Catholic Church
to confess your sins, were people suffer and
pound their chest because the Cubs never
win but they still -like masochist- go and pay to
see them lose, in the “friendly confines”.

And today Venezuelan-born Ozzie Guillén who
manages the Chicago White Shox is trying to
put them back on the baseball map with a trip
and win to a World Series. Knowing Ozzie,
I don’t know If he wins a World Series, God
help us…we will never stop listening to him
if his ’05 Sox win the World Series.
However, I do not think the Chicago White Sox
will even make it to the World Series this season.

Even the Mafia wins from New York, yes Chicago
had Al Capone, but where do you think Capone
came from ? Of course, he moved from New
York to Chicago !

Yes, Chicago a hell of a town, but I Love New
York ! And I’ll take Manhattan and Staten Island too! And like Frank Sinatra (born accross the river
in Hoboken) said: “New York, New York, If you
can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere”.
Adios.