5/17/2004 02:51:00 PM by Rob

Sammy Sosa v. Frank Thomas

I have a friendly wager with a co-worker, who is also a baseball fan who prefers the White Sox. I cannot call him a Sox Fan, because his whole life doesn't revolve around bad things happening to the Cubs. He knows baseball, and actually follows the game and the entire league far more closely than I.

Anyway, the wager is this: if the Sux ever get rid of the Big Skirt, I owe him lunch. But, if the Cubs ever get rid of Sam-Me, he owes me lunch.

To his credit, when Thomas was in his 45-day free agent window a couple of winters ago, he wasn't that excited, because he knew nobody was going to give the big gorilla half the money the Sux would.

It can be argued that Thomas is as deserving of Hall-of-Fame consideration as Sosa. While Thomas has fewer homers, he has as many RBI (1407 to Sosa's 1474), and a much higher BA/OPS/SLG split (.309/.429/.567 to Sosa's .278/.349/.547).

Anyway, all this leads to a big baseball question all over the Chicago media today: suppose Frank and Sammy were to go out today and equally fuck up, somehow, either on or off the field? Frank's fanbase would be far more likely to turn against him. Why is that?

The reasons why are as varied and as polar as the differences between Cub and Sux fans:

- As mentioned before here, the true "Sox Fan" doesn't care as much about his/her own team, as much as they hate our own team. Their players, sadly, are only out there because, after all, someone has to wear the uniforms. Their fans need their players to be the entity that they pretend to rally around. But, really, they could be 25 identical robots, just as long as the line "Chicago" appears somewhere in the AL Central standings, so these drama-monkeys have a platform to stand on.

- Even though one guy grew up in a middle-class American home, and the other grew up in a Dominican slum, it is the slum-dweller that has a better way with the English language. Both men think their own shit don't stink, and both look down on you, the fan. But Sosa couches his comments in broken unintelligible English so, often, when asked to repeat his statements, he changes them to something more palatable. Frank, on the other hand, can be understood loud and clear when he cries about having to stretch his personal budget on $5M annually.

- As Sammy loves to point out, in 1998, he and Mark McGwire "savea de beisbol" with their home-run battle. Frank Thomas did not take advantage of any opportunities to savea de beisbol.

- Thomas never had anything like "corkgate" happen to him. The worst thing he ever did was refuse to do a shuttle run during Jerry Manuel's first spring training camp. For that, he was crucified for months, even though that same year, Thomas and the Sox slugged their way to a division championship. Of course, Sosa and the Cubs won one last year, too. Sosa was caught cheating!!

But, and this is important, Frank, if you're reading this:

(and whether you want to believe Sammy, or if you're like me, and didn't and still don't believe a muthafucking speck of it)

Sammy said he was sorry. He "humbled" himself, and apologi for his wrongdoing.

He tried to cook up a preposterous fable about what had happened, but he ASKED for OUR FORGIVENESS.

Frank Thomas is too proud and too full to ever do that.

Maybe if this were on one of the coasts, Sosa would have had his lying ass laughed out of town, and Thomas would be revered for being "hard". But this is the Midwest, and the Cubs' big fan base in smalltown Iowa, rural Illinois, and cornpones across the country via the Superstation, place great value on humility, and they take people at their word.

Unlike, of course, me.

Thomas, as well as his owner, ought to try swallowing a little cockpride, if they want to try to appeal to the common man.

But, then again, maybe they know their own fan base, perhaps even better than I do, and maybe they realize that it isn't fuckin' worth it. They still only cheer at Sox games when the scoreboard guy puts up a losing Cub score.

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