The Nature of Crowds

 

A cold spawned in Hell—I’m dead serious—kept me on the couch watching the Bears and Vikings yesterday.  From what I could see, either football fans are different, or people at football games are.

At White Sox games, a few fans may have little socks pinned to their shirts or jackets, and a guy sometimes walks around as “Sox Man,” I think, with white socks hanging from his ears, but that’s it.  I have yet to see anything resembling a cub costume on fans at Cub games.

Compare that to yesterday.  Either I was hallucinating courtesy of the cold, or there were a whole bunch of folks sitting in Soldier Field with bear heads atop their own.  And let’s not forget those venues full of Cheeseheads and Hawg snouts.  I don’t pretend to get it.

Then you have the nature of the crowds.  Chicago can be a tough baseball town, New York and Philadelphia even tougher.  Now consider the football equivalents—Bears, Giants, Jets, Eagles.  Civility takes a hike on Sunday afternoons in the fall.  It’s like everybody tailgates on raw meat to get in the mood.  Alex Rodriguez didn’t get booed as much at the Cell as the Vikings’ punter did yesterday at Soldier Field.

And then you have the numbers.  White Sox fans think Cub fans are lemmings for the way the pack Wrigley Field to watch bad baseball; Cub fans, in so far as they can think, feel Sox fans are disloyal for not supporting their team through thick and thin.  But Cub fans may as well be Sox fans when compared to Bear fans.  Bad team, bad weather, it doesn’t matter.  Who brought the raw meat?

The other question I have is overlap.  How many discerning White Sox fans are over-the-top Bear fans?  I honestly don’t know.  If other Sox fans are like me, this is a time for mourning and recriminations; I’ll take a pass on wearing the bear head.  But that could just be me.

And the nature of softball crowds?  That’s a trick question.  It’s just family and friends watching female athletes do their thing.  Someone pass the coffee thermos.