In the Blink of an Eye, Maybe

 To be a Chicago baseball fan is to hope, hope that this year—or next—is different, and winning replaces the all too familiar and numbing act of losing.  Such a change is so rare as to be exhilarating when experienced.

It feels that way right now with the winter meetings in San Diego.  Going in, the White Sox had already signed first baseman/dh Adam LaRoche (who as a boy used to hang around Comiskey Park when his dad was a Sox coach) and lefty reliever Zach Duke.  On top of that, at the winter meetings they’ve signed closer David Robertson with his 39 saves away from the Yankees (oh, how sweet that) and traded for starter and ex-Cub Jeff Samardzija.  I should also note that the Cubs signed starter Jon Lester to a deal for half the gold in Fort Knox.

Maybe everything has changed overnight.  The White Sox and Cubs will now dominate their respective divisions and go deep into the playoffs.  Better yet, both teams will meet in the World Series the way the Dodgers and Yankees used to.  We get to play the Yankees, crushing dreams October after October.  I am, after all, a South Sider.

Chicago has always been a football town; I think it has something to do hardscrabble roots in factories and packing houses.  Our grandfathers took to a game nearly as violent as their work was, and they passed that rooting interest along to all their white-collar descendants.  Like Mike Ditka said, we think of ourselves as a bunch of Grabowskis.  But the McCaskey family is clueless how to run their storied football team. 

They’ve hired four coaches since Ditka, each one blander than the last.  Marc Trestman and his staff stink up Soldier Field, only to say, “The only thing that people ask me here [at team headquarters] is what they can do to help.  And that comes from all areas of this building.  ‘What can we do to help you along?’”

Because no one at Halas Hall has seen fit to help move Trestman out, there could be a sea change in these parts with baseball winning hearts and minds.  And it all will have happened in the blink of an eye, or so it will seem.