Fans

Chicagoans like to think of themselves as so sophisticated, so hip, that they can go to restaurants and eat tiny meals off of square plates.  (Personally, I find this next to impossible to do.)  But show me a hipster who doesn’t go crazy over one of the four major Chicago sports’ teams, and I’ll show you someone who’s just passing through.

I’m not saying Hawks’ fans are more rabid than their Penguin counterparts or Bears’ fans can outcheer, outeat, outdrink Steelers’ fans, but Chicagoans by and large aren’t satisfied following just one team heart and soul.  The population of Pittsburgh doesn’t seem to have enough left over to give much to the Pirates or attract a professional basketball team.

And I’m not just talking numbers here.  Chicago isn’t even half the size of New York, but Chicago fans exude more energy than the followers of any New York team, except maybe for the Yankees, and even there I wonder.  Take away the Bronx snark, and what are you left with?  Not much, I’d argue.

It could be the weather extremes combined with Second-City syndrome or something else; the shores of Lake Michigan may be home to a frustration that infects us all.  Yes, that’s it!  Frustration enters through the water, building up in our tissue so that we wouldn’t know happiness if it bit us on the butt.  Except when our sports’ teams win, that is.

We’re different in Chicago by how we root—do the Rangers, Knicks and Mets even have real fan bases?—and how we laugh.  I mean, Americans get much of their humor from “Saturday Night Live,” and that program would be nothing without the contributions of performers and writers who learned their craft here.  Cheeseburga-cheeseburga, Da Bears, enough said.

Along those lines, the TV cameras caught a Bears’ fan wearing the quintessential hat during the Green Bay game Sunday; it had an oversized cheese grater on top.  You have to be from around here to appreciate that.