On the Field, In the Stands

Watching the Bears on TV Sunday, I couldn’t help but notice a far greater percentage of African Americans playing on the field than sitting in the stands.  Going to and watching White Sox games, I can’t help but notice the difference.  The Sox have far fewer black players and way more Latin players than the Bears while their fan base is pretty much every color.

Part of the reason for the difference is economics, eight home games vs. eighty-one; the law of supply and demand pretty much dictates that tickets for one of eight contests will cost more.  Do the Sox have more black fans than, say, the Bulls, with their forty-one home games?  Good question, and one crying for some data.

The above and other thoughts occupied my Sunday afternoon as both Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu were lifted from the last game of the season to standing ovations from the home crowd.  Yes, mostly white Bears’ fans would stand and applaud a popular player who’s black, but baseball is different in ways hard to explain.  Because you asked, I’ll give it a go.

Race has constituted an immense gulf on the South Side of Chicago, with people white, black and brown more often than not living in anything but harmony; the ballpark at 35^th and Shields may be one of the few places in the city where all three groups congregate as one.  White fans standing to cheer Tim Anderson is as noteworthy as black fans—remember that Mayor Harold Washington and the comedian Bernie Mac were Sox fans—doing the same for Jose Abreu.  The announced crowd at Guaranteed Rate Whatever was 19,534, considerably less than the 62,131 who packed Soldier Field at the same time to see the Bears beat the Vikings.  I won’t speak ill of Bears’ fans.  Technically, I am one.

But I’d rather be part of that other crowd any day, as part of the Great South Side come together to cheer our heroes whatever the color of their skin.