Imrem: White Sox, Cubs fans, stake your claim
Let the baseball trashing talking begin on the North Side, South Side and all around the suburbs.
It'll really be disappointing if White Sox and Cubs fans don't go back to disliking each other with considerable anger in 2015.
The anger sort of subsided in recent years, partly because the teams were awful and mustering pride in either was difficult.
But, man, that changed big time since last season ended and this off-season began.
The Cubs hired manager Joe Maddon. The Sox signed free agents Adam LaRoche and Zach Duke. The Cubs signed free agent Jon Lester. The Sox traded for Jeff Samardzija. The Cubs traded for Miguel Montero. The Sox added free agents Dave Robertson and Melky Cabrera.
Monday the Cubs introduced Lester at a news conference. Tuesday the Sox introduced Samardzija, Robertson and Cabrera.
A baseball fan in this town might expect these teams to make this a daily ritual - adding this guy on the North Side or that guy on the South Side.
Rarely are both teams trying to be significantly better at the same time, and rarely do both turn out to be good at the same time.
Even the Cubs-Sox interleague games became relatively irrelevant the past couple of years. That should change this coming season as both teams appear to be intent on winning for a change.
Events of the past few days demonstrated that there's too much violence in the world, but just a few friendly punches exchanged in the ballparks next summer might be heartwarming.
Samardzija grew up a Sox fan in Northwest Indiana. Then he played for the Cubs. Now he's back in town with the Sox.
"Obviously, both teams are hungry (now)," Samardzija said after being reintroduced to Chicago. "There's a lot of (fan) passion and you want to return that same passion to them."
The Sox and Cubs let Chicago's baseball community down this decade. Local fans deserve better and maybe now they'll receive it.
Even if they don't, though, the expectations will be high entering the season and the eternal hope will at least be justified for a while.
The trend has moved toward too many people saying, "I'm a fan of both teams," which is something no baseball fan in this town should be.
Pick a lane, folks, Cubs or White Sox. Own it, live with it.
Kids don't hang out on street corners as much anymore arguing whether Jose Abreu or Anthony Rizzo is more valuable, but maybe the debate will rage on social media.
The rivalry might have heated up for White Sox fans Tuesday when they heard the latest news about the latest news.
The Cubs' signing of Lester was good enough for them to be featured on the cover of the latest Sports Illustrated.
Meanwhile, a headline on the sports front of USA Today blared, "Lester lured by misery, history."
Two of the most esteemed national publications noticed the Cubs' moves and ignored the Sox' moves.
You can hear late Sox fans crying from the heavens, "You see, I told you that the media always favors dem rats on da Nort' Side."
The Sox and their faithful have been paranoid for a long time, often justifiably. They felt they were being disrespected no matter how many more games their team won than the Cubs won.
Now the Sox are trying to win enough to change that, the Cubs are trying to retain the local spotlight, and fans of both should care again about how the teams rate against each other.
"(It depended on) what hat your father put on you when you were a kid," Samardzija recalled of the rivalry. "And whether you wore a Frank Thomas (Sox) jersey or a Ryne Sandberg (Cubs) jersey."
So let's get stoked again, fans, but without any "I'm a fan of both teams" nonsense anymore.
mimrem@dailyherald.com