More than ever at stake this season

As interleague games approached, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen threw a first-strike fastball at the Cubs last weekend.

It came after a TV reporter pointed out how long it had been since the teams were in first place when they played.

Like, what, maybe forever?

"That's their fault," the Sox manager said.

His point was that the Sox have been winners a lot more often than the Cubs have been. The Sox even won a World Series, didn't they?

Both are winning a lot this season. You can look at it a couple of ways: Either neither can be called a potential spoiler or both can be.

The six games over the next two weekends -- the first coming Friday in Wrigley Field -- can be considered special for a change because they're for more than local bragging rights.

They're for the possibility of playing for national bragging rights this autumn.

Guillen and Cubs manager Lou Piniella have been asked about the matchup for a couple of weeks. Fans have been anticipating it for even longer.

In a way it's great, and in another way it's not. For most of my life, the hope was that the next time the Cubs and the Sox played meaningful games would be in the World Series.

That's why I didn't want to waste the intracity rivalry on interleague play. But even I'm bending on that now.

There's no denying the Sox-Cubs games have been fun, and this year's should be madness verging on mayhem.

On a couple of occasions, Guillen indicated concern that each weekend's series ends on a Sunday evening. Fans of both teams will have all day to get their alcohol on, get their game faces on and get their nasties on.

If fights break out in the stands when both teams are bad, who knows what might break out when both are good enough to be playing for something?

This year both are in first place. Both appear headed for the playoffs. Both could, dare it be said out loud, qualify to play the season's final game in October.

It won't happen, of course. I still find it hard to believe the Cubs will win anything significant in my lifetime. Then again, I said the same of the Sox until 2005, so anything is possible.

Anyway, the current standings say either could play in the World Series. Heck, there is even a chance -- man, I don't believe I'm saying this -- both will.

How much of a chance? I don't know. I'm not good with percentages. The easy thing to say is a 50-50 chance exists.

But it's probably more like somewhere between 0 percent and 10 percent. I mean, this is still Chicago baseball we're talking about, where the history is one world championship a century.

But, hey, the longest of shots won the Belmont Stakes, right?

Maybe that's why so many on each side of town are so excited. The marketing hype has graduated from Cross-town Classic to Cross-town Showdown. By Friday it could advance to Cross-town Combat.

With so much at stake, the ballparks will be electric, so I have to get over this idea that the Cubs and the Sox should never play meaningful games against each other unless it's October.

You know, and then maybe I could even start calling these games a World Series preview.

mimrem@dailyherald.com