Imrem: A little heated play never hurt a division race
Bitterness is greatly underrated in sports.
Competition is good. Bitter competition is better. Friendly rivalries are good. Bitter rivalries are better.
The White Sox and Royals fortified their spirits with a bit of bitters Monday afternoon at Kansas City.
If fans of the two teams are lucky, mumble will evolve into grumble and grumble into rumble this season.
Seriously, let's inject some raucous and ruckus into this American Central race.
The Sox weren't amused in the season opener for both teams as the Royals recorded a 10-1 victory. This loss extended the Royals' success against the Sox - going back to last season - and likely extended the Sox' frustration against them.
The Sox and Royals are expected to be in the middle of a four-team race for the division title along with the Tigers and Indians.
That's fine. That's super. Every game between any two of the four should be meaningful.
Add some bitterness and they also could be eventful.
That's what occurred in the Sox-Royals opener. Batters were hit by pitches. Shouts came from the top step of the dugout. Push was a syllable away from shove.
Sox starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija was in the middle of it, as might be expected of a former football player.
Samardzija hit a couple of batters. What really ticked off the Royals was the second came after a Kansas City home run.
That pretty much ended the conflict for the afternoon but probably not the bitterness for the season.
Disputes like this tend to carry over, maybe not like in hockey but pretty compellingly for baseball.
Maybe frayed nerves will tear in Game 2 of this series Wednesday; maybe when the Royals come to Chicago later this month; maybe during the summer; maybe when the teams meet during the last week of the season with a playoff berth in the balance.
We can only hope so because too many sports have been reduced to exercises in patty-cake.
Let the Sox and Royals drop the gloves sometime like the Blackhawks and Blues might. Let the Tigers and Indians go at each other. Let the survivors punch it out just for the heck of it.
Men do feel the need to act like men's men, you know, even in boys' games.
Yeah, yeah, sure, fighting is no example to set for the youth of America. Except this isn't youth baseball; it's the big leagues with enormous stakes.
Judging by Monday, it could be that the only way the White Sox can prevail against the Royals is by having more fight.
Actually, judging by last season, the Royals figure to keep pitching, fielding, running the bases and overall executing fundamentals better than the Sox.
The Sox might outslug the Royals - at the plate, that is - but even that might not be enough. It wasn't last year when Kansas City won the AL pennant by playing solid baseball.
The equalizer would be if the Sox were physically, mentally and emotionally tougher than the Royals, and the Tigers and Indians as well.
A good bench-clearing brawl could bring together a White Sox team comprised of a lot of new players from other places.
It has happened before. The Sox won the AL Central in 2000 after an early-season fight with the Tigers.
When Samardzija threw at the Royals after Avisail Garcia was hit, he won considerable respect in the clubhouse for protecting a teammate.
We'll see how personally the Royals took it and how bitter the season series becomes between these AL Central rivals.
mimrem@dailyherald.com