Good competition and good vibes at Cubs-White Sox series

Posted May 18, 2026 2:50 pm

By Jon Greenberg

To the diehard baseball fans on either side of town, the Cubs-White Sox series is like New Year’s Eve for a boozehound.

It’s amateur hour.

When the series hits Rate Field on the South Side, as it did this weekend, there are long lines, cramped concourses, sold-out parking lots and empty elote stands. All of that can be annoying, sure.

But there is also the potential for magic. When both teams are good, this series can be as electric as a playoff game, as much fun as Packers-Bears. It’s like a Chicago street fest, but with baseball.

The problem, of course, is that it’s rare when both teams are actually good. But that kind of scarcity also makes a crosstown series — like the one that ended 9-8 Sunday on a two-run walk-off homer by Edgar Quero in the 10th inning — extra special.

The Sox won two of three this weekend behind a barrage of home runs from all over the lineup. It felt like summer in mid-May Chicago, and it felt like old times when the Sox were competitive and on equal footing with their North Side rivals.

This three-game set, played in front of sold-out, bipartisan crowds that totaled 116,126, brought some of that magic back to the rivalry. We didn’t need fights in the stands or at home plate, just a lot of homers and enough twists and turns to make you grab your heart medicine.

The story of the weekend wasn’t the Cubs (29-18). It was that the White Sox (24-22), building on a strong finish to a 102-loss season, are better than expected. Much better, as it turns out.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say this weekend was even more exciting than the Bears’ schedule release on Thursday.

Even after it was over, White Sox manager Will Venable tried to claim it was just another series victory, but Tristan Peters and Quero knew this series meant more than beating the Kansas City Royals.

Peters gave the Sox at 7-4 lead in the eighth with his first career home run, a three-run shot to right field.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” Peters said. “It was incredible.”

Cubs outfielder Michael Conforto then re-tied it in the ninth with his own three-run shot, and his team had a one-run lead going into the bottom of the 10th. That’s when Quero hit his first homer of the season to win it. The ball kept carrying to left-center field, and Quero didn’t exactly race around the bases like he’s done this before.

“I mean, this is big,” he said of where this moment ranks in his young career. “This is pretty close to my MLB debut. It’s pretty close. I mean, it’s tied right now. Hopefully, I hit another one in the World Series, Game 7, to win it.”

Perhaps what made this weekend so memorable is that when it comes to Cubs-Sox, we’re usually living in the past. We want to relive the days of A.J. Pierzynski and Michael Barrett, Ozzie Guillen and Dusty Baker, but you can’t manufacture drama.

And we didn’t need to do that this weekend. The Sox came into this series with a winning record, which is cause for a parade down 35th Street, given their recent results, while the Cubs had the second-best record in the NL.

You don’t need good teams to make these matchups fun, but it sure helps.

“I think this is a great series for the fans,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said before Friday’s series opener, a 10-5 Cubs win. “That’s what this is to me. This is a fan series because your mom and your dad might be rooting for different teams, right? Or your in-laws might be rooting for different teams. Your friends are rooting for the different teams. This is a fans’ series, and that’s what makes it fun. The fans create the atmosphere of the stadium, and the atmosphere in the stadium is good every single time these two teams play.”

I was at all three games this weekend, and the atmosphere was more joyous than toxic. The crowds were bipartisan, the parking lots full of tailgaters. I walked around taking pictures of funny jerseys and talking to fans. I never saw an angry fan.

“I’m surprised I didn’t see any fights last night,” White Sox superfan Pat “BeefLoaf” Ramos told me Saturday night from his perch in Section 108.

I didn’t either. The vibes were mostly positive, with some exceptions. There were even kumbaya moments where the fans joined together to chant “Green Bay sucks.” It helped that each team came in with hope, and each team delivered with memorable moments.

On Friday, the Cubs led early, allowed the Sox to come back and then poured it on late to win going away. On Saturday, the Sox hit five homers off Cubs starter Jameson Taillon to win 8-3. Munetaka Murakami, the biggest baseball star in the city right now, hit two of them.

Walking around the park, I think Murakami jerseys are now more prevalent than the old Paul Konerko ones. I met Max Palees, a 24-year-old Dodgers fan in town visiting a friend, who told me he won money betting on Murakami to homer Saturday. He decided to use the winnings on a jersey.

This series was further proof of the slugger’s budding stardom.

“I can’t really understand why 29 other teams weren’t interested,” Taillon said Saturday night. “Some groupthink where people just decided they’re out on him. The whole league decided they’re out. It’s crazy to me.”

One series doesn’t change anything. The pecking order in town is still clear. The Cubs are the best team, a World Series contender despite a bevy of pitching injuries, but the Sox proved they are a team to take seriously, especially in the AL Central.

“We know that they’re a good team, but we also believe that we’re a really good team too,” Peters said. “And we just proved that.”

Peters is new around here. Guillen is not. He was the straw that stirred the drink during this series’ heyday in the mid-to-late 2000s. Guillen managed the Sox to a World Series title, and he was the postgame host when they lost 121 games. He’s seen it all, and he’s impressed by what he’s watching now.

“I never thought this team … I knew they (would) compete every day, I saw that coming, but I never thought they’re going to be the talk of baseball,” Guillen said. “I never thought they’re going to be the talk of the city. Because you know, the Cubs are playing well, there’s no doubt about it. But the Cubs, they’re built to play well, they’re built to win the division. Now, the White Sox (are) in that spot, like, oh, wait a minute, what happened here?”

Jacob Swartley, a blogger/podcaster who is part of the Section 108 collective with Ramos and goes by the nom de guerre “MySoxSummer,” said he was looking forward to this series as a measuring stick.

“Just because we’re doing good,” he said. “You want to see where we’re at.”

We talked Saturday shortly after Colson Montgomery sent a monster 442-foot shot off the windows of the Stadium Club in right field.

Montgomery, a rare homegrown positional star for the Sox, came on strong with 21 homers in 71 games after finally getting promoted to the majors last season. If we were to make a crosstown team, he would easily eclipse Dansby Swanson as the starting shortstop. He could make the AL All-Star team with Murakami, third baseman Miguel Vargas and starting pitcher Davis Martin, who got the win Saturday.

Montgomery didn’t disagree with Swartley about the importance of the series from a Sox perspective.

“Yeah, 100%,” he said before Sunday’s game. “That’s how you kind of gauge yourself, how you’re playing and how offense is going, how your pitching is going, against a really good team like the Cubs, who, from one to nine, they can hit, they can get on base, and things like that.”

Saturday’s win was a coming-out party for the Sox and their 1-2-3 punch of Murakami, Vargas and Montgomery. They homered in the same game for the fourth time this season. They have a combined 41 homers through 46 games.

But on Sunday, it was the bottom of the order that delivered and turned this series from “very fun” to “instant classic.”

“You come into these games and you think there’s a lot of pressure and things like that,” Montgomery said. “And it’s like, no, this is fun. This is where you want to be.”