Cards/Cubs Still an Undercard

It was Sunday morning when my son came into the bedroom bringing news from around the majors the day before: Barry Bonds finally hit Number 755, A-Rod reached 500, and Jim Thome got his 490th. The Red Sox won, and so did the Yankees.

It was all the briefing any father would need as Major League Baseball trudges through these dog days with a paucity of drama even as fully one-third the season remains. Spring's electricity has faded, ladling in its wake small rations of hope to the underprivileged few such as Arizona and Milwaukee. By August, little else remains for dads in Pittsburgh and Florida and San Francisco except to tally home runs, cross off boxes on a calendar's blank pages until the start of football, and vicariously follow their favorite half of the perennial Red Sox/Yankees divisional race.

Even one Sunday back, I could think of nothing more. Then I met Larry.

Larry and his wife Sharon are relatives of friends down the street and this past weekend was First Friday, the night we neighbors congregate for our monthly dinner party. Larry and Sharon were visiting from the Azores, where they anchor an '80s cover band of cultish proportion, their success in no small way owing to the Portuguese-speaking islanders who can't discern between real English lyrics and those Larry often sings.

During the evening, Larry confessed to being an outcast on two other fronts. He's also the only Azorean inhabitant who doesn't like soccer, and he's originally from St. Louis, but didn't grow up a Cardinals fan.

So what then, the Red Sox or the Yankees?

"The Cubs," he proudly answered.

Larry, it seems, came from a family that took up the frustrations of the Chicago Cubs long before it was a chic thing to do, despite there having never been a time when it was a safe thing to do in St. Louis. He billed it as the longest running and hottest rivalry in all of baseball, some bold assertions that compelled me to look beyond my provincial New England nose and investigate the matter.

It seems that Cardinal and Cub ancestors did meet for the first time way back in 1885 when the St. Louis Browns, having just abbreviated their original "Brown Stockings" surname, played the Chicago White Stockings to a draw in the championship series of a pre-World Series era. Okay, this nostalgia may be fine for fans who don't mind tracing their partisanship back to a time when teams were named after articles of my grandmother's clothing, but it's not for me. In fact, throw away all those years when both teams mingled around the keg between innings discussing which mustache wax holds up best to the head of a good draught. Nonetheless, I will not begrudge Larry a long history and that's a requisite element in any rivalry.

Another is the curse factor. If one team is going to laud it over another the way the Cardinals have to Larry's Cubs, there has to be a valid explanation for the gulf, such as supernatural intervention. Otherwise, it's less a rivalry than an indenture. Larry is covered here. He has Billy Sianis' goat to blame for part of his 89-year championship drought while the Cardinals have won ten World Series.

In our own rivalry, we in New England clung to Babe Ruth's piano, even as divers conducted three search-and-rescue missions at the bottom of a Sudbury lake to raise it and again play the chords that would bring Boston another championship. Well, a note has yet to be struck but the Red Sox found a way to win it all just the same, making the Wrigley goat the last legitimate curse in all of sports. Larry, you're still in business.

There also has to be a border war. Not a war over geographical distinction as much as one waged over the thin line separating man's reason from his obstinacy. Case in point: Lou Brock. The 1964 trade sending Brock from Chicago to St. Louis was the flashpoint in the tempestuous relationship between these estranged cities. As when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth and traded Sparky Lyle to the Yankees, the full weight of this front office transgression had to be borne in incremental measure by Larry's patriarchs as Brock played deeper into his Hall of Fame career. There is a deep pain remaining, even after the defection of Jason Marquis to the Cubs this offseason.

Cubbie and Cards fans regard their rivalry as Red Sox/Yankees on steroids, and they have the summer of 1998 backing them. Citizens of the Midwest, rallying around a perverse home run derby is not a good career move in propping yours as America's premier feud. It's more akin to adding a legal holiday honoring the Watergate break-in. Even the most ardent of Red Sox fan acknowledges Roger Maris as the single-season home run king.

One last thing: a pinch of bad blood is needed for good measure. Granted, this comes much more naturally for a New Yorker than for the civil Midwesterner especially in the aftermath of Dusty Baker's resignation, but Larry has to put more effort into it. He didn't even remember Steve Bartman's name and would undoubtedly treat him to a good show if the expatriated Chicagoan ever steps into a Ponta Delgada nightclub.

Red jerseys may never be doused with beer in Wrigley, nor will pizza slices be hurled at blue-capped fans in Busch. But if this is ever to be a rivalry of East Coast proportion, let me suggest as a minimum a few '1-9-0-8' chants, or t-shirts that say, 'Cards ... Aren't Very Good at What They Do'.

Truthfully, the thrill of the chase has made this a good season and empowered Midwesterners, and that's okay. Just don't get delusional on us. Six games separate the Cardinals from the Cubs and a playoff berth. They are an embarrassing eight games under .500 as defending world champions, and the Cubs would love nothing more than to keep them there, a hard enough task now exacerbated by Alfonso Soriano's right quad injury. This may be the opening the Cardinals need to make it a good NL Central battle.

Until then, my son will not be appending Cubs and Cardinals scores to his briefing any Sunday morning too soon.