OT: Do Tigers hold an extra grudge against the White Sox?
OK maybe its a silly question because Detroit wants to beat Chicago everytime they play anyways, but if you played for the Tigers do you still you would hold an even bigger grudge against the White Sox this season?
Last series, of the 2009 season, Detroit plays the White Sox and Ozzie Guillen intentionally hold Jake Peavy so he would face the Tigers and admits to attempting to keep the Tigers out the playoffs.
Of course if Detroit had just won 1 more game this season, Cabrera played a better final 2 weeks, Maggs started hitting earlier, etc they wouldnt have been in that position but Chicago tried hard to keep Detroit out, thus letting Minnesota in who by the way straight up kicked the shit out of the White Sox in September.
If I'm a Tigers player, I'd want to punish the Sox a little more this season.
Welcome to the 2010 season!!!
Profession athletes don't care about 'rivalries'. I hate to make a joke about a serious problem, but Miguel Cabrera had no problem drinking with White Sox players last year.
And that would make the Tigers and Sox sad pandas :(
Hate Quentien and AJ I hate them with a OSU passion
AJ is a little turd, I'll give you that, but whats your beef with Q?
How can you hate Quentin, he rarely says anything and gets beaned all day long. He got off to a good start, 2 HBP on Opening Day.
I understand AJ, but I guarantee, if AJ was a Tiger you wouldn't be saying that. He's a hate him when he's not on your team kind of guy. He just makes baseball plays and calls good games.
*On a side note, I am a diehard Sox fan and I was a little saddened last year when we beat the Tigers to let the Twins tie you. I hate the Twins with an undying rage.
Agree that if AJ was a Tiger he'd be the fan favorite.
AJ is Bill Lambeer. And Detroit loved Lambeer (and the rest of the country hated him).
Tell Quentin to stop leaning into the fastball. Dude is going to die one day by taking a high heater to the neck.
I know it. Everyone knows it. Dude stands an inch off the plate and just takes 96 mph fastballs off his forearms and shoulders. Just asking to get hurt.
Yes I probably wouldn't hate AJ nearly as much if he were a Tiger. But, to say he "just makes plays and calls good games" is disingenuous at best. If that were the case then nobody would hate him.
In reality, he's a shit taking, dirty playing, asshole who nobody outside of the white sox fans like. I hate AJ with the fire of 1000 suns
I watched him stiff an 8 year old kid for an autograph at Cellular one time. Lost the little amount of respect I had for the guy.
Disagree. If any team I remotely liked or was affiliated with picked up AJ, I'd be very disappointed. Dude is not someone I want associated with my team.
I dont hate the Sox that much, I hate Hawk and those annoying fans.
I live in Chicago and work with 3 annoyingly huge Sox fans. It is my opinion that the Sox biggest rivals in the AL are the Tigers. As a Tigers/Cubs fan, I double-hate the White Sox.
My objective view of White Sox hatred:
1) Cubs (talk about Little-brother syndrome)
2) Tigers (Chicago fans hate all things Detroit)
3) Twins (Sox fans don't hate the Twins... they just hate losing to them all the time)
4) Yankess (Everyone hates the Yankees but for Yankees fans)
5) Indians (Less so over the last three years... nothing to hate about a bad team)
6) Brewers (Huge rivalry when they were in the AL, still lingers a little -- and Sox fans hate all things Wisconsin (aka "Green Bay")
7) Any other team the Sox are playing that are not Nos. 1-6
8) Royals
Are you joking? We're the ones who've actually won a world series in the last generation.
Oh, irony.
I was in a bar on Rush street in midtown Chicago when the Sox won the World Series in '05.
Someone announced, "Hey, the White Sox won the World Series!". Everyone looked up at the TVs for a couple seconds, then went back to what they were doing.
Chicago is a Cubs' town, like it or not. It's like when the older brother is always getting in trouble, but always says the right thing to smooth things over. Meanwhile little bro is getting all A's in school and doesn't get any attention at all.
Sox fans will always have a chip on their shoulder.
Every been to a dive bar in the south side? Your conclusions might be different.
You may have just been in the wrong place. Chicago went nuts when the Sox won.
Chicago is a Cubs town, and I have no problem with that. Easier to get tickets, lots of people to make fun of. Any real White Sox fan would admit and know that the Cubs are not the White Sox rivals. They play 6 times a year and it has no real bearing on the outcome of the season. Is it fun to play them? Yes. Does it matter? No. Does concerning yourself with the Cubs season all the time help the Sox, absolutely not.
Sox Rivalries:
1. Twins (And, yes, we have lost to them more than I'd care to admit.
2. Tigers
3. Indians
4. Every other MLB team
5. Royals
RCMB wants it's logic back.
How does little brother syndrome apply when the Sox just won a WS a couple years ago and the Cubs haven't won jack in forever?
Personally have become less of a Cubs fan ever since the Red (not White) Sox won their two championships. It's like there's a sense of entitlement that they should win one now because they have waited so long and blah blah blah.
White Sox have a better lineup, pitching staff, bullpen (this is debatable), manager and general manager. They also play in a more winnable division because the Cubs will be hard pressed to ever overtake the Cardinals with the nucleus they have. I'd much rather be a Sox fan in Chicago right now.
Everything you say is true.
"How does little brother syndrome apply when Little Brother Willy just got an A and Big Brother Carl hasn't passed a class in two years" --- ANSWER: Mommy loves him more, no matter what!
1) Sox fans come from the Southside of Chicago.
Cubs fans come from Chicago, Iowa, Downstate Illinois, Northern Indiana, and anywhere that WGN is on tv (just watch a Cubs away game in San Diego or Houston) America (Mommy) loves the Cubs
2) The local news routinely has the Cubs' loss lead off sports --- followed by the Sox win. The media (Mommy) loves the Cubs
And, no one (including Mommy) like a whiney little brat, no matter how "good" he thinks he is: Sox fans are obsessed with bitching about the Cubs, their "imported" fans in Wrigleyville, their "non-Chicago" fan base, their shitty stadium, the fact that "Zambrano sucks but gets more attention than Burhle", CONSTANTLY reminding everyone that the Sox won it all in '05 and the Cubs got "Bartman'd".
Cubs fans only bitch about the Cubs. They only care about the Sox for 6 days every summer (the home and home series)
That, in essence, is the definition of "Little Brother Syndrome"
I wasn't really sure since I'm not from Chicago, but as an outsider I'd much rather be a Sox fan and have no idea why a Sox fan would bother ridiculing an organization as crappy and perpetually overrated as the Cubs.
Saying Cubs fans only bitch about the Cubs is completely untrue. They do bitch about the Cubs alot, because recently they have had a lot to bitch about, but they bitch about the White Sox and their fans just as much.
Does my bitching about the Sox bitching about the Cubs count as Cubs fans bitching about the Sox?
Perhaps... if I read that correctly.
Hang on... it's not just Sox fans that detest the virtues of Cub fandom that you described. I know plenty of Cards, Braves, Reds fans that feel exactly the same way. Pretty much any intelligent baseball fan that takes a close look at the Cubs feels that way. I compare their bandwagon to the USC bandwagon except people still show up to drink shitty beer at Wrigley when the Cubs suck.
"I'd much rather be a Sox fan in Chicago right now."
And it's just as easy as that, I'm sure. Hey, let's all switch our allegiance based on which team appears to have the easier road to the playoffs.
"How does little brother syndrome apply when the Sox just won a WS a couple years ago and the Cubs haven't won jack in forever?"
I'm afraid you don't fully grasp the little brother syndrome.
Who said anything about switching allegiances? Cubs fans really crack me up. You people are flat out babies.
If you want to equate the Sox with little brother, do so at your own risk. I guess I forgot the part where little brother was little brother because of what was done on the field. At least that's how Hart described it. If you want to morph it into some sense of insecurity that you perceive from the "inferior" team, then by all means do so. Only your logic doesn't really apply either because the Sox have been a better team for quite a while now and it doesn't look to change anytime soon. It's not the same as State fan going "OMGZ TWO YEARS IN A ROW" as if there's some shift in the guard.
I have a better idea though. Let's whine and pout about losing for 100 years by shoving a sense of entitlement (Red Sox won, why not us?...this is the year blah blah blah) down baseball's throat and blaming our problems on goats and homely looking people who wear headphones during baseball games. Btw, does Bartman still live in Chicago, or did he get enough death threats to leave town yet?
Edit: I can't believe you just tried equating the Cubs fan base with Michigan football's. Unreal.
Chicago Cubs fans: Michigan arrogance, Michigan State "success".
Ok, I know not all Cubs fans are like that. But there are quite a few who seem to think that because they win city attendance titles they are all that matters.
As a Cubs fan I had to hear it from so many Sox fans on Opening Day as if MLB = BCS. Simmah down now; it's one game.
I care about the Sox when they play the Cubs or anyone in the NL Central but that's about it. The CHW mean as much to me as the Texas Rangers. I keep telling people here that the rivalry is very one sided; however, the one who obsesses is the more successful of the two, even winning a World Championship, yet still remains 2nd fiddle.
Sox fans don't really care about the Tigers unless the Tigers are fighting with the Sox in the division. The Twins and before that the Indians are/were the only real divisional rival. The absolute dogshit Tigers teams earlier this decade really dropped the bottom out of any rivalry that might have been there.
I live in Chicago and am a Sox fan. The Twins are definitely the biggest rival for the Sox. The whole Cubs-Sox rivalry is more about arguing with your neighbor than it is about baseball. I'd say the Tigers "rivalry" is no bigger than that of any other division team.
*And in response to the OP, Ozzie wanted Peavy to pitch against the Tigers to see how he'd do against a real lineup with something to play for, not just against a bunch of September call-ups.
AJ is a caveman
I still remember when Hawk screamed out you can put on the board and the ball got caught at the warning track, what a JACKASS
The rivalry has ebbed and flowed. In the early days of the AL, the White Sox had a great feud with the Tigers and Ty Cobb. Then when the Sox sucked for a number of years and the Tigers kind of stayed middle of the pack to top half on the AL, the Yankees and Indians became the bigger rival. Then you had the AL divisions established in 1969, and the White Sox dropped off the map as a Tigers rival since now you had the Indians, Yankees and Blue Jays in the same division and about the same skill level with the Tigers from the 70's through early 90's, the Blue jays dominating the rivalry scene from about 83-91.
It wasn't until the divisions were realigned and the WSox put back in the same division with the Tigers that the rivalry restarted, and even then it wasn't until the Higginson/Easley/TonyClark teams had some bean ball fests with the Sox that the rivalry really started back up. I would say that currently, the biggest Tigers rivalry is probably with the WSox, then the Twins, then the Indians, although if the Tribe ever resurges at the same time the Tigers are, they may jump the other two teams.
but I absolutely cannot stand the White Sox. It goes beyond just the fact that they're our division rivals. Maybe it's because for some reason the Tigers just typically seem to play poorly against them, although I don't have the W/L numbers to back that up. Either way, they are by far my least favorite professional sports team.
Like DFW pointed out earlier in the thread, I don't really think the players are thinking about this all that much.
Here is wikipedia's semi-reliable work covering my earliest recollection of the rivalry. It is from the "Dick McAuliffe" entry:
On August 22, 1968, McAuliffe was involved in a brawl with White Sox pitcher Tommy John.[3][14] After one pitch barely missed McAuliffe’s head, and another was thrown behind him, McAuliffe charged the mound, drove his knee into John’s shoulder and separated it.[3] John was out for the season, and McAuliffe was suspended for five games.[3] Interviewed 30 years later, McAuliffe was still convinced John was throwing at his head: "The first pitch at me was right at my head, and I mean right at my head. The catcher never laid any leather on it, and it hit the backstop. The next pitch, he spun me down, threw it behind me.”[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_McAuliffe
Incidentally, this was not the cause of John's later injury to the ulnar collateral ligament or the naming of the surgery to repair it after him. John's injury happened six years later when he was 13-3 and pitching for the Dodgers.
Anyway, the rivalry has been "on" ever since; it just isn't always ackowleged by the media.
There will always be a rivalry when it concerns Detroit and Chicago. Trying to be the greatest in the Midwest or something. But as a Tiger's fan I don't hate the Sox as much as I hate the Twins or Indians.
...personally I detest the Twins more than any team in pro sports. 1987 & last year both felt like the Twins flat out stole from the Tigers.
Minnesota is a very mediocre team that has benefitted immensely over the past few decades from their dome-field advantage. I can not believed that they willingly abandoned that place but I'm looking forward to them coming up with about 5-10 fewer wins per year now and sinking into oblivion.
As for the White Sox, I'm pretty indifferent about them. If the Tigers & Indians were both about equal at the same time, then I think that would be an awesome rivalry...but it seems like one or the other of those two always stinks.
I have disliked the Twins ever since '87 when they unjustly got homefield because of MLB's dumb rotating-division home field policy. The fact that they've completely owned the Tigers in Minneapolis in recent years hasn't helped. As a Michigan fan I'm sorry the dome is going, but as a Tiger fan I say, good riddance.
I don't really care about the White Sox. Well, except for Hawk Harrelson. I absolutely cannot stand him and his constant full-on fellating.
It disdains me much more when the Tigers lose to the Twins.
I personally dislike the Sox most within our own division. They beat us in the season series pretty soundly until last year. The fact that the Twins have caught the Tigers so often is the Tigers' fault. They haven't closed out a season well in the Leyland era. Hopefully the new guys in the lineup will have the ability to work the count a bit more, because the Tigers' plate discipline has been horrible under McClendon.
...for all the talk of the Tigers "choking" last season, they really didn't play that badly down the stretch. In fact, they were the only team to beat the Twins during the last three weeks of the season (taking 3 of 8 head to head) other than a loss to Greinke in Kansas City. The fact was that the Twins played out of their fucking minds for three weeks and squeezed out a division title in what should have been just a mediocre season for them. Finishing in second place sucked and having a bunch of people laughing at the Tigers for blowing the lead, doubly sucked. For reasons like that, I despise the Twins far more than other teams.