Come to Think of It: White Sox Need to Beat Twins to Keep "Dream" Alive

One hundred sixty two games of baseball wasn't enough. Not enough to determine the division champion in the American League Central. So the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins will play a one-game playoff tonight at US Cellular Field in Chicago.

Many Chicagoans dream of an all-Chicago World Series. With both New York teams out of the postseason picture, Fox TV likely now dreams of Chicago or Los Angeles providing the big market payday going forward. But an all-Chicago WS would be so unique, so unbelievable, so...Chicago. This city would absolutely go hog wild.

Not that all Chicago baseball fans want to see this. For one, there are the haters who want to see the other team lose out of spite. Many baseball fans in this city have two favorite teams—either the Cubs or Sox and whoever is playing the other team.

Therefore, you have many folks here who would rather miss the WS altogether than to lose to the "other" Chicago team.  Even Cubs fans who have waited all their lives for a WS appearance.  By the way, that would be just about everyone except a few octogenarians.

Well, the Cubs certainly have done their part, winning the NL Central handily and clinching awhile ago. For the cross-town rival White Sox, it will take that 163rd game to find out if they make it to the playoffs or watch from home. And even then, both teams would have a lot of work ahead of them for the "dream" to come true.

As desperately as I want to see the Cubs in the World Series, I fall into the camp that would rather see us not make it than to lose to the Sox. That would be too painful to imagine.  I wonder if Sox fans feel that way? Of course, they had their WS in 2005, so it's not as big of a deal to them probably.

Only time will tell. In the meantime, there is another game to play in Chicago. The mind games will have to wait for another day, come to think of it...