As we head into the last 3 games of the year against the Reds, I'm flooded with warm memories of Chicago/Cincy series past: guzzling Dionysian amounts of $5 (!!!) draft beer at Great American Ballpark, Mr. Redlegs and his gay/turn of the century pugilist mustache, Dusty Baker bringing his tacklebox into the dugout, and um, all the wonderful culture offered by the city of Cincinnati (red: Skyline Chili). You know you're visiting Failsville when everyone who lives there tells you the cool part of town is on the Kentucky side of the river. Holy moly.
It's not easy to sum up the Cubs-Reds rivalry in a few sentences, but the closest approximation is how Sox fans view the Twins: you know you can beat them if you're on your game, but they find a way to peck and claw and knock out one-run homer after one-run homer until you realize it's the 8th inning and, oh shit, you're down 4-0. If I had a dollar for every time the Reds enacted that EXACT same scenario against the Cubs over the years, I'd probably have 20 bucks or something. It's the most frustrating kind of loss, and for a couple of years I felt the losses more than the average Northsider.
That's right. I dated a Reds fan.
During our initial courting session, I learned that she was a baseball fan, and not in the "my boyfriend likes baseball so I'll pretend to like it" vein. She was a dyed in the wool Reds fan whose grandfather had worked in the Reds farm system and was known throughout the midwest as being a John Ballgame worthy of praise and respect. She went to the same high school as Scott Rolen, a fact that was an endless source of pride for her. She would go on 20 minute rants about how she'd be at every one of Rolen's games, and how much pure talent he had, and how the Phillies fans were bastards that didn't appreciate what they had in Rolen during his first few seasons. She had dogs named after Reds players: Sabo, Griffey, and the dog we had together, Charlie Hustle. She cried when Dave Concepcion's number was retired. She threatened to divorce me (we weren't married, or even engaged) in the future when I said I was buying our firstborn a little Cubs outfit. And she was serious.
She hated the Cubs with a true, deep fervor--a seething hate I haven't seen from anyone but Woe'Sox and Cardinals fans. She hated everything about Cubs culture: the loveable loser tag, the uniforms, and the yuppy tendencies of Wrigleyville residents. She would go out of her way to stare down girls in pink Cubs hats. She'd yell at the drunken fratboys who accidentally clipped her an errant beanbag. She even harbored some secret (and not so secret) resentment towards my old man, as stubborn a Cubs fan as you'll meet, for giving me good natured shit for dating a Reds fan.
So.
Despite all of these warning signs, I agreed to take her to a Cubs/Reds game at Wrigley a few years ago. Before we left the house, I made her promise to stay cool no matter what happens, and to take everything in stride. "Please don't take every heckle so personally," I beseeched. "They're meant for Adam Dunn, not you." She promised to keep her cool, as she was layering up in all her Reds gear.
The keeping of the cool lasted 3 innings, or about 2 beers.
The Reds went up on us early with a (suprise, suprise) two-run shot by Adam Dunn, which automatically stoked the flames in the pleasure center of her brain. I was scared. This was a powder keg that could blow at any minute. Soon, she started to get mouthy. First with me, telling me that I supported a shitty team (not untrue - ed.), and then with the gathering of burly Mexican men who were assembled in the row in front of us. They started jawing back and forth for a while, until the group's ringleader...A CUBS FAN...turns to me and asks me to "get [my] bitch under control, or I was going to be the one who paid for it."
Normally the girl in this situation would be able to size things up, sober a little, and try and make peace before her 130 lb boyfriend got a few raps on the Jack Johnson, right? This was even better. She started yelling at them "Don't you threaten him, this is between you and me, motherfuck", etc, etc.
The circumstances of how we defused the whole thing escape me (hell, I was getting pretty drunk), but I think it involved an 80 year old usher coming down and giving us all the evil eye until we stopped bickering. That, or we were all temporarily thrown off by the dixeland-jazz stylings of the Incontinent Five.
No more than 5 minutes later, she was getting into it with a pink-Cubs hat clad Lakeview girl, and BOTH HER PARENTS. There were threats of beer pouring on heads, ass kicking, road-housing, etc. It was around this time that I reached my breaking point, and told her we were leaving, and we only went to one or two more games together, and NEVER another Reds game.
We're no longer together, which makes every Cubs/Reds series a little bittersweet for me. The most important thing to take away from this little anecdote is this: I fall for girls that have a little bit of the crazy in them, because, as a Cubs fan, I'm a sadist.
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Cubs - 6
Reds - 4
Four in a row, dudes. Let's play out the string.
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