The Subway Series


		While New York swaggers, 'Second City' dreams

Associated Press

CHICAGO -- So New York's going wild over its one-city World Series? Chicago's been there, done that, thanks.

Ninety-four years ago.

Back when the ride of the day was the trolley car, not the subway or elevated -- "El" -- train. Before Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, before batting helmets, before the designated hitter, before multimillion-dollar contracts, before Fox Sports. Before television.

Bill "Moose" Skowron, a veteran of the last "Subway Series" in New York, dares to dream of the "L Series," with White Sox and Cub fans riding to Fall Classic games from one side of town to the other.

"Wouldn't it be something if we could have winners on the North Side and South Side?" ponders Skowron, who played with the Yankees in the 1955 and '56 Subway Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Skowron later joined the White Sox and now works with their community relations department.

The last all-Chicago World Series saw the White Sox, known as the "Hitless Wonders," beat the favored Cubs four games to two, after the Cubs went 116-36 during the regular season of 1906.

The Cubs have been in nine World Series since, none since 1945. The White Sox have been back three times, the last in 1959.

So how do baseball fans in the so-called Second City stomach a Subway Series?

At Harry Caray's bar and restaurant in downtown Chicago, a group of New York fans whooped it up during Game 2 as their city's teams squared off.

But the regulars are somewhat nonchalant, says Frank Osowski, bar manager in the restaurant named for the late voice of the Cubs.

"Some of the real baseball fans are interested; some of them are saying, 'Why couldn't it be our two teams?"' he says. "So it's New York. Whatever. I wouldn't say there is a huge interest from Chicago. A few regulars say it's kind of neat. A lot of guys just say, 'We'll never see one here."'

It would be easy today to go from one park to the other on Chicago's rail system -- it takes 25 minutes and costs $1.50.

Transportation is the easy part.

The Cubs are languishing again, 90-plus losses in three of the past four years, though they did sneak in the playoffs as the wild card in 1998. And while the White Sox showed promise for the future, winning 95 games this season, they were swept by the Seattle Mariners in the first round of the playoffs.

Added together, the White Sox and Cubs have made just 20 postseason appearances with two World Series titles apiece, the last coming in 1917 when the White Sox beat the Giants. Two years later, the White Sox lost to the Reds in the World Series, tainted by the infamous "Black Sox" gambling scandal.

While Chicagoans might dream about the Fall Classic returning to the city, former White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura, who finally made it to the World Series this year with the Mets, doesn't care to.

"It's not in Chicago," Ventura said in New York. "And I don't think it's going to be there any time soon. The World Series is here."