If Favre goes to Chicago, fans will embrace him -- and that's lame
Chicago gets credited for being a tough sports town with tough fans and a blue-collar mentality and "Da Bears" and all that folklore nonsense, but the truth of the matter is this: Chicago sports fans are soft.
And I'm going to prove it.
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| Chicago fans would grow to love Brett Favre if the QB unretires to play for Bears. (Getty Images) |
Brett Favre apparently wants to come out of retirement, and if he does, the Chicago Bears would be a practical destination. The buzz is such that, over the weekend, the official website of the Bears had a piece titled, "Can you see Favre wearing a Bears uniform?" A columnist from the Chicago Tribune has come out and asked for that very scenario, and while the reaction by readers at the bottom of his column is mostly negative, the reaction in real life would undoubtedly be mostly positive.
Because Chicago sports fans are soft.
They're soft, but in fairness to Chicago fans, they're no different from the modern-day professional athlete: They have no allegiance to anyone but themselves. Athletes don't care who's paying them, as long as the check clears. Fans in Chicago are just as self-serving: Wear a Chicago uniform, and fans there will cheer for you. Maybe to you, that sounds like the way it ought to be. Maybe to you, that makes Chicago fans sound loyal.
To me it makes them sound weak. It makes them sound like traitors, and the worst kind -- traitors to themselves.
For years Chicago Bears fans have warmed themselves with two thoughts: The Bears might win it all this year ... but if it can't be "Da Bears," let it be anyone but Brett Favre. There was nobility in the hatred of Brett Favre. He'd done nothing evil or criminal, but he had owned the Bears, which in Chicago is worse. He had carved up the Bears 22 times in 32 chances. At Soldier Field he was 12-3. He once threw a 99-yard touchdown against the Bears. He once threw five TD passes against them. In the same season.
Favre has been brutal on the Bears, but if he comes out of retirement and signs with them, Chicago fans will embrace him as one of their own.
Just as they've embraced so many others they've "hated" over the years.
Chicago is currently in the middle of an especially unseemly embrace with Jim Edmonds, in center field for the Cubs after an eight-year run with NL Central rival St. Louis. Edmonds wasn't just an opposing player. He was a hated opposing player. He was the MLB version of Brett Favre, only more annoying.
When Edmonds signed with Chicago in May, a Chicago-centric blogger at BleacherReport.com posted an item titled, Come on, Cubs, Anybody But Jim Edmonds. The blogger said he "would be shocked if Jim Edmonds was not in every Cub fan's top five most hated players list of all time" and added, "I would not be surprised if Mr. Edmonds gets a rude welcome by the fans who still hate him."
Nice idea, but no execution. Edmonds was mostly cheered during his Wrigley Field debut on May 15, even more so when he singled in his first at-bat. Wrigley went nuts June 21 when Edmonds homered twice in the same inning against the White Sox, whom Cubs fans loathe (until Ozzie Guillen, A.J. Pierzynski and the rest move to the North Side.)
