Baseball Way Back: Cubs vs. Sox always mattered even when the games didn't

If anybody still doubted the civic significance of the crosstown series, that was dispelled by the Cubs' Christopher Morel's shirtless celebration following his walkoff homer against the Sox Wednesday.

Current Sox manager Pedro Grifol called the comeback win the "toughest loss of the year," although there are several other worthy candidates.

The game mattered for the Cubs in more ways than one - it inched the team closer to the NL Central lead.

Until the first regular season game in 1997, the only games between the two teams that counted were the World Series games played in 1906.

But over the years, even when the games between the North and South Siders didn't matter, since they were spring training exhibitions or benefit games, they mattered to the players as well as the fans.

I happened to stumble upon a clip from a radio program called Good News of 1938 that featured Cubs catcher Gabby Hartnett, a particular favorite of my dad from his days selling pop at Wrigley Field.

At the time, the Cubs were holding spring training at Catalina Island.

In this March 24, 1938 broadcast, Meredith Willson, later known as the composer of "The Music Man," provocatively begins his interview with the man he calls "the dean of the major league catchers" by saying, "I understand that some folks are trying to start propaganda to the effect that the National League is washed up."

Hartnett replies, "Sorry, pal," saying, "National League washed up. Did you see what we did to the White Sox right here in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday?"

Willson says, "I know you Cubs have been a little rough on them."

Hartnett then says, "Yes, and that's only the beginning."

The Cubs catcher was alluding to an exhibition series at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. In the Tuesday game, the Cubs' Augie Galan went on a rampage, hitting for the cycle as the North Siders routed the Sox 13-1.

The next game was closer, but the Cubs still prevailed 6-4. Once again, Galan tattooed White Sox pitching, with four hits for the second straight day.

Since the days when the Cubs were the West Side team and the Sox had yet to move into Comiskey Park, the two teams have frequently clashed, often in a postseason city series in the pre-World War II era, with no impact on the standings, but with enormous local interest.

Poring through accounts of games through the years reveals a rich tradition brimming with magical names from Chicago's baseball past.

In an account in the Cincinnati Enquirer from Oct. 6, 1903, an anonymous reporter wrote, "In a weird and wooly game (Charles) Comiskey's White Stockings again defeated Colonel (James) Hart's Nationals to-day on the West Side grounds. It took ten innings to do the trick, the final score being 4 to 3."

The pitchers were Nick Altrock, who later gained fame as a baseball clown, for the White Sox, and Bob Wicker for the Cubs.

Billy Sullivan and Fielder Jones were among the Sox players.

The Cubs lineup included the immortal combination of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance.

Evers was managing the White Sox when the two teams clashed during the city series in 1924. Pitching for the Pale Hose in one game was Hollis "Sloppy" Thurston, who as a Sox scout in the 1960s would discover Bill Melton and Ed Herrmann.

The crosstown rivalry even captured the attention of Al Capone, seen at Comiskey Park for a charity game in October 1931 alongside his son Sonny, who was getting a baseball autographed by Hartnett. It was one of Scarface's last public appearances before he was packed off to the penitentiary in Atlanta.

Unique in the annals of the Cubs-Sox rivalry was the April 7, 1994 game at Wrigley Field. It was the only time fans on both sides dropped their partisan feelings, at least for five at-bats. That was the day Michael Jordan suited up for the Sox and went 2-for-5 with two RBI and one run scored.

I saw my first Cubs-Sox game at Wrigley Field in 1971.

The youth baseball benefit game played before more than 32,000 fans at first reflected the uneven matchup between the contending Cubs and the mediocre White Sox.

The Cubs jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the fifth inning on singles by Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Joe Pepitone and two Sox errors.

And that is how matters stood in the eighth inning, when the Sox, who had scattered four harmless singles, broke out with seven runs, including three on a homer by Rich McKinney and two on a round-tripper off the bat of Jay Johnstone, to earn a 7-3 victory.

It is a sentimental memory for me, mainly because McKinney was one of my early heroes. In retrospect, I seem to have overrated him. Although his numbers that year with the Sox were decent - .271 in 114 games with 8 homers and 46 RBI - he was no Mickey Mantle.

But being a fan of certain players, not to mention certain Chicago teams, is not really a rational act.