Why Is Kos So Angry? Now We Know

By Daniel Larison • October 7, 2006, 10:28 AM

That got him thinking about the formula itself. One element was partisanship, certainly, but another ingredient, he suspected, was loneliness â€“ like what he felt when he started Kos. It reminded him of how homesick he felt as a Chicago Cubs fan in the Bay Area. ~Ana Marie Cox, Wired

Of course Kos is a Cubs fan. Only a Cubs fan could create such organised whining. Cubs fans already have their own abundant need to whine about their long drought and the Curse. It makes the perfect introduction to the politics of irrational grievance.

4 Responses to Why Is Kos So Angry? Now We Know

scriblerus says:

October 7, 2006 at 3:02 pm

Gee, where did this distaste for Cubs fans come from? I’ve been one since childhood. If anything, having to endure years of bad luck, bumbling and losing inculcates patience and steadfastness in the face of life’s difficulties. That’s hardly the resort to utopian liberal politics that we see so much of today.

Daniel Larison says:

October 7, 2006 at 9:31 pm

The post was probably a bit too harsh, and I shouldn’t blame all Cubs fans for the behaviour of their more outspoken fellows. I certainly shouldn’t have simply equated them with the whiny Kossacks. There are some similarities, but no Cubs fan is this obnoxious.

Allow me to explain. I have lived in Chicago on and off since 2001 and there has never been an end to the laments about “the Curse” and how longsuffering and miserable are Cubs fans. Teams that have never won a World Series (such as my Astros) do not cultivate this sort of mentality; most teams that won their championships long ago and have been mediocre since then do not cultivate it. The Cubs and Red Sox fans have been almost unique in this regard, and the Boston fans, thank goodness, finally got over it when they won. I wonder if the Cubs fans would ever believe that the Curse had truly been lifted, even if they did win some day–they would invent another one as soon as the team became bad again. The White Sox were without a championship for almost as long, but there was never some mysterious rationale cooked up to explain why this was so, even as a joke. I understand that the Curse idea is intended as a joke, and that a lot of Cubs fans endure their team’s failures in silence and patience. But the ones who make most of the noise have this sense of entitlement about them, especially in the Bartman episode, that drives me right up the wall. The way Cubs fans in this city turned on that guy and made him into the scapegoat (the goat connection is almost comical) for the Cubs’ implosion in that series against the Marlins was deplorable. Add to this that I live on the South Side and support the Astros in the division, and you might understand why I am not all together enthusiastic about the Cubs and many Cubs fans. But I apologise to the stoic and decent Cubs fans whom I unjustly insulted with the Kos comparison.

scriblerus says:

October 9, 2006 at 7:16 am

Apology accepted. The Cubs would have been fine if Alex Gonzalez hadn’t messed up that routine ground ball.
Don’t get me started on Astros’ fans, though. After growing up in Chicago, I’ve been in Houston since 2001. I’m actually surprised to find a dedicated Astros fan. They tend to materialize out of thin air in the last couple weeks of the regular season, if the Astros have a chance at the playoffs. Then, last year, the Astros get swept out of the World Series and the city has a NL champs parade. What a joke! Seems like the sports equivalent of the liberal “everybody’s a winner” mentality.

pggreenman says:

October 9, 2006 at 9:28 am

Re: “The Cubs and Red Sox fans have been almost unique in this regard, and the Boston fans, thank goodness, finally got over it when they won.”

Now you’ve touched a nerve, Mr. Larison!

First, as a Cubs fan I’ll concede that to a non-fan we can often seem a whiny lot. Consequently, and as a former Southsider as well, I’ll also concede that White Sox fans have earned the chip that each carries on his shoulder towards the Cubs.

But the Red Sox have finally won their championship, yet their fandom remains a vindictive, self-obsessed caricature of sporting passion. I’ve vacationed briefly during each of the last two summers on Cape Cod, and, naturally enough, I’ve had frequent occasion to talk baseball with (it’s true) some of the most knowledgable and dedicated baseball fans around. But as soon as they hear I’m a Cubs guy, I get unsolicited harangues about the superiority of their suffering to mine. Literally every time. It’s chronic, insufferable, and proof against your claim that Red Sox nation will ever drop its permananet grudge against not only their archrival Yankees but also any other team that commands a similar depth and breadth of passion. Cubs fans may sometimes be whiny, but, good Midwesterners at heart, they are almost uniformly genial. Not so, Red Sox diehards who, it seems to me, fuel their love of team with a bottomless resentment.

Finally, and with apologies, while I used to appreciate the ‘Stros, I’m afraid that today I find it difficult to take the franchise very seriously — ever since it’s chosen to host its games beneath the ridiculous gaze of a toy train and within a glorified pinball machine. Please petition your team to blow-up those disgraceful “Crawford boxes” and level the “grassy knoll.” More baseball, less EPCOT Center, please.

Daniel Larison

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