Crosstown Series Ends, Both Teams Still Mediocre

What we learned from a beautiful, baseball-filled weekend

By EAMONN BRENNAN

Updated 1:30 PM CST, Mon, Jun 29, 2009

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If we were to form a judgment from three days of baseball in Chicago -- three jaw-droppingly beautiful days, especially Saturday, when we were lucky enough to find ourselves in U.S. Cellular -- these are the judgments we'd form:

1. The Sox are slightly better than the Cubs. This isn't saying much. But there are ways in which the Sox have outplayed the Cubs all season, and these showed up this weekend. One of them? The bullpen. When Bobby Jenks came in the game Saturday, it was basically certain that the Cubs wouldn't be adding any more runs to their tally. Not so when Carlos Marmol and Kevin Gregg take the mound. Both have occasional control issues -- Marmol especially can't seem to get his curveballs and sliders over the plate for strikes -- and both walk too many hitters for comfort. If there is a discernible place the Sox are better than the Cubs, it's in the bullpen.

2. But not by much. Sunday's game, in which the White Sox got an unusually brilliant performance from John Danks, aside, the White Sox were a rare Gordon Beckham hit away from more extra innings on Saturday. If the White Sox are better than the Cubs -- and again, three games, so let's not get too wild -- they're not better by much.

3. Milton Bradley and Lou Piniella are going to kill each other. It's only a matter of time.

4. People love to get drunk and fight. Sitting in the Cell on Saturday, enjoying a baseball game with friends, we were almost as enthralled by the constant barrage of fights in our section as we were by the fantastic action down on the field. Can you blame us? Every five minutes another beer-throwing, posturing fight was being physically interrupted by U.S. Cellular secruity staff. One particularly violent exchange ended with a 300-plus pound redneck-looking guy being choked from behind by a huge security guard; as the big monster was being forced down the Section 510 stairs, he spit on three or four different people who attempted to take photos of him. We're betting the rest of his day didn't go so well.

Here's the lesson we learned, as if we didn't know it already: People are stupid. Don't be these people. It's far more fun to ridicule the dopes being escorted out -- one guy thought the cheers were supportive when really he was being mocked; he took off his shirt and everyone laughed -- than to be one of said dopes. Drink you beer, enjoy the game, and remember: it's always more fun to point and laugh.

Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.