I don’t have any genuine animus for any of the teams in the Central. I just see them as obstacles to my enjoyment. And not having lived in the Midwest for over 50 years I’ve never had to mingle at games with their fan bases. So I enjoy a kind of distance from a lot of this and completely understand the ground zero enmity people who are closer to the action can have for other teams and their fans. I am in no position to be judgmental about that. Dealing with the unwashed masses of other teams is unpleasant.
But being sheltered from all this in my own little La La Land out west, I have the luxury of focusing more on the adherents I’ve met of other clubs who are very literate fans and passionate about the histories of their various teams, and in this sense, like us on our better days. I enjoy that type of W. P. Kinsella collegiality with baseball fans from numerous teams and it’s sort of like Hinduism, different faces of the same God.
But for the last three games against the White Sox, I have no problem forgetting what I just said and going all Lawrence of Arabia on them and yelling “no prisoners!“ and it doesn’t matter if the wild card is still in play or not.