Baseball Is Boring: Cubs-White Sox Liveblog

Baseball is America's pastime, but had our forefathers enjoyed the modern conveniences of clocks, ball pumps, or haste, this pastime may well have been basketball or football. Instead, they had wood, leather, and a rudderless disposition. Baseball is Boring is a series of live blogs for folks who need irony and self-awareness to get through a game.

While the annual meetings of the White Sox and Cubs has lost some of its original luster in my eyes over the years, this year's battle between the teams is a bit more exciting. After all, it's not very often that both teams are in first place in their divisions when they face off. In fact, it's so rare that it's never happened before this afternoon.

Unfortunately, all this series seems to do is seperate fans of both sides even further than usual. While the divide is always there, for 50 weeks of the year it's a rather congenial divide. The two sets of fans don't much like the other's team, but at least they can get along with each other most of the time.

Then the week of the series comes and with it comes the hate. All of a sudden friends you haven't spoken to in months are sending you text messages saying "We're gonna kick your ass this weekend!" All of a sudden you find yourself taking some kind of cruel enjoyment out of seeing Carlos Zambrano have to leave a game early and have to undergo an MRI on his shoulder.

It's horrible the way that Sox fans and Cubs fans treat each other during these times, and I hope you join me for the next three hours while I try to do everything in my power to make it worse.


THE ESSENTIALS
The Cubs (45-28) start Ted Lilly (7-5 4.76 ERA).
The White Sox (41-31) start John Danks (4-4 2.90 ERA).

ANALYSIS
These teams are so alike, that really, it's incredibly hard to try and figure out who has the advantage. Both teams score a ton of runs and bash a lot of homers. Both teams play in Chicago. Both teams feature managers of Latin descent who enjoy screaming and yelling once in a while.

The only difference I can really find is the team songs, yet even they're essentially the same. The Cubs like to rock out to "Go Cubs Go," while White Sox fans prefer the dulcet tones of "Let's Go, Go, Go White Sox." How the hell do you pick between the two? Both are incredibly annoying.

So really, the only analysis I can add to this is that whichever team scores more is going to win this game, though I wouldn't quote me on that.

PREDICTION
White Sox over Cubs, Eleventy billion-2

QUICK NOTE ABOUT THIS LIVE BLOG
From here forth, my banal and worthless (and completely biased) commentary can be read in the box below. It updates much like a one-way instant messenger conversation does, which means you do not need to keep refreshing the page. Feel free to comment in the box at the bottom -- if your sentiment is funny or poorly-informed enough, I may just post it in the blog. Enjoy!