The American Spirit {A Short Update}

I am against the grain when it comes to the supposed divide between Americans.  You know I believe that there's more that unites us as a nation than most of the popular press and the political class will tell us is out there.  So here's the latest from that front.  I went to the Chicago White Sox game yesterday.  That's the AL Central first place Chicago White Sox to you all.  They played the Houston Astros.  That's a team with pennant aspirations as well so the stadium was pretty full.  Now the Sox are traditionally the poor cousins to the Cubs in this town.  The Cubs have historically been able to put mediocre teams on the field with the confidence that Wrigley Field where they play will be full during the summer months,  The White Sox fan base is more fickle.  Sox fans stay home when their team plays poorly.  As a result the Sox are much better in the marketing department than the Cubs.  Also the food at the Cell* is much better than at Wrigley.

In any event Sox Park was jammed yesterday.  The weather was perfect for baseball, a fine summer Sunday.  Lots of families in the park.  Perhaps a tad warm in the sun but a slight breeze on occasion made it bearable. Because the team has a large amount of Latin American players on its roster,  the place had a fiesta like vibe going in the hot sun.  Also, owing to their location on the South Side, the Sox have a large Latino fan base.  The team plays up to this a lot in their marketing.  You might not pick that up watching the local TV stations here but I see it in the Spanish press.**   Also given its location you're much more likely to see a higher demographic representation of society at a Sox game than what you'll see on the Northside, meaning the crowd wasn't monolithically caucasian.  

Now the reason I'm setting the stage for you on this is to give you a feel of the place yesterday.  The American melting pot was on display in full.  Everybody interacted with everybody else.  The only thing wrong with the day was how long I stood in line waiting for a brat.  It did give me time to talk baseball with a gentleman from Southeast Asia who knew far more about the current state of baseball and the Sox than I did.   Baseball has traditionally had the "Seventh Inning Stretch".  Most teams during that interlude will play "Take Me Out To The Ballgame".  The Sox do this as well but they also first play "God Bless America".  Almost everybody stood and sang yesterday during these two songs.   It didn't matter skin color or political persuasion.  All got up and belted out the tunes, none more enthusiastically than the family that I think had Korean connections a few rows down from us.  One of them had a on a Korean flag on a tee shirt so that's why I'm guessing the nationality.  At that moment and at least on that day the crowd was more united by the things they held in common, then the things that divided them from each other.

Now I know it's not that easy and I'm sure if you scratched under the surface you could find things all these folks would disagree.  But there's still more that binds us as a nation than many are willing to admit. I saw it yesterday at the ballpark.  Maybe some of the folks that are constantly telling us how much we all hate each other ought to go spend a Sunday at the ballpark.  They might find a different America than the one they're trying to sell us in the press.

*I don't get paid for product endorsements so I call the White Sox Park either Comiskey Park, its original name, Sox Park or the Cell.  The latter name comes from all the years when the place was officially known as US Cellular Field. 

**I spent a year living in Mexico while in high school.  Learned enough Spanish to blunder my way around the country.  Worked on it over the years here in Chicago.  It helps because I run into a lot of very nice people who speak little English.