You know what the White Sox-Cubs series next week needs?
A commercial.
Hear me out.
As recently as the late aughts, Cubs manager Lou Piniella and Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen appeared in a Chevy commercial around the time of the crosstown series, rapping to their heart’s content.
Guillen: “I’m a South Side guy.”
Piniella: “I know, I can tell.”
Guillen: “What’s that mean? You can go to hell [bleeped by a car horn].”
Piniella: “Sparks will fly from our Cubbie bats.”
Guillen: “You remind me of Minnesota Fats.”
Piniella: “I’m a North Side guy.”
Guillen: “I know, I can tell.”
Piniella: “At least I ain’t trapped in no South Side cell [Rate Field was called U.S. Cellular Field].”
Can you imagine those words coming out of the mouths of current managers Craig Counsell and Will Venable? It’s unfathomable.
Guillen and Piniella did another commercial for the Chevy Camaro in which they glared at each other from their cars and played chicken until a giant baseball dropped between them.
It speaks to a different era, before streaming took hold, when we all watched TV and saw Chicago sports figures in local commercials. Now, they only seem to appear in those ubiquitous Akin Law ads.
For example, when Cubs Hall of Famer Andre Dawson hit a home run over the fence at Wrigley Field, we knew he hit it over a Tru-Link fence because that’s what he said in the commercial.
But a Cubs-Sox commercial hits different. It attracts everyone. It just needs two managers willing to, well, embarrass themselves for a good laugh. During their rap, Piniella strutted like a peacock with his hands in his back pockets, and Guillen looked like a gangsta rapper.
Maybe there’s hope for Counsell and Venable. After all, in 1986, the Cubs’ Jim Frey and the Sox’ Tony La Russa put on a good show in a Busch beer commercial before what was then an exhibition game. They talked on the phone while childishly marking up pictures of each other on a Busch display, adding silly mustaches and blacking out teeth.
La Russa: “Yeah, Jim. You look real good next to it.”
Frey: “Tony, you never looked better yourself.”
Never mind that they were fired in June that season, about a week apart.
Such mockery is part of a rivalry. Even the Bears and Packers exchanged playful McDonald’s commercials in 1990. After the Packers’ Tony Mandarich taunted Bears fans with fries – “Hope you got a lot of potato farmers down there in Illinois,” with emphasis on the S – the Bears’ Dan Hampton did his own version for Packers fans.
It got a little nasty in the press. Bears coach Mike Ditka called Mandarich a “Bozo.” Replied Mandarich: “Then I’m a $35,000 Bozo.” That’s what McDonald’s paid him.
How awesome was that?
In the early 2010s, actors Nick Offerman (Cubs fan) and Craig Robinson (Sox fan) appeared in clever commercials for New Era, arguing with deadpanned faces about baseball topics at the fictional Chicago bar The Dividing Line.
Robinson: “How old is Wrigley anyway? Do you even have electricity?”
Offerman: “It’s powered by tradition, my friend. Something you wouldn’t know about at mobile phone park.”
Funny stuff.
We need more of that, but from the combatants involved. Put center fielders Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Cubs and Tristan Peters of the Sox, both All-Stars, on a set and let them make fun of each other and each other’s team.
Such hijinks aren’t coming from managers anymore. Guillen and Piniella had a huge presence. Venable and Counsell do not, and their team owners probably like it that way. They don’t want anyone casting a shadow over the club.
Even if it makes for entertaining television.
