City of Pessimism

I grew up in Chicago. Great town. I have fond memories. I still pull for the Bulls, Bears, and Blackhawks, with a nominal shoutout to Loyola University. (Actually, I grew up in Villa Park, but you've never heard of the Garden Village).

I’ve always felt, though, that there’s a certain negative energy that owns the bulk of Chicagoland area residents. It’s why they don’t vote, or when they do incumbent crooks keep their job. It’s why people don’t start up new businesses. It’s why people pay tolls, and commute for ungodly hours. It’s not quite hopelessness, but it’s not a city filled with Andy Dufresnes, either.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re great people. But, by far, there’s a heightened spirit of intangible pessimism in the Prairie State relative to everywhere else I’ve ever visited, Boston notwithstanding.

Today, I netted a bit more evidence. The Chicago Bears play the franchise’s biggest game in 21 years on Sunday in the NFC Championship game at home against a team who won 19% fewer regular season games. All 6 major online bookies have the Bears favored. ESPN’s John Clayton wrote a huge article on why the Bears will win.

And yet, as of 4:01 on the Thursday afternoon before the game, 86% of online voters at the Chicago Sun-Times’s online sports section believe that the Saints will win the game. A total of 18,404 people had voted.

Don’t get me wrong, the Saints deserve respect. Maybe they even win the game, I can’t say I don’t see it as a possibility. Maybe Saints fans clogged the online voting (although that’d be a bit more Chicago-esque).

What we do know is that 6 of 7 Sports’ Section readers of the second most widely read paper in Chicago don’t see the hometown team winning. That says something about said readership.

Shame.

P.S. Prediction time: Bears 38, Saints 31. New Orleans’ pathetic secondary is good for at least 3 Grossman-Berrian bomb touchdowns; the running game and defense will "take care" of the rest.