Dibble asked the President - who threw out a not-great first pitch to open The Washington Nationals 2010 Season but did so while wearing a Chicago White Sox hat - who his favorite White Sox player was growing up.
Now anyone who knows Obama's background is aware that he grew up in Hawaii, and not Chicago, and did not move to my hometown until after college. But Dibble didn't seem to think about that, and Dan Patrick apparently didn't know it.
President Obama remarked that he was growing up in Hawaii and was more of an Oakland A's fan at the time, not the White Sox. OK, honest answer.
But that wasn't enough for Dan Patrick, who uncharacteristically went into a low-IQ moment and laughed and howled at the replay of the video tape of Obama's conversation with Dibble, then got after the President for not naming a White Sox player!
Dan Patrick and the Danettes really looked not smart here. They're not obviously not Chicagoans. Chicagoans chose a team without having a favorite player. It's all about place: Southside or Northside. If you're living on Chicago's Southside, you pick The White Sox, period. The South Side of Chicago has a brand that reads tough, blue collar, working class, and minority. If you live on the Northside of Chicago, you go with the Cubs.
The Northside of Chicago is white collar, better-off, and mostly white. It's only a weird, nerdy Chicago guy like me who goes with both the Cubs and The White Sox, and I have favorite Cubs players even though I grew up on The Southside, but I don't know the whole damn team or its history.
(And really, my favorite Cub wasn't a player, he was a broadcaster: the late, great Jack Brickhouse.)
And I don't have to know. That's not the point. Dan. Get it?
Dan Patrick doesn't "get" Chicago. If he did, Patrick would have left the President alone. Instead, Patrick's rant about Obama's reasons for backing The Chicago White Sox were a low intellectual point in Patrick's career.
Stay tuned. Next, we turn to The Erin Andrews situation.
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