Long-Suffering Chicago? Now That’s Truly Windy

Let’s hope the Chicago White Sox win the World Series quickly so we can be rid of this misplaced notion that their fans are long-suffering.

It’s as if no other leagues exist in Chicago, no other teams have won since the White Sox and Cubs had their days in the early stages of the 20th century.

And apparently Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times caught that same oblivious bug that hit Doug Eddings when he described that toddlin’ town as a “championship-starved city.”

Are we supposed to pretend that the Michael Jordan and the six NBA championships he won with the Chicago Bulls never happened?

What have all the 1985 Chicago Bears’ alumni been celebrating in every local bar, the 20th anniversary of the making of the “Super Bowl Shuffle” video?

Even the Chicago Black Hawks, who haven’t been relevant since the “original six” era, won the Stanley Cup twice back in the day.

Championship-starved?

Rick, even if baseball is your main course, you have to admit, those were some pretty filling appetizers.

If having the best basketball player on the planet and dispatching a team from New York four times on the road to the title weren’t enough to rid Chicago of its perpetual, fatalistic, Second City mentality, then its psychoses run deeper than we thought.

Yes, some fans like only one sport. But you can’t tell me a team’s whole fan base and an entire population can’t take comfort in watching another team’s parade in their city.

Same goes for Houston. So what if the Astros never made it to the World Series before this year? They still have the Rockets’ back-to-back NBA championship banners from 1994 and 1995 hanging in their new Toyota Center arena.

I adopted this no-crying policy last year when we were subjected to the anguish of the Boston Red Sox faithful. Boston fans had enjoyed the greatest dynasty in sports with the Celtics in the 1960s, a legacy of winning that extended to 16 championships in the 1980s. The hockey team won the Stanley Cup four times -- with Bobby Orr wearing a Boston Bruin jersey in the most famous Cup-winning goal photograph in NHL history. The Patriots already had won two of their three Super Bowls.

Those should not have been negated by the Red Sox. That’s like forgetting about “Easy Rider,” “Chinatown,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The Shining,” “Terms of Endearment,” “A Few Good Men” and “As Good as It Gets” and judging Jack Nicholson on “Mars Attacks.”

Even Jerry Reinsdorf, who owns the Bulls and White Sox, in the midst of the giddiness, now retracts his old statement that he’d trade his six Larry O’Brien trophies for one World Series trophy.

There’s only one multiple-sport city that has earned the right to complain whenever, wherever: Cleveland.

No World Series winners since the Indians won their second in 1948, no NFL championships since the Browns won their fourth in 1964. And it’s almost as if those Brown championships don’t count because they were won before the Super Bowl era. Can it really be considered a championship if there’s no Vince Lombardi Trophy to show for it?

Here’s a brief history of Cleveland sports since Jim Brown retired: the Drive, the Fumble, the Shot I and the Shot II. (If you don’t know what those mean, ask anyone from Cleveland. Then duck.)

While Chicago was celebrating Jordan, Cleveland was commiserating with Craig Ehlo.

Red Sox fans, the Indians will see your Bill Buckner and raise you a Tony Fernandez.

(I can’t include San Diego fans in this discussion. The folks there have had the Chargers only since 1961, the Padres since 1969. They were subjected to only six years of the Clippers. And even if their teams never won a game, they live in San Diego, not Cleveland -- it’s the ultimate consolation prize.)

No matter how long futility has afflicted particular teams in New York, Dallas, Washington, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Phoenix or Philadelphia, they have all seen at least one championship come to their town in my lifetime. And I’m only 35.

I’m not naive enough to think a White Sox victory would let Cub fans off the hook. That would be like USC fans taking solace in UCLA’s 1995 NCAA basketball championship while waiting for their own football team to return to glory. But just as Bruins and Trojans could unite for the Lakers, Dodgers and 1983 Raiders, Cub and White Sox fans could literally meet in the middle for the Bulls and Bears, both of whom play at Chicago’s equator.

If you want to feel for anyone, pick my buddy Shawn Hugus. Always one to avoid the crowd, he threw his support elsewhere when everyone else was following the successful Lakers and Dodgers in the early ‘80s. For a variety of reasons, none quite rational, he landed on the White Sox and Seattle Seahawks. Now that’s frustration

“I picked them when I was 12 so I could have teams to call my own,” he said. “And I’ve been paying for it ever since.”

Now he’s close to fulfilling his long-held pledge to run naked through the streets if the White Sox win.

On second thought, go Astros.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande go to latimes.com/adande.