Later, after the convention's opening ceremony, you head downstairs to view various exhibits. There you encounter a group that calls itself "The Nelson Fox Collectors Society." It's not the Nellie Fox baseball cards that bother you; that's expected. It's the large Nellie Fox tapestry suspended behind the society members, the many lithographs, the arcane trinkets that either belonged to the deceased second baseman or celebrate him. It's not right to have so much of a man. And that name, "The Nelson Fox Collectors Society," sending off a strong cult vibe. They want you, and they want to tell you what Nellie means to them.

You, a loser? Not today, not here.

Confirm That Team Ownership Hates You

Not the collective you, as in "the fans," but you. Personally. Dave, Chip, Wilma, Jerome, Edna ... they hate you. They know your habits, where you live, the foods you like, your voting record. They know all your petty sufferings and ecstasies and they hate you. You discover this via the sick gimmicks they've contrived to take your money.

You're in a small room where the team is hawking ticket packages. Nothing offensive at first, just propaganda and stale salesmanship. Then you reach the pieces-of-Old-Comiskey table where they're selling bricks and seatback slats from the old park. There they are, $20 bricks. And not seats, but pieces of seats. Savages. They tore down your beloved old ballpark, paved it, built a plastic Port-O-Park next door, and now they're selling the old ballyard back to you one useless piece at a time. You hate them for doing it, and you hate yourself for wanting a brick. There's something efficient in the insult ("A brick for you, and you, and you ... $20 please, thank you ... a brick for you, and you..."), but it's also cruelly personal. That night ownership announces they've found 68 million reasons (payable over 23 years) to change the name of the home field to US Cellular Field.

The fact that the team still has a cache of bricks from Old Comiskey, which closed in 1990, tells you something unsettling about the team's fan-to-brick ratio (always an important sabermetric consideration.)

Connect with People Who Hate the Same Things You Do

This can be more unifying than sharing enthusiasms, really. All of your fellow convention-goers like the White Sox, but for some it had to do with Ron Kittle, others Minnie Minoso. For you it was Chet Lemon in his wide '70s collar. Whatever. You can all agree on one thing: the Cubs.

"Cubs Suck" shirts are everywhere. Many are homemade, just black Sharpie on white T-shirt. The Sox-Cubs fan dynamic (you hate them, they don't care) is about perceptions of class and economic status. The lewd gestures directed at Cubs fans during inter-league games, the call-in slander on sports radio, it's all just code, a collective way of saying, "We resent you. We work for you — or Cub fans like you — and we resent it." Cubs lovers aren't properly connected (so you think) to their team's lackluster performance, but it's their indifference to the Sox-Cubs struggle that drives the hatred. That, and all the khaki. As a Sox fan, you're narrow-minded on your best days, closer than you'd like to admit in some sub-cortical place to the Ligues, but you get it, you understand the conflict. Or maybe you just invented it. But you know hate when you feel it.

"Cubs Suck" is something to gather around. It's not just a reason to live, but to breed.

Being There at the Precise Moment Your Team Falls out of Contention

Naturally, this perk does not apply to Yankees fans. The White Sox can be eliminated in February, however, before pitchers and catchers report. Not mathematically eliminated, of course, but pragmatically. It happens this way:

During a question-and-answer session with fans, General Manager Ken Williams is asked if the Sox are pursuing free agent pitchers Kenny Rogers and Chuck Finley. His response is a stammering, "We're kinda tapped out on money and things." No one would be troubled to hear that the team is passing on the 38-year-old Rogers and the 40-year-old Finley. You are stunned, though, at the brutal honesty of "tapped out on money and things." You can relate to being tapped out on money, sure, but what other "things" are missing? Gloves? Bats? Funnel cakes?

And then it all comes crashing down, all the hope you'd gathered. This is your indication that no, the team will not pull the trigger on a late-season deal; no, they will not add one more beer vendor, let alone a left-handed bat or fifth starter. Good night, thanks for coming, drive safely. See you next year.

E-mail Andy Behrens at abehrens53 at hotmail dot com.