Well, the South Side of Chicago is the baddest part of town…
- “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” by Jim Croce

For the first time since the end of World War I, the Sox have won the World Series, and in a clean sweep too. I marked the week by alternating between watching the games themselves (including the marathon third game on Tuesday night! Wonder just how many fans called in sick the next day due to staying up and watching all fourteen innings??) and settling in to watch some of my favorite baseball-themed movies, such as “The Natural” (a bit hokey, I admit, but I like it– the book, by Bernard Malamud, is good as well) and “Eight Men Out” (an appropriate choice, given it’s about the Black Sox of 1919! This one was also adapted from a book of the same title, by Eliot Asinof).

The joy of the denizens of South Chicago got me thinking, though. Why *is* the South Side of a lot of towns the worst part, or at least the more downtrodden in a metro area? Think about it: South Boston, the South Bronx, SE D.C., South Miami, South Chicago, South San Francisco, South-Central L.A…. the list goes on. I know there are some places where the southern areas/borders aren’t quite the hellholes others are, but more often than not, it’s the south side of the tracks where the bad boys live. I don’t have an answer as yet– any one want to venture an explanation for why this might be?

(I know the majority of readers are deaf and probably have no clue about the lyrics, but I just couldn’t resist using Jim Croce’s song, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” - it just seemed so fitting!)