Earlier this week my brother asked me if I wanted tickets for Friday’s Cubs game against the Phillies, but it turned out the tickets were for the Thursday night game.

I still went despite the date mix-up, loyally standing alongside 40,000 other hapless folks cheering on a team 9 games back in the Central with record of 40-50 that is not going anywhere this season and possibly the next few years. The Cubs are putrid.

We cubs fans have been spoiled with the team being contenders for most of the past decade. We been torn apart by miserable failure after miserable failure (see post-seasons: bartman, 2005, and the diamondbacks and dodgers playoffs), and now that the Cubs are back to being terrible for most of the season, if feel like I’ve had enough. But I don’t know how to quit. And I’ll just keep taking the Red Line down to the 100+ year old dowager queen just to hope that something miraculous might happen.

Why do I put myself through such sadomasochism? I think part of the reason is that when “it” finally does happen (hopefully sometime before my time here on earth comes to an end — I don’t want to have to gloat in the afterlife), I can say that I was there so many years ago keeping the faith, and keeping myself from vomiting all over the ivy because of how disgusting this team has been.

Anyway, back to the game. We sat underneath the scoreboard in center field. Having already experienced the majesty and grandeur of Wrigley so many times in my young life, and with the Cubs nowhere close to contention, I spent innings 5 thru 9 under the scoreboard playing with my brother’s new Droid X phone that he picked up that morning. When something exciting happened according to crowd reaction, I would give a spurt of my attention to the game. I shouldn’t be so jaded — it actually was a good game: the Cubs scored early and often, Dempster threw 6 2/3 solid innings, Starlin Castro stole home plate, and Bob Howry defecated on the mound at the end.