Tag Archives: Cubs

Under the Scoreboard

Chicago, Sports, , , ,

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.

Dempster throws as thousands of drunk cubs fans watch silently with bated breath
Dempster throws as thousands of cubs fans hope silently with bated breath that the Cubs don't embarrass themselves today

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.

Marlon Byrd: The only bright spot to this season
Marlon Byrd: The only bright spot to this season

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.


Left: This Cubs baby had the unfortunate fate of being born to a father who wished to pass his anguish down to future generations. Right: This hot dog salesman has the pleasure of giving your money to the Rickettses

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.

Left: Sitting under the scoreboard, Jimmy Rollins had a bad day on my fantasy team. Right: A Soriano home run?

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.

The sun sets behind the Toyota sign as the Cubs chances of winning with its overpaid veterans also sets. Metaphor'ed!
The sun sets behind the Toyota sign as the Cubs chances of winning with its overpaid veterans also sets. Metaphor'ed!
Mouseover: See Wrigley descend into night.
Mouseover: Feel my range. From 16mm-200mm, trying to scope out DWTS hottie Julianne Hough while she sings the 7th inn stretch
Mouseover: My brother and his friends. See Pat get all Caruso'd. His one-liner would be something like "We'll I guess he threw one too many.... Strikes." *YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH!*
Pat is attacked by the refreshing mist of 101 years of failure.
Pat is attacked by the refreshing mist of 101 years of failure.

To Wrigley and Back

Chicago, Friends, Sports, Travel, ,

wrigley_th

I expect there to be a few more trips to Wrigleyville later this summer. I was apparently on TV (bleacher cam)! Woohoo!

I’ve been sorta lazy about narrowing down the amount of shots I throw into a gallery. I’ll try to be more selective and choose the winners, but I like to share the entirety of my adventures, so it’s hard for me to let go of some crappier shots. I know which ones I personally like better anyway.

When I Was A Boy, They Were My Pride and Joy…

Chicago, Sports

…But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League!

— Steve Goodman, “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request”

I love baseball — it’s my favorite sport to watch, to play, and to simply take in the atmosphere. But unfortunately, I’ve been cursed with loving one of the most unfortunate of teams in baseball, the Chicago Cubs. Over the past week I’ve had to deal with the agony of watching the Cubs choke for the second straight year in the first round of the postseason. It hurt. It hurt real bad. Instead of going over every masochistic detail about why the Cubs decided to not show up in October, I instead will talk about that sarcastic, burning question that has been posed to me by White Sox and Cards fans alike: “Why am I a Cubs Fan?”

Why am I a Cubs fan? Why do I keep coming back, year after year after year … after year after year after year, when championships have eluded this team forever — far beyond the lifetime of nearly everyone who reads this blog (my dad was around – less than a year old – when the Cubs won the NL pennant in 1945)?

What the Cubs do for me, in an uncertain world where we may not know the outcomes of what we do in our daily lives (work, school, whatever), is provide some certainty. Whether or not I like the result of any particular game or season, the point is that there is a result. There is a finality — they win or lose, or in the case of a season, win a championship or go home and wait to try to redeem themselves in the next season (which has been the case for 101 years now). It allows me, by identifying with this team, to “live and die” with them during their ups and downs. I know you’ve all experienced these emotions and I don’t have to elaborate further.

When I first started following the Cubs, through the magic of being able to come home from school and watch them on TV every afternoon, one of the first things they did was lose 94 games.

That was in 1997. But I’m just a young fan. I’ve only read about the 1969 Cubs. I never lived the disappointment of the 1977, 1978 and 1979 teams, and through the terrible clubs of the early ’80s, before the triumph of 1984. I was only 2 years old during the 1989 NL East title. I first witnessed their prototypical fade from glory during the 1998 wild card and Slammin’ Sammy’s run at Henry Aaron’s record, only to be completely crushed during the playoffs. And let’s not even talk about the five-outs-short season of 2003. Since then, I’ve looked on like a kid with his nose pressed to the window glass while those guys in Boston scratched their 86-year itch. Twice. And I swallowed my pride as the Southside caravaned through the streets of Chicago clutching their World Series trophy. I just about died when the Cardinals won.

And I wonder: would it change the nature of what it is to be a Cub fan, to win it all? When the Cubs last won a World Series, my great grandparents were in their 30s, and none of my grandparents born yet. Generations of Cub fans have lived — and died — without experiencing the feeling of being the last ones standing at the end of a baseball season.

Would it change us, Cubs Fans? It might. It just might.

Damn, all I want is to find out how that feels. Hopefully, someday. Is it wrong for me to be so naive?