October 7, 2007

(This blog is part of a slightly edited collection Morons Streaking In Goobertown: Sixteen Blogs.  The best and worst of the Buzz Fugazi Screaming From The Basement Blog on MSIGARMY.com)

I know how you feel, but you’ll come back. There’s no known cure for being a Cubs fan. Even if you ignore them, you’ll still have to carry that hurt feeling around for the rest of your life. Even winning it all next year is no guarantee you won’t die a little bit every October for the next 100 year draught after that. 

Here’s an image for you to take with you in the offseason… Cliff Floyd’s dad on a stretcher at the ballpark hooked up to an IV unit with his Cubs hat on while the Cubs launch an improbable come from behind win…

Steve Goodman in the middle of the ’84 season (on the verge of death) in the studio with some of the Cubs recording Go Cubs Go! (and A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request).

Steve didn’t live to see the collapse in San Diego, but he could’ve guessed… just like me seeing Augie Ojeda take the field in Game One… you gotta know somewhere deep down that the stage is set for another disappointment. 

Maybe next year we’ll know what it’s like to see our team as the last one standing. Maybe not. It’s baseball. It’s the greatest game ever invented, but it always breaks your heart in the end. Always. Even the greatest teams and the greatest players wear down from the seasonal marathons and get replaced by up and comers. Every champion, every dynasty, has to take the pennant down eventually and pass it on. That’s what happened to the Cubs and they are still waiting for their turn to come around again. New teams like the Mets, Padres, and D-backs keep coming along to get in the way.

Cubs usually start playing out the string around July or August, if not April, but this year it was October. We got beat by a better team. Maybe next year we’ll be the better team. The Cubs were pressing at the plate a bit, but good pitching will do that to hitters. Arizona looked sharp turning those double plays. Those were not flukes. Our guys came hard into 2nd base, but the D-backs hung tough. The Cubs were not losers this year. The D-backs were winners. Arizona played the games hard and tough with pitching, defense, speed, and power. What didn’t they do right? We did not lose to a bunch of clowns and if I would’ve been at the ballpark I would’ve given both teams a standing ovation. I understand the disappointment, but booing shows a lack of appreciation and respect for the game. It’s a great game, one of our great cultural contributions to the world and someday the world might appreciate it. Hopefully we’ll see the Cubs go all the way before that happens.

This year’s team played one of the best months I’ve seen any Cubs team play to get back into the race (June, wasn’t it?) and despite a season long lack of power, they set the team record for homers in September to make the playoffs.

I felt like I was done with the Cubs after watching them get swept by the Mets at the end of ’04, but seeing my 2nd favorite team, the White Sox, go all the way in ’05 only made me realize there’s only one cure for that boyhood longing that inexplicably remains inside me… to see the Cubs jumping around and celebrating the Championship. 

If I go into a coma and wake up and discover a Cubs championship 10 years after the fact, I’m pretty sure my emotions will be soaring like I’m right there on the field with them in the moment. So will yours. We won’t know if winning will cure this disease until it happens, but I remain with my theory that there is no cure.

So put your Steve Goodman tunes on the boombox and raise a toast for the generations of fans who have come and gone in the hundred years since the last Cubs championship in 1908.

Dry your tears and know the leaves will fall, the snow will come and we’ll dig it out and try to call dibs on our parking spaces with cheap lawn furniture. The cruel hawk wind will howl off the lake like it’s the end of the world, but from our icy grey world we’ll see the Cubs warming up in the Arizona sunshine and we won’t be thinking about the Diamondbacks, but it will remind us that winter doesn’t last forever and soon the sun will shine in Chicago again. 

We’ll know we shouldn’t get emotionally involved with the Cubs, but eventually they’ll win two games in a row, our sons and daughters will look pleadingly at us or a buddy will score an extra ticket, and you’ll think, ‘maybe it’ll be okay to take an afternoon off at the Friendly Confines and see the sun shining on the ivy.’ Despite the wisdom of experience we’ll shout “Go Cubs!” and there will be legions of ghosts swirling in the wind shouting it with us, and maybe that shouting will make the ball do a funny trick that helps us instead of killing us.

Wait ’til Next Year, Cubs fans. That’s what we do.