The View From Down Here - Bleed Cubbie Blue

The other sports are just sports.  Baseball is a love.  ~Bryant Gumbel, 1981

For anyone who has taken even the slightest amount of time to get to know me, it's next to impossible not to know that I am an ardent Cub fan.  Al Gallagher, third baseman for the San Francisco Giants in the early 70's, once said:

There are three things in my life which I really love:  God, my family, and baseball.  The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit.

In my case, you can replace "baseball" with "the Cubs".  While I am a baseball fan in general, the Chicago Cubs are my first love.  From my profanity laced tirades against message board posters to my rants against Cubs management, some may say I am more emotionally invested in the Cubs than my own marriage...and during baseball season my wife would be hard pressed to disagree.  


With their streak of futility at 104 years, and not looking like it's going to change - at least not in the next couple years - many people wonder why in the world I would continue to support a team that has been one gigantic gut punch throughout my 35 years of fandom.  And believe me.  Sometimes I wonder that myself. 


Before the 2010 MLB season, the Cubs introduced their "It's a Way of Life" campaign.  For myself, as well as I'm sure, many other fans, this analogy couldn't be any more perfect.  Being a Cub fan is a way of life and has been since I was 3 years old, when my father took me to my first game at Wrigley Field.  (August 16, 1977 to be exact.  I only remember this because my father takes every opportunity to remind me on the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death that we were at Wrigley when they announced it over the PA system.)  


In my case in particular, being a Cub fan is a family affair.  My grandfather was a Cub fan, my father is a Cub fan, and I've already begun passing down the legacy to my 4 year old son, Ryan.  Case in point....




Not to mention, with my dad being the oldest of 15 kids, I have plenty of aunts, uncles, and cousins who also carry on the family tradition.  It would have been futile to try to grow up not rooting for the "Lovable Losers".  During my grandfather's funeral last April (a funeral where all of the pall bearers - myself included - wore a "Cubs Win" pin on our lapels), every single family member in attendance agreed our biggest disappointment was that, even though he lived 85 amazing years, grandpa never did get to see that elusive Cubs World Championship.  As my own father is getting up there in years, I truly hope the same cannot be said for him.


The arrival of the triumvirate of Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, and Jason McLeod in Chicago has brought renewed hope in the Windy City.  Most logical fans realize it won't happen overnight, but for the first time in decades, the Cubs' brass seems to have a legitimate plan in place to slay the Billy Goat and give Chicago the party to end all parties.  (On a side note, the parade for the World Champion Chicago Cubs is going to make Sodom and Gamorrah look like child's play.)  But, no matter how bad the Cubs are or ever will be, year after year, like a battered wife, I'll keep coming back for the abuse.

Every player should be accorded the privilege of at least one season with the Chicago Cubs.  That's baseball as it should be played - in God's own sunshine.  And that's really living.  ~Alvin Dark