Ramble on how and why I root for the Cubs

[Author's note: this post originated from my "other" blog, "From Under The Shadows," which focused on all things sports and especially Chicago sports.]

In 1997 I watched the news one day, and at the end of hour they were showing highlights of a Cubs game in which Sammy Sosa hit a home run so far that it broke a window across the street. "Sammy who?" I remember thinking. I was impressed by the home run, though.

I'd been to Cubs games before that. I remember at the end of summer school after fourth grade my dad, a family friend, and I went to Wrigley Field to catch a game. If I remember right, they were playing the San Diego Padres. I'm assuming they lost the game, because somehow I'd begun to understood that they rarely fielded good teams. Kind of like the Montreal Expos, except, you know, they'd been around for much longer than that. But that's the earliest one I remember. I'm betting I'd been to at least a couple before that, but for whatever reason I have no recollection.

I grew up as a second-generation Chicagoan, which showed in whatever teams my folks rooted for. My mom grew up in Minnesota, but she was never that much into sports. She'd casually follow the Twins and the Vikings (mostly knowing if they'd won the World Series or the Super Bowl, respectively), but not much beyond that. If I recall correctly, she casually followed the Cubs and Bulls (the latter I can understand; they were that good in the nineties). My dad's a different story. He grew up in Cardinals Country early, moved around the southern Plains, before ending up in Astros Territory for the latter half of childhood. When he'd gotten to the Chicago area, he found himself cheering the White Sox, an effect on me that allowed me the rare designation in the Windy City of being a fan of both baseball teams.

As I'd explained in the previous paragraph, as well as previous posts, the Bulls were my first love. It was easy; they won all the time, and they had the best basketball player on the planet. But something had to give once that player retired and the team plummeted into oblivion. News flash: it's much harder staying loyal to a team that's the worst in the league, as opposed to the best. I was going to have to look at other teams around the city to cheer me up. The Blackhawks were the laughingstock of the National Hockey League, I didn't really like football (so the Bears were out), and the White Sox played on "the other side of town." That left the Cubs, a team perennially snake-bitten (rumors are that said snake-biting was self-inflicted) by bad management, bad development, and a popular superstition that something bad happened to the team a long time ago with nothing they can do to stop it.

Being a Cubs fan is a risk. You risk heartache and depression every time you think your team has a chance at being the best, like the Bulls were. Theoretically they're supposed to be bad every year, and on the off-chance that they have a good season, something terrible has to go wrong. And quite frankly, that assessment isn't technically wrong: I can rattle off all the years since 1945 that have Cub fans running to their beer: 1969, 1984, 1989, 2003, 2008 (there are a couple others in there, but quite honestly those teams didn't have a shot at winning the whole thing anyway). But, for all the times I hear in September or October of those fans swearing off the team ("this year took the cake! I am NEVER rooting for them again!") they're all crawling back in January, just in time for the annual convention. By March, they're already thinking "this is the year!" Why? Because of hope. That's why being a Cubs fan is a risk; every year fans hope that this is the year, in spite of the demons of fear that lurk underneath that layer of hope.

A couple years ago, upon the centennial of their last World Series title, I was extremely depressed at how their season ended (not unlike most people who root(ed) for this team). In this process I'd started thinking about why people voluntarily go through sport-related heartbreak. After all, if we were able to realize this, we could choose to root for another team and be free from it. But no, we come back like lemmings every new year, only to be cast off the cliff again. I came to the conclusion that being a Cubs fan kept me humble. After all, when I follow the Cubs, I really follow them. When I care about them, I really care about them. There's no half-assed middle ground. As a result, I give myself to the hype of the team, something that can prove to be quite dangerous.

[Normally I'd lapse into some faith/religious/spiritual tangent here to further prove my point, but this isn't the space for that, at least not right now.]

I realized that being a Cubs fan made me humble because each eventual end-of-season failure reminded me that being a sports fan is an emotionally dangerous thing. And following this particular team, as opposed to the Bulls, St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota Twins, or almost any other team, offers the best reminder of that. To be sane, one must hold said team of rooting interest at arm's length. Unless I want to make baseball my career and work for the Cubs, it's better to look at this as a form of entertainment, amusement, excitement.

I'm willing to be a bit more patient with them for now. For one, they have new owners, and specifically, owners who are committed to changing the culture of the franchise as opposed to merely making money. They're in it for the long haul, and not to put all their chips in for 2010. A second reason is that the team already passed the centennial for their championship drought. A lot of the angst for winning last decade was to accomplish said goal before hitting 100 years. That ended up not happening. At this point, what's the rush? Focus on growing the team as best as one can, and then try to win with that. It's how the champions do it, anyway. Thanks to the Ricketts family, perhaps the Cubs can try common sense for once. They haven't had it for, oh, about 65 years now.