The Cubs

Growing up in the Midwest, there was only one baseball team for most: The Cubs. Cubs fans are die-hard. We have to be because the Cubs never win. As Bill Bryson says in I'm a Stranger Here Myself, despite the fact that there are a ton of of different divisions and playoff games leading up to the World Series,

• essentially it means that practically every team in baseball except the Chicago Cubs gets a chance to go to the World Series. The Cubs don't get to go because they never manage to qualify even under a system as magnificently accomodating as this. Often they almost qualify, and sometimes they are in such a commanding position that you cannot believe they won't qualify, but always in the end they doggedly manage to come up short. Whatever it takes--losing seventeen games in a row, letting easy balls go through their legs, crashing comically into each other in the outfield--you can be certain the Cubs will manage it. . . .And here's the problem. Nobody deserves to go to the World Series more than the Chicago Cubs. But they can't go because that would spoil their custom of never going. It's an irreconcilable paradox. (25-26, 27)

The Cubs have not won a world series in 99 years. Okay, so the Cubs have managaged, in recent years, to get into the playoffs. But what happens? There was the semi-final playoff series in 2003 against the Marlins. This could finally be our year! The Cubs kept advancing, kept winning. I bought a brand new jersey to replace my old one. My husband bought me a Cubs hat (which he never actually let me wear). Well, we all know how that turned out. Sixth game in the series, top of the 8th inning, Cubs in the lead and a Cubs fan robs Cubs outfielder Moises Alou of an out, catching the ball. It was downhill from there for the Cubs, and the Marlins went on to win the world series. No one even should have blamed the fan; really, wasn't it just "in the cards?"

So this year, when the Cubs made it into the playoffs, I was, once again, elated. Since I'm now in Georgia and far removed from the Cubs, I watched the coverage and celebration in Chicago on WGN that Friday night--All the optimism, excitement, jubilation. I cheered along with the woman, a Cubs fan for 60 years, who screamed at the top of her lungs in a bar that "This will be the Cubs year! They're gonna do it this year!" I believed!

Essentially, there really is a delightful delusion that all Cubs fans have. Every year, we believe they are going to make it, and every year we follow them through the whole season with high hopes. Yet every year, something goes horribly awry. This year, the Diamondbacks easily cleaned the pretty green field with the beloved blue and white and red jerseys. The odd thing is that even when they do lose, we aren't really surprised. I think we bury all the negative thoughts, submerging them in our subconscious. I'm sure psychologists would have something to say about this, possibly even name it the Cubs complex--it might make for a fascinating study.

Well, there's always next year. When the Midwest finally begins unthawing, it ushers in spring training--the Midwest wakes up to the Cubs, waiting for and watching them bloom again. Do we really care if they lose? No. Do we really believe they will win? Yes. So, I'm ready to hibernate for the winter. Nothing much happens anyway until the Cubs come back.