Posted on 10/09/2016 5:25:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
Waterfalls have stopped falling, the sun rose in the south and pigs are taking to the air. The world is no longer recognizable. Why do I say that? Because the Chicago Cubs are the best baseball team on earth, and the St. Louis Cardinals are watching the postseason from their Barcaloungers.
It's not natural, it's not explainable and, in my mind, it's not welcome. Despite living for the past 36 years in the Chicago area, despite working for a company that once owned the Cubs and despite being surrounded by Cubs fans, I just can't root for them -- or the White Sox, either.
Yes, I've been here most of my adult life, but I grew up in Texas, and I never took to certain local customs -- pickles on hot dogs, using furniture to save parking spaces, jumping into Lake Michigan in the winter and clownish baseball.
Instead, for reasons too complicated to explain, I have an allegiance to the Cardinals passionate enough to make my wife occasionally worry that I might leave her for Adam Wainwright. (Probably not.) I have more red in my wardrobe than Santa Claus.
Normally, this is the time of year that St. Louis fans lay in supplies of Budweiser, chips and remote control batteries in preparation for a long playoff run. My team has made the playoffs the past five seasons in a row and nine of the past 12. True Cardinals fans do not schedule weddings in October, or even funerals.
Cubs fans, by contrast, are usually free about now to seek out fall foliage, read "War and Peace" or check in to the Betty Ford Center -- all the while trying to avoid contact with Cardinal friends.
Their embarrassment is understandable. The Cubs, after all, last won a World Series 108 years ago. During that period, the Cards have won 11, including two in the past decade.
That's not the only way in which the Cardinals excel. They have a beautiful modern stadium, while the Cubs inhabit a 15th-century structure ingeniously designed so that half the seats are behind pillars. The Cardinals have The Best Fans in Baseball, as certified by the Nobel Committee. Wrigley Field patrons are famous for ignoring the game, working on their tans, flirting with the opposite sex and endangering Cubs outfielders by throwing back balls that opponents blast over the fence.
But this season was different. The Cubs seized the Central Division lead in April and never let go, winning 103 games. The Cardinals finished second, 340 miles back, and didn't even qualify for the wild-card game.
The Redbirds played like -- well, like the Cubs of old. The St. Louis pitchers were erratic, except the ones who were invariably bad. The fielders handled every ground ball as though it had fangs. The base running was pure slapstick.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, catering to a sudden local outbreak of masochism, recently posed the question, "How many Cardinals could start for the Cubs?" The answer: maybe just one.
That stings. The whole season stung. But it gives us Cardinals fans a chance to exercise a magnanimity we rarely get to display, lending support to a fellow Midwestern team that has been a synonym for vain hopes and endless futility. So let me stipulate that I truly hope to see the Cubs win the World Series.
No, I haven't been charmed by their quirky manager. No, I haven't been taken with the team's youthful exuberance. No, I'm not caught up in the romance of the Cubs' fabled century-long quest, which got tedious after the first 1,000 times I had to hear about it.
But a Cubs World Series victory would warm the hearts of most of the nearly 10 million people who live around here. It would elicit smiles from my surliest co-workers. It would enhance the happiness of my three kids, whose loyalty to the Cubs is not my fault. And it would give the team's followers something no living Cubs fan has known: a taste of what it's like to be a Cardinals fan.
So I hope the Cubs bring home a championship and finally bury the Curse of the Billy Goat. I hope they take all the Champagne showers previous teams tragically missed. I hope the city has a celebration that Chicago will never forget.
Then I hope they go on to win another World Series -- 108 years from now.
The Cards were the best baseball team on earth at the end of last season. They didn't make it past the divisional series.
I’m going Cubs, too!
(Since my Angels went down in flames, the Marines fell just short, and my new team, the Diamondbacks, never realized the season had started.)
It proves your league was, by far, the toughest, and that your team could qualify as the true “2nd best” in the country.
Our minor league team, the Peoria Chiefs was a Cubs affiliate for years, now they're a Cardinal affiliate. Many big name major league players and managers have Peoria roots.
Last year the Cardinals had the best team in baseball, but the Cubs knocked them out in four games. For us Cub fans, that was almost as good as winning the World Series. Most Cub fans this year were relieved we didn't have to play the Cardinals in the NLDS.
This year, the Cubs have it all together. Only 9 more wins to go, but we're all nervous as hell.
Last year the Cubs won the wild card and then took the Cards in four straight. Then they ran into the Mets buzz saw.
Giants won two of their last three WS titles as wild cards.
Tell me about it. They shouldn't have held Gordo at third in game seven.
100+ MPH...HERE IT COMES!
I don’t understand how a guy lives 36 years in Chicago and is still a Cardinals fan. For me, much of the fun in sports is rooting for the home team. If one lives in a market without one, then fine, choose who you like. I was a Dodgers fan until my family moved to Houston. I had never lived in a city with major leage sports. It took a few years, but I became an Astros fan since the early 70’s. If I moved to a different city with a major league team, I’d eventually get into the spirit and root for my new home team.
Red Sox fan here——I’ve been rooting for The Cubs since 2004.
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Which is why I have adopted the Diamondbacks... but, since they're National League and my Mariners are American League, I can root for both since the odds of them meeting in the World Series are next to zero...
My son, is a Stiller fan {for over 50 years} lives in Annapolis, MD, is surrounded by redskin and little black bird fans and will never waver.
Being a real fan doesn't change because you move to a different city.
Does Houston really have pro sport teams?
Yeah, I don’t mind having a fall-back favorite. Back when I was a football fan, I’d sometimes have a 2nd favorite due to liking certain players. I’m not a Diamondbacks fan, but I think Goldschmidt is one of the most solid players in baseball. It’s really exciting when the local team does well and makes the playoffs, and eveybody wears the team’s shirts to work.
I am a Cubs fan and root for the Cardinals when they are in the post season but only when it is not against the Cubs.
I am third generation Cubs fan, my five and three year old grandsons(if they follow tradition) would be fifth. Go Cubbies!
Hey, anybody can have a bad century!
and with Joe Madden being an old Angel you have to root for him
“”””For me, much of the fun in sports is rooting for the home team. “”””
What a strange thing to say. I grew up in Chicago and have been a Cubs fan my whole life. Now I live in CT. See you seriously suggesting I become a Yankees fan or a Mets fan?
That’s why I have so many “favorite” teams! So many former Mariners and Angels are out there doing great things, it’s hard not to root for their teams.
The exception would be A-Rod, he’s still persona non grata in Seattle even after all these years.
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