Posted on 09/16/2003 6:11:12 AM PDT by mikeb704
Pennant fever is sweeping the area. With both the White Sox and Cubs in first place or close to it, fans are dreaming of a Windy City Series.
Using the suitable clinical terminology, this is just plain nuts. The Sox, well, maybe. It’s been dry on the South Side for a long time, but there is a genuine possibility. Not a great possibility in all likelihood, but one nonetheless.
The story on the North Side is different. The Cubs have a long tradition of defeat. And not just being beaten, but losing in the most ignominious ways.
Assorted explanations have been posited for why the Chicago Cubs are losers with a capital L. Maybe it’s the Billy Goat Curse, though that was supposed to have been removed years ago.
Perhaps it’s because Cub owners have been infamously tight with a buck. The cause could be poor management decisions. Trading Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio wasn’t, it appears in retrospect, solid judgment.
It could be just because of where the team is from, the North Side. Congested streets with no parking spaces. Astronomical housing costs. Affectations of culture, style and class.
With the help of suburbs such as the People’s Republic of Evanston, North Siders elect socialist hacks like Jan Schakowsky to Congress. The lads from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy would look like Humphrey Bogart on the North Side. It’s not a place likely to nourish manly men, the sort of gritty guys who have enough testosterone to prevail in gritty competition.
The last time the Cubs won a World Series was in 1908. Roosevelt was in the White House. Teddy, that is. Not Franklin.
The last World Series they were in was before I was born. It was in 1945 when, as I believe the late Mike Royko once said, anyone who could limp fast was in the military.
An admission: When I was young and naive – OK, make that stupid - I actually cheered the Cubs. It was 1969, and the team pulled off a dramatic come from behind win in the season opener that seemed to be an unmistakable augury of great things to come.
Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, Glenn Beckert and Don Kessinger in the field. Fergie Jenkins, Ken Holtzman and Bill Hands pitching. A team like that just had to win.
So they did. The Cubbies were in first place for more than five months. In mid-August, they held an 8½ game lead. Then the bottom fell out.
They lost 18 of their last 25 games. This was bad enough, but even worse was the New York Mets winning 23 of their final 29 games at the same time.
For the first time in its franchise history, the Mets stood at the top of the standings. They managed to hold on and win their division, the pennant and the World Series. The only thing the Cubs managed to hold onto was their reputation as duds who choked up.
Then there was 1984. Leading by two games in the best-of-five National League Championship Series, the Cubs needed just one victory in the next three games. You won’t win a prize by guessing what happened. First baseman Leon Durham was criticized for letting a ball roll between his legs, but losing three straight required an effort by the full team.
Every team has bad years. Some have bad decades. But only the Chicago Cubs can legitimately bellyache that they’re having a bad century.
Losers with a capital L. Yet year after year Cubs’ fans fill Wrigley Field, never giving up hope that Yes!, this is FINALLY the year. And maybe that’s an explanation for why the team’s been so terrible for so long. As long as the aficionados keep paying to see failure, why bother to try for success?
As the old song went, "Hey-hey, holy mackerel, the Cubs are on their way." They’re on their way alright. But, as usual, not to a World Series.
Hey, I resemble dat remark! I grew up on da Nort Side, and I turned out all right. (No wisecracks, you guys.)
Those were the days....
Anyway, growing up as a Cub fan has enabled be to be a "good Republican," one who always hopes for the best but but in the end always loses.
HAD a bad century.
Actually, I was using century there as meaning a period of 100 years rather than the meaning of each of the successive periods of 100 years before or since the birth of Jesus Christ.
I trust I've made myself obscure.
Agreed. What is it, about 8 teams in contention?
The sardonic subtitle sets the tone for the whole book.
Dear Sirs,
BOO!HISS Loooozers!
Just Wait till next year! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The Cub/Cardinal rivalry would be even beter if you could find a real ball club.
Have a nice day, TTTC
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