Fan. Fanatic. Cubs.
I’m a Cubs fan.
That’s like admitting I have an addiction of some sort…perhaps depression would be a better analogy because if you are a Cubs fan you never get the “high” with your typical drugs/alcohol.
The Cubs are a truly amazing team and I’m constantly wondering how they keep fans? I am pretty sure I represent most Cubs fans fairly accurately. We seem to feed on pain as a Blues singer does life’s bad moments. For the Cubs fan a “good moment” is when we get within a run of victory and then find a seemingly new, unthought of way to lose. The Cubs are a bad relationship where the good times – despite being few and far between – resonate for years and blind us to the pain we endure. Perhaps that is the definition of love?
Cubs fans rarely blame the players…or if they do they should think twice because many an ex-cub have found success outside the friendly confines of Wrigley field. Some of the very players giving us emotional pain today as part of the wonderful Cubs organization will undoubtedly inflict a different kind of pain as part of another organization.
My neighbor, a die-hard Twins fan who tried to give the Cubs some support as a child still finds himself sucked into the legacy now hanging over the Cubs. He makes some good points into some of the problems with the Cubs starting with “The Culture of Losing”. Is it true? Do coaches, players and fans of the Cubs somehow buy-in subconsciously to this cult? I call it what it is…bulls*t.
They say misery loves company. For the Cubs company could have meant the Boston Red Sox but I don’t think so because they represent the hope Cubs fan must hold onto. So if I do truly want to have people around me, it has to be another Cubs fan because only they know the pain I feel each day the Cubs take the field. Only they will truly appreciate it when the Cubs come around…hopefully sometime yet this season. And when that glorious day comes when the Cubs bring a World Championship home to Wrigley only they will truly know how I will feel.
So as I part, I simply want to encourage Cubs fans to endure…put some John Lee Hooker on and have One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, pray to what ever God you serve before dining on The Billy Goat and then let’s see if they can’t turn this m*ther-f*cker around.