Embrace the Curse - An Opposing View

by Chodes on Oct 10, 2008 10:27 AM CDT

This post is an opposing viewpoint to Al's post concerning the AC sign on the rooftop club. I thought about this idea before reading Al's post but it seems even more appropriate now.

We need to Embrace the Curse!

We've tried taking it off. We've tried blessing the dugout. We've tried to ignore it. We've even blown up the ball. But still the Cubs have not won.

We need to Embrace the Curse!

The Cubs need to do the opposite. Instead of ignoring the curse and saying that it doen't matter the Cubs should use it. I propose the following promotions:

Black Cat Day - 1st 10,000 receive a stuffed black cat named Ronnie.

Billy Goat Day - 1st 10,000 receive a stuffed goat and a coupon for a 'Cheeze Bogger'

Bartman Bobblehead Day - 1st 10,000

Leon Durham Glove Day - 1st 5000 kids (13 years and younger)

Scapegoat Night - Dress as your favorite Cubs Curse

Fan Appreciation - Everyone gets a Cubs Hat with a set of headphones

I'm sure you guys can add to the list.

The point is that what the Cubs and their fans have been doing is not working and perhaps increasing the preasure for everyone.

Seinfeld said it best:

Jerry : If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

George : Yes, I will do the opposite. I used to sit here and do nothing, and regret it for the rest of the day, so now I will do the opposite, and I will do something!

Let's do something. Embrace the Curse!

P.S. Profits from the Embrace the Curse t-shirt (because you know there will be one) should go to Cubs Care.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation, Bleed Cubbie Blue, or Al Yellon, editor-in-chief. FanPost opinions are, however, valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable baseball fans.

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Great

What a wonderful idea, let team management embrace all of the jerks that have pushed these stories to make a buck. I’m sure that the Billy Goat Tavern will be happy to see a goat giveaway – provided they do not have to provide any of the money for it. Embracing this stuff will only make it worse, its not about having fun, its about recognizing something that belittles our team and deciding not to give in to the nonsense.

by StevenABQ on Oct 10, 2008 10:48 AM CDT 0 recs

So if your first instinct was to add this fanpost...

Lou Brown: "My kinda team, Charlie, my kinda team..."

by ballhawk on Oct 10, 2008 11:04 AM CDT 0 recs

Yes!

I really think that by thrying to ignore all of this BS we are actually giving it more validity. You can’t beat it so join it. It will make it that more sweet when we do finally win the big one.

by Chodes on Oct 10, 2008 11:07 AM CDT 0 recs

In a word, no.

The curse stuff isn’t going to go away overnight. All we can hope is that it begins to stop among knowledgable, committed baseball fans like many of us who post here regularly and then trickles down to the dunderheaded herd of Wrigley attendees who wear “Horry Cow” t-shirts and make pilgrmages to the Bartman seat.

Your proposal is hereby rejected.

"I see I'm not the only one around here who can't hold his water." - Final words of the water pipe in the visiting team dugout, Dodger Stadium, October 4, 2008.

by dat cubfan daver on Oct 10, 2008 11:19 AM CDT 0 recs

Thank you!

"That's my opinion and if you don't like it, well, I have others." ~ Groucho Marx

by Al on Oct 10, 2008 12:10 PM CDT up 0 recs

Alternative Position: Proposal amended with good suggestion to raise money for a charity -

First of all, forget this idea of the Cubs ever embracing the idiotic “curse” shtick. THERE IS NO CURSE ON the CUBS. It’s not going to happen.

It’s a stinking sport superstition that taps into human obsessions with omens, mysticism and attaching cosmic significance to all manner of purely human failings and efforts. I think God and the universe He put into motion is a whole lot bigger than narrow minded attempts to quantify a professional baseball club’s failures into a neat package defined by a malevolent power undermining all their efforts to succeed. That’s dramatic baloney. There are real curses in the world, mind you .. but this is NOT one of them.

How about Cubs fans send the money they were going to budget to go to a Cubs game directly to a Cubs Care charity?

Well, Next Year is here .. and Jack's century's gotta end some time .. GO CUBBIES!

by cubnational on Oct 11, 2008 6:19 AM CDT up 0 recs

How about we tell the world we're morons?

That will have the same effect as what you propose.

by daeviant on Oct 10, 2008 12:14 PM CDT 0 recs

embrace the players not the curse

we need to find a way to relieve the organization of this huge weight that comes every post-season. We can talk till were blue in the face about making changes to the types of players/leaders we bring in etc, but why dont we take some responsibility on ourselves and embrace the players

its hard because we wear the history of the Cubs more than they do, but maybe it helps if we’re not so easily deflated in the stands during a playoff game, or not so quick to boo, etc. Obviously the fans aren’t the reason the club wins or loses games, but trying to lessen the pressure on these guys in those moments couldn’t hurt…

by DartmouthCubsFan on Oct 10, 2008 3:58 PM CDT 0 recs

What? What in the world else can we do?

" ..we need to find a way to relieve the organization of this huge weight that comes every post-season."

You are surely not suggesting that there’s something that Cubs fans need to do to alleviate the disastrous cultural stigma they’ve reembraced annually for the past 100 years?

You want to see this organization relieve some of this weight? How about THEY WIN a National League pennant? How about a World Series VICTORY?

Come on, you can’t be serious. Tell me you jest. What in the world else can the longest suffering fanbase in sport today do that hasn’t already done by us? This statement is one of the most surreal things I’ve ever heard on this site.

I am an aging 48 year old man whose husky Y-worked body still has a bit of strength left in him, and I think I would have done as well for the Cubs if not better if I had been batting lead off instead of Soriano. Or driving in a few runs in the place of Fukudome. That’s about the only other thing I think I could have done for the Cubs. Heck, the amount of money I’ve spent travelling to Cubs games all my life has been a donation to something I’ve come to see that I value more like a charity then for the business it is (that’s enough epiphany for me there).

If helping relieving this bizarro franchise of its perennial postseason misery means suiting up and becoming a Cubs player, I’m sure there’s a lot of us that would have gladly come off the bench. Of course, that’s never going to happen. So what else can Cubs fans do? WHAT?

Cubs catcher Geovany Soto after the game:

“It doesn’t matter how many games we won in the regular season. What did it do for us?”

If alleviating Postseason Pressure is more a priority with Cub fans instead of getting playoff wins, Geo nails with crisp and succint bluntness where the job begins – with the CUBS.

I’ve been a fan and I’ve done my part. Let the Cubs own their shame, I’ve got enough hassles at work and in family and my personal budget in these troubled times over the Cubs then to worry about doing THEIR job. I’ll be doing it all over again next year and at my expense – maybe .. if the stock market doesn’t completely evaporate next week.

Well, Next Year is here .. and Jack's century's gotta end some time .. GO CUBBIES!

by cubnational on Oct 11, 2008 6:03 AM CDT up 0 recs

On the positive side

broadcasters are less likely to go off frothing at the mouth about 101 Years because frankly, it just doesn’t sound as good. No one’s ever written any songs of note about 101 of anything, and it’s just not as poetic a number. So what we’re left with in the absence of counting is just the realization that it’s been a long damn time.

I have to think all this curse talk has to wear out at some point, even for lazy journalists and broadcasters. It is my greatest wish. So I will not embrace any curse, I will simply disregard it. The only way the 800-lb. gorilla is ever gonna get up and leave the joint is if people stop paying attention to him.

"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible." ~Arthur C. Clarke

by Goodie1969 on Oct 10, 2008 7:54 PM CDT 0 recs

Good point

It won’t be near as intriguing to cover a 101 years of Cubs misery.
In fact, maybe this means we can all go back to what it was like the year after the Cubs won their last WS. Roll back the odometer on what has been a lack luster century. No barage of media and advertising. I am sure fans 101 years ago were let down that their winning team lost, but there would have been a lot less stress on them and less pressure on the ball club and players. Doesn’t hurt to hope, right?

My heart is breakin, head is achin, stomach is churnin, acid reflux is burnin, but I will ALWAYS be a Cubs fan.

by love the ivy on Oct 12, 2008 12:21 AM CDT up 0 recs