Curiosity...

In 1984 I was teaching at a university and had been writing the magic number to clinch on the board all fall semester before class and we talked about the Cubs for a few minutes every day and the day after they lost to that team from San Diego I still wore my Cubs warm up jacket to class. I was very hard but it seemed appropriate then. I’m not so sure this team deserves that same kind of loyalty so I split the difference.

The hangover is over; we’re all pretty used to this feeling by now, unfortunately.

…is my lucky hat, which I bought a week or two before this season began. I wore it all day Saturday but, yesterday, I hung it up over the mirror in our bedroom (next to my old Cubs hat), where it will spend the remainder of the postseason and all of the off-season.

I also brought in my Cubs gnome – Carlos Zambragnome – from our front yard. He’ll be put in storage until next spring.

The way the team played, though, it’s shameful to wear Cubs gear while the 2008 post-season is still going on.

This AM to work, my office is like a shrine to the Cubs, kind of hard shelve that. I got props from my buddies for wearing my cap on Sunday. Still a pretty rotten taste in my mouth, but I love the Cubs for alot more than what they did this season. And it would take alot more than thier horrible (to say it mildly) performance in the NLDS, to make me “quit” displaying my pride as a fan.

Since I work in LA there are a lot of Dodgers fans around this place. Surprisingly, the ones I talked to were gracious to me this morning. I also got a few emails from other Dodgers fans that were equally gracious.

However, a friend who went to the game Saturday told me that his group of 4 Cubs fans were unmercilessly taunted the entire game, especially afterwards when they walked back to their car. Two guys apparently made a couple comments about his gf and for a moment he thought he was going to get into a fight with the morons. But the situation was defused and he made it out in one piece, no worse for wear other than the general malaise we all feel right now.

I wore my t-shirt that says
 “Little Tommy went to kindergarten one day wearing a Cubs hat. His teacher asked him why he was a Cubs fan. He said, "Because my parents are.” His teacher said, “That’s not good, what would you do if your parents were drug dealers and hookers?” He replied, “Well then I would be a White Sox fan.”

I really am not usually like this. I don’t typically buy anti-Sox gear. I just thought it was too funny to pass up and that I might have an opportunity to wear it sometime with my brother just for laughs. He’s a fair weather fan that just routes for whatever Chicago team is winning and it drives me nuts. Yesterday, however I just didn’t want the Sox to do better than the Cubs because it would add salt to the wound. Pathetic of me, I know.

Maybe after the playoffs are over, as noted by some above.

jogging today and got jeered at by a little White Sox fan at the bus stop who yelled “at least we didn’t get swept”. Guess I deserved it for wearing that anti-Sox shirt the other day. Although that little punk didn’t see it. I stayed in sulking that day.

prolly around the winter meetings when I’ve got a serious eye towards 2009.

Right now, it’s Bears.