Why Are We Here?

I thought the Cubbies host the Bucs on Friday. (payday! woohoo!) They can always use the rest, but hopefully not the rust.

As for me, I became a fan watching the Cubs before doing my paper route as a kid. Harry Caray and Stoney calling the game, day baseball and WGN broadcasts are what planted the seed. I had been to Cubs games as early as the mid-80s when I was in kindergarten (one of my classmates in kg thought that Jody Davis was a woman). It pains me now that most of the Cubs games are on cable instead of 'GN where they caught my attention by preempting cartoons. I was a huge Duck Tales fan back then.

In short, I think sports, and by extension the Cubs, gives us somewhere to place our hopes of renewal. If things are going wrong now, there's always next year.

My life long devotion to the Cubs began when I was 9(1966).While I understand many times this is something a boy gets from his father in my case I doubt my father even new the Cubs were a baseball team.While I have often tried to understand just what caused me to turn to the Cubs and baseball I have never come up with a answer.I just know that they have always been a way for me to forget my troubles and concentrate on the many problems they have always seemed to have.Through the late 60's and early 70's I think I felt closer to Lou B. and Vince L. than any other people in my life even though I had never met them or seen the Cubs play in person.I got to my first game in 1974 and am going to my next one tommorrow with my youngest(23).

 I've often thought about this topic myself: Do most Cub fans root for them cuz they suck?? Cuz they like the underdog and would they lose a little bit of their identity of being a Cub fan, a franchise littered with losing, if they won it all?

 Ironically, does the Cub bandwagon get bigger every season that doesn't equal in winning a Championship? I think that is a realistic reality and 1 I think the Trib. brass must wonder itself. I mean, the Franchise hasn't even won a NL pennant since 1945 and they still today, pack the house in, every game. Is the novelty of being a Cub fan due to them being losers? Why fix it if it ain't broke, from a business standpoint.

 I personally, am tired of not winning a WS or even a NL pennant and if god willing i do see the Cubs win it all, I will be just as big a Cub fan as the year before.

I tried to start something like this over at halosheaven
http://halosheaven.com/story/2005/7/12/3820/87687
but that place isn't as good as BCB. Didn't seem to catch on at all. My reason for being an angels fan are pretty simple - Wally Joyner was cool and my dad and I could go to games in Anaheim and see the minor league team in Palm Springs, where we had a small summer house. But the Angels are just a team I like and root for. I'm an Angels fan. But I'm a Cubs FAN.

I truly do Bleed Cubbie Blue. I was raised this way. My first baseball cap? Cubs. Whenever I would visit my grandparents in Indiana (in Hobart, outside of Gary) it would be summertime. And every day, my grandmother would watch the cubs. She loved the Cubs. She took delight in when they would win, and watch them lose until the final out. Every day I could leave my grandparent's house, with my grandmother watching the cubs, and walk to my great-grandfather's house, where he too would be watching the Cubs. Cubs Cubs Cubs. Talk about the Cubs. How Sandberg was doing, who this Grace kid was, and how about Sutcliffe! Harry Caray and Steve Stone, always there. Burned into my memory is that camera shot they use when a guy is on first, Grace stretched out, and the foul pole, ivy and buildings in the background. To me, that's baseball. When my uncle, this time my father's side (the grandmother and great-grandfather were my maternal relatives) would come out to visit us, we'd talk about the Cubs. My whole life. My paternal grandmother would tell me stories of Wrigley Field a long time ago and going to watch a game. She claims to have seen Ruth at Wrigley in the 1932 series when she was a young lady, but I have no proof. But I have no reason to disbelieve her.

I've only been to Wrigley once, in 2000. I live in Los Angeles, and now that my grandparents in Hobart have since passed away, its less convenient for me to get out to Chicago. But I know I'll be back.

Thanks again Al, I love BCB. And I love the Cubs. I say every year "WHY do I ROOT for THIS team!?" but deep down I know - this team is family. To root against them would be to root against myself, my heritage.

Now let's get some runs!

I'm a younger Cubs fan, but i became hooked when I was 7 years old. My older cousin gave me his baseball cards, and one of the cards i owned was a Ryne Sandberg rookie card. The first ballgame i ever saw on television was a cubs game, and Sandberg hit a 3-run homerun. I still get chills remembering the first time I heard Harry yell Holy Cow! The thing that hooked me with the cubs was hope. I can remember Jose Bautista's 10-2 season like it was yesterday. I can still see "Tuffy" Rhodes hitting 3 homeruns on opening day. To this day, I still can talk to my exgirlfriend about the Chicago Cubs. She caught the bug from me during that 2003 season.

At somepoint, Cubs fans started to turn into Yankee's fans. People are jumping on all of our players everytime they underperform. People are talking about K-Wood so often, but they forget how he almost singlehandedly beat the Braves that year in a playoff game. He drove in the winning run and shut down their offense.

The past 2 years are the only time I can remember fans attacking players and being so pesimistic. Maybe I'm just naive and didn't notice it before, but it seems like most of cubsdom has gotten Jay Mariotti syndrome. I don't like losing at all, but I can at least agree with Patterson's remarks in the paper. IF a player isn't hustling or trying, there's nothing wrong with booing him. A player who mails it in deserves it, but lately anyone who has struggled (except maddux) has been trashed in all the blogs and the papers.

As a Cubs fan, I will always support any player who puts on the Cubs uniform and gives his best for the fans. I've been disappointed by several players. I lived through steve buechele and jeff blauser. They were not very good players, but as long as they wore a Cubs uniform I felt obligated to support them.

I know this is way too long and kinda meandering,(my english professor would be sorely disappointed, but hey, i'm venting) but i guess i love the cubs because they've given me so many "magical" moments throughout my life. I've seen Rey Sanchez spark a 10 game winning streak after Ryno retired. I've seen Willie Banks flirt with a no hitter and Anthony Young be a decent pitcher for them. None of these guys have amazing amounts of talent, but they gave their all for a team of "lovable losers". I guess that's why i love the cubs

I've been a Cubs fan all my life.  Grew up in the 50s and 60s watching Jack Brickhouse.  Back then we never were too surprised when we lost.  My grandfather (I'm told) was in attendance (he was a teenager I thinki the last time the Cubs won the World Series.  It's been a while, as we all know.

I think one very big factor in the intense love of the Cubs is the ballpark.  It is such a special place, and so unchanging that our memories of long-past games stays alive.  The whole neighborhood around the park (where I once lived for a few years) makes me feel happy.  I guess I associate the park with so many good times that I associate with those feelings whenever I think about the Cubs.

The most dramatic change over the past few years has been the rise in expectations and the corresponding frustration of the fans.  There are many causes, but I think the moment it started was that game when Wood had twenty-something strikeouts.  There was a sense that maybe this could be the start of something.  Then, in the second half of 2003, Wood and Pryor were healthy and suddenly it began to happen.  Then it didn't, and really we've never recovered.  

One optimistic thing that I don't think I've heard mentioned - in 2003, Pryor and I think Wood had missed the early part of the season, meaning that they were fresh and strong for the second half, which was a significant advantage.  The same thing could happen this year.  Ever the optimist!

and perhaps important only to me.

i come here to honor my father, and his mother.
i come here to celebrate the minuscule slice of heaven-on-earth, wrigley field.
i come here to ride the roller coaster.
i come here to witness brilliant, and pathetic, and stupid, and hypnotic baseball. from cubs and their opponents.
mostly i come here for the community, and the harmony, and the discord. tomorrow the maestro resumes the podium; act 2 will commence.

I have no idea.  It always amuses me when people make fun of the Cubs fans.  I always want to know why.  I wouldn't wish the drama of this team on anyone.  But I wouldn't want to love any other team either.

For me, I had season tickets when I was 5 to about the age of 12, section 418. I went about 7 or 8 times a season. We were in a group of people with the tickets.  There is NOTHING, absolutley NOTHING, that compares to a huge comeback or something great happening at Wrigley Field. The goosebumps come, and you never want that moment to end.  It happens almost any time I go to Wrigley.

The main reason I think I love this team, is all of the great moments they have given me.  As Bill Simmons once described the Red Sox, "their like an girlfriend who rips your heart out by cheating on you every single year, and the next year you take them back for the inevitable."  I look as the Cubs as my kids or grandkids (I don't have any as a 23 year old).  A team that you are always proud of, never embarassed about and horribly dissapointed when they don't/can't succeed.

August 1st is a special Cubs day for me.  In 2002, my grandmother died at the age of 85. My father had lost his mom of 57 years. We turned the Cub game on today and the Cubs looked to be blowing another game.  My dad asked if I wanted to run some errands. We got back into the car and the Cubs had made a comeback and were only down a couple of runs.  We went home and watched the ninth inning.  Alex Gonzalez hit a walk off double off of Trevor Hoffman. It was the first time I had seen my father smile all day. That's why I love the Cubs, and that's why I liked Alex Gonzalez to the day he was traded. For fun, look up what's happened in 2003 and 2004 on August 1st(awesome games, coincidence?)

I'm sure many people have stories like these and they get passed down from generation to generation and that's why the Cubs have so many fans.

Nice piece Al...

I'm a 3rd generation Cubs fan. My grandfathers lived off Elston and Nagle respectively. Both passed without seeing the Cubs win the series.  My father and uncles are also fans.

When I get ticked off after an 8 game losing streak or mention '03, my dad chuckles at my naivety.  He was around in '69.  He raised a family through the 70's and 80's.  He was fully aware of what happened in '84.

1984 is when I started becoming a Cubs fan.  I was 6.  All I remember is hearing cheers and painful screams out of the screen doors of my neighbors' back yards.  I went to my first game the next year.  I think it was against the Padres of all teams.  I asked why everyone was booing that Garvey guy.  (Garvey, up yours by the way.  Go make some more illegitimate babies.)

Like most of you, I remember where I was sitting during the 8th inning in '03 like it was yesterday.  I guess that's how those of you who were around when Kennedy was shot must feel.

Maybe it's a family curse.  I have pondered naming my first born son Ryne (but not Jody or Kerry).  The next dog I get will probably be named Santo.  (Sorry Ron, but that's a cool name for a lab)

I think the whole point is to never give up.  We all believe that some day, somewhere, under a manager other than Dusty, the Cubs will win it all.  My dad may not see it.  I may not be around to see it.  Christ, my kids may not see it.  But some day it WILL happen.  And when it happens, the greatest fans from the greatest city will celebrate.  Generations of dismay will be washed away.  We will all know that our fathers and grandfathers will be smiling.

This is the most important but not the only reason I am Cubs fan. I grew up about a mile and half away and for reasons I am not even
sure of I just started going to game. At first I would try to drag my dad but by about 12  I just kept going on my own. I loved it. I would buy tickets for every ladies day ( box seats for $1.00!)and also hang out in the bleachers. It was ( and is) magical. It was odd for a someone from say 12-18 to just go to games on their own most of the time but I didn't care. I was at Wrigley watching the Cubs and everyone was your friend . I watched plenty of games on WGN or listened on the radio but going to Wrigley was always the best.

I have spend nearly 3/4ths of my life as a
Cubs fanatic and despite the bitter disappointments I have no regrets and will never change. My friends in New York can't believe that after living here 15 years I am still so obsessed ( and that I still hate the Mets & Yankees so much)

Soon I will be back at Wrigley for a week of games. I am practially counting the hours

Jessica

Because my father was.
Because his father was.

Its what I am.

I just remember something that happened years ago.  A friend of mine saw Jack Brickhouse on the street.  He ran up to him and said, "Mr. Brickhouse, Mr. Brickhouse, I'm a Cubs fan."

Jack Brickhouse turn to him and said, "Of course you are."

My Dad was born in Chicago and spent the first 8 years of his life within a mile of Wrigley. He claims (and my grandmother confirms) that his first babysitter was Gabby Hartnett's daughter - they lived next door.

His first game was at Wrigley when he was 4 - Cubs vs. Tigers, 1945 World Series.

After my grandfather got transferred to Iowa in 1949, he would sometimes make long, pre-interstate road trips back to Wrigley to se the Cubs. Moved to the northern suburbs (Milwaukee) in the mid-50s and became a Braves fan through high school - can't blame him, the Braves were pretty good then. By the time I came along in 1968 the Braves had gone to Atlanta, and he always despised the American League, so he went back to being a Cubs fan.

We moved to South Carolina in 1972, and then got cable in 1976 - there were two out of market "SuperStations" at that time, Channel 17 in Atlanta (now TBS), and WGN. Cubs games were a lot easier for me to see when I came home from school, and invariably my dad, who worked early mornings, was in his recliner every afternoon when I came home, so we'd catch most of the game together. Even with Atlanta being so close, my first ML game was at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, where I now live. Gaylord Perry against Don Sutton, 8/8/78.

After that, my Dad and I would attend 2 or 3 weekend series in Atlanta every year, and we'd never miss the Cubs - before the "balanced" schedule, the Cubs were in Atlanta twice a year. Saw my first games at Wrigley in 1984 against the Mets - and that was a nasty series that involved the bleacher fans trashing the field after bad umpiring calls. It was probably Al! Second series at Wrigley was the weekend I graduated Navy boot camp at Great Lakes in 1986 against the Expos. Seen the Cubs plenty of times since then, in Atlanta, LA, Anaheim, and Tokyo (well, Sammy was in Tokyo!)

Were on the 4th generation of Cub fans in my family, as my 6 year old son thinks Derrek and Aramis are the coolest, and Z is really big and kinda crazy! Can't disagree with any of that!

Hope we didn't suck up too much bandwith, Al. Great post as always, and thanks to everyone for sharing their stories!

but this thread must, somehow, become permanantly on the front page. Why we cub fans love the cubs. this is the most amazing thread I've ever read.

In my way of thinking the real die hards don't choose to become a fan of a certain team. It is a feeling that slips into their bodies from their parents or their neighbors or the air. My father, my godfather and my grandfather were all members of that strange tribe who cheered for both the Cubs and the White Sox. Therefore, I became one of those poor fools who hos rooted for -- and been heartbroken by -- both ballclubs.

I moved from Chicago to Salt Lake City when I was a child and by 1988 (in a cruel twist of irony that was not to be fully understood until the 1997-1998 Finals) I had morphed from a Bulls fan into a staunch supporter of the Utah Jazz. I couldn't help it. It just happened.

I'm in my late 20s now and feel like my allegiances are hardwired by this point. I've lived in Southern California for 5 years and don't give a squat about the Dodgers or Angels or Padres.

It will be interesting, however, to see who my children end up rooting for.

I'm not really sure why I became a Cubs fan but I did so in 1990 at the age of 13.  Before that year I never cared about watching sports but for some reason I started watching WGN Cub games on the little B&W TV in my room and was hooked.  I remember hearing something about them being in the playoffs the year before and I think I watched a total of 1 inning from the '89 playoffs.  Well, I picked a great year to become a fan!  I still follow them in Texas after I moved here in 1993.  My first glipse of the Cubs doing anything but losing was in 1998 and I still have the 1 game playoff against the Giants on a VHS tape.  That was such a magical season and we all knew they had no chance against the Braves but it was just great to see them get in at all.  Then came the dissapointments of 2001, 2003 and 2004.  I have to say even with the way 2003 ended there are a lot of great memories attached to that season because I really did not believe they could make it in that year.  

Now I am one of those super-critical Cub fans.  I've always been this way even through the 90's when I had to suffer through Luis Salazar playing 3rd base and a string of pitchers who are best forgotten.  I believe the fans have become more critical because 3 of the past 4 Cub teams have been good enough to get into the playoffs but for a multitude of reasons have only been able to sneak in once.  Higher expectations means more criticism when teams under perform.  Believe me, I am MUCH happier watching a 2004 collapse then debacles like the 1999 or 2002 seasons.  Finally in Chicago we have a GM that can spend money worthy of a city with the 3rd highest population in the US so we are starting to see the product get better and the stakes get higher.  

I'm 28 right now and I can't imagine the Cubs won't win a WS in my lifetime.  I think the tide has turned and we will get there in the next 5 years.  All we have to do is put a good team on the field and get lucky.  Luck and timing is really what separates the elite teams in the playoffs.  As long as you get there you have a shot.  We just need to get there more than twice in 15 years.

As you can tell by my name, I live in Philadelphia.  I am a die-hard Philadelphia sports fan except for the baseball team.  I am an Eagles season ticket holder and when there was a sport called hockey, a Flyers gameplan holder.  I was born in 1976 and have a hazy memory about the Phillies winning it in 1980.  The manager of that 1980 Phillies team was Dallas Green.  

Everyone knows how Dallas Green came over to the Cubs in 1981.  He brought a lot of ex-Phillies with him.  My dad and I started following the Cubs.  I've been following the Cubs ever since.

I have taken a lot of abuse following the Cubs in this part of the country.  I can't tell you how much BS I've heard from people.  I was in 8th grade in 1989 and watched NLCS Games 3, 4 and 5 from our hotel room at Disney World.  I couldn't believe how many people I saw during our vacation wearing Cubs stuff.  I saw my first games at Wrigley that August vs. the Phillies.  If my dad was going to take me and my younger brother out there, then he was going to see the Phillies.  The next time I was at Wrigley was 1994 as a present from my dad for graduating high school.  It was just before the strike and the Cubs were in the shambles.  My cable system in Philadelphia did not get WGN so the only way I could follow the Cubs was by reading the newspapers, watching the highlights on Sportscenter, if the Cubs played the Phillies or if the Cubs were on the Game of the Week.  Thank God for the internet and the Extra Innings package!!!  

I went to a college in Northeastern PA that draws most of its students from the NY metro area or the Philadelphia area.  This was just as the Yankees started winning World Series again.  I can't tell you how ticked off I was hearing Yankees fans say how long they suffered for a World Series title.  Yeah, try 1908 compared to 1978!!!!!  

I graduated college in 1998 and didn't get my first job out of school until October.  I got to listen to just about every game that summer of the home run chase and the drive for the wild card.  From the time I landed my first job, I've been out to Chicago every summer to see a few games at Wrigley.  It's something I must do every summer!  

In 2003, I landed a job with a company that is headquartered in Chicago and had to stay in Chicago for a month for training.  It was during baseball season and I had the opportunity to see a lot of games.  I was ready to head out to Chicago to see Games 3, 4 and 5 of the 2003 World Series.  I had my airline ticket booked, my hotel room booked and vacation time already approved from my boss. I would figure out a way when I was in Chicago to get a ticket to see one of the games. We all know I never got a chance to take that trip.  I took that vacation time anyway because I needed that time to get over the way the season ended.  

The only fans who know what we are going through are the Red Sox fans.   What the Red Sox did last season gives me hope so one day I will see the Cubs do the exact same thing!!

   

Living the last 12 years in Missouri, I get asked the question a lot? "Why are you a Cubs fan after all the years of losing?" The first few times, I had no answer but that I spent the first 14 years of my life in Chicago and became a Cubs fan, but then I thought about it for a while.

I am a Cubs fan because of the memories of my grandfather's smile after a win. I am a fan because they remind me of Chicago and all the wonderful things about the city. I am a fan because I love to watch baseball in the afternoon on a Wednesday. I am a fan because the great personalities of Ron Santo and Ernie Banks. I am a fan because Mike Ditka can sing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" during the seventh inning stretch.

I am a fan because of threads like this one. Because I am a part of a family, no matter how bad it gets, still believe in a brighter day. Lord help us all when that bright day finally comes.

I grew up in upstate New York, in a suburb of Syracuse, where from an early age I was obsessed with baseball. I would watch the Cubs, the Mets, and the Braves on cable, plus whoever was playing on Saturday's Game of the Week. I had a huge baseball card collection. When I wasn't playing Little League, I was in the park playing pickup games with my friends. I played Strat-O-Matic on rainy days. And I saw plenty of Syracuse Chiefs games at old MacArthur Stadium, which meant that I saw lots of good baseball, as the Chiefs were the AAA affiliate of first the Yankees and then the Bluejays during my youth.

But I had no major league team. I considered myself above all that; I was somehow a purist, my devotion to the sport untainted by partisanship. In reality, though, I was just a kid from a minor-league town who would've been no different than any other kid who had a favorite team had I been given the opportunity to be inculcated into a hometown fandom. I saw a grand total of one major league game growing up (April 19, 1974 at Veterans Stadium: Phillies 9, Cubs 2, Jim Lonborg over Bill Bonham). I was terribly unimpressed by the Vet, and even less impressed by Phillies fans -- there were 12,000 people present in the ballpark on a beautiful Friday night early in the season.

I decided to go to college in Chicago, and during Orientation Week my freshman year a trip was organized by the school's Student Association to take some of the freshmen to a game at Wrigley. It was the afternoon of September 7, 1979, a sweltering day in the midst of a late-summer Chicago heat wave. I'll never forget the moment I walked up from the ramp and stepped into the sunlight in the rightfield bleachers. It was one of the most incredible moments of my life. Wrigley Field's famed magic worked on me immediately and powerfully. I turned to the one of my new college buddies and said, "Well, I guess I've figured out where I'm going to spend the next fifty summers of my life." I knew right then that I was home.

Oddly enough, the Cubs were again playing the Phillies that day. This time the Cubs won, 4-3 (Dennis Lamp over Tug McGraw), but that didn't matter. I had found my team, and over the next few seasons -- long seasons filled with dreadful Cubs teams made up of the likes of Dickie Noles, Joe Strain, Junior Kennedy, and Randy Martz -- I earned my stripes by filing into the bleachers two or three dozen times a year to watch a lot of losses. I settled here on the North Side after college, and going to Cubs games became a serious addiction for me. They've certainly rewarded my patience many times over (1984, 1989, 1998, and the magical 2003 season in which I managed to see Prior beat Maddux in the first playoff game I've ever attended), but to a certain degree the loyalty is its own reward. It's great to be a part of a long line of something much bigger than yourself, knowing that you're a part of a fanbase that's been passionately devoted to a franchise that's been a member of the National League since the year Custer lost to the (non-Cleveland) Indians at the Little Big Horn while Ulysses Grant was in the White House.

So, no, I'm not a part of a longstanding family heritage of Cubs fans. But every family line has to start somewhere. My sister lives in Indiana now, and two years ago I got the chance to take my then-four-year-old nephew to his first Cubs game. It was the "gnat" game in which the Cubs beat the Giants, the one where Zambrano caught the bases-loaded line drive off of Bonds' bat and celebrated a little too fervently for Mr. Juice's liking. Now my nephew has one of those blue Cubs claw foam hand things hanging on his wall, and a Cubs cap that he wears all the time. My youngest brother followed me west to Chicago, fell in love with the Cubs as well, and ended up becoming a teacher because summers off meant more time to spend at Wrigley Field. He now has a one-year-old son whose room is stuffed with Cubs memorabilia. So while some family traditions continue into their third or fourth generation, new ones are born all the time.

The Cubs may be working on a 60-year NL pennant schneid and a drought of 97 years without a World Series title, but I wouldn't trade places with a Yankees fan for all the money in the world. Anyone can root for a team that wins every year. Life is all about perseverance, deferred reward, and not overlooking the pleasures of the journey in favor of the destination. And those are life lessons which the Cubs have uniquely been suited to impart to their fandom. It may have taken me eighteen years to find my team, but now I'm in so deep that there's no turning back.

I'm here because my dad is.

I'm here because his dad was.

I'm here because god willing, my daughter will be.

The Cubs define my life. I look back over the last 30 years of my life and the one true constant is the Cubs. Becuase of my Dad's job we moved every few years so I don't have a place where i 'grew up'. But I do have the Cubs.  

My dad and I always had the Cubs.. no matter what else was going on in our lives, we could always talk Cubs. To this day, the first thing we discuss on the phone when we talk is whether or not the Cubs suck.

The Cubs more than any other sports franchise bring people together. We are comrades in arms. We are in the trenches together hoping some day to celebrate arm in arm.

I often say to my wife that i'm a Cubs fan because
'It's in my bones' and thats what it is.

Why am I here? Cause it's in my bones.

TK

I have always been drawn to underdogs.  

Maybe it was because at the tender age of 9, I watched the miracle Mets make history on the backs of the Cubs.

At this point, I don't even know anymore.  I have lived my entire life on the West Coast and followed the team through the magic of technology - 1st it was the NBC Saturday game of the week, with Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek; later, I watched my 1st Cub game at Candlestick park on 7-11-1973.  Although they didn't win, sweet swinging Billy hit a HR and I caught a foul ball off the bat of Don Kessinger (my 1 and only).

My love and commitment grew with the advent of cable TV, as I was introduced to Harry Carey in 1983.  I have never wavered in my support for a team that will forever be part of the fabric of this great country.

No 2 Cub fan stories are the same.  Nonetheless, it is a unique and common thread which binds us to a team that has a history as rich as any.

In closing, I look back over the years and have never once questioned why I root for the Cubs.  It seems like such a natural and easy thing to do.  My sons used to question me about my devotion and it is something that is not simple or easily explainable.  

However, when the Cubs clinched in 2003, I was listening to Pat and Ron over the internet, and when the final out was recorded, both of them hugged me, such was the emotion of the moment.

I am relatively new to this site and have posted rarely, though I love the comments and critisism, even if I don't agree with it all.

I was born in 1975 and became a Cub fan in 1984, as did a whole generation. I vaguely remember watching the Sandberg Game one Saturday afternoon that summer, though if I did actually see that game or if my imagination is such that I make myself believe I saw it, I don't know.

Everyday I would watch the games at my grandmother's apartment, lying in front of the TV. I think if anything got me into the game that year it was not the fact that the Cubs were good (this being my first year of baseball I did not understand the history), but Harry Carey. I wanted this guy to be me grandfather. I wanted to know him. I honestly believe he appealed more to kids than to adults and ushered in a whole group of young people into the game and the Cubs.

Needless to say, Cubs win the division, Cubs win two straight at Wrigley, Cubs lose three straight in San Diego.  The fifth game, the deciding game of my life was on October 7, 1984, which just so happened to be my ninth birthday.  When people ask me why I am a Cubs fan, it is because of that date. It is because whatever happened to me that day, the heartbreak and anguish has made me what I am. Not unhappy, but in need of redemption.

I lived through 1989 which was sad but understandable (losing to the Giants is much more palatable than losing to the, ugh, Padres).  In 1994 I moved from Chicago to New York for school and for all but one year have lived in Manhattan and now Brooklyn. I moved during the strike year and boycotted baseball for a while. I watched Cal Ripkin breaking Gehrig's record, but nothing until the 1996 World Series. And yes, I rooted for the Yankees. In many ways the Yankees brought me back to baseball and helped me become comfortable in New York. But...

Well, you can't turn away from your first love forever. 1998 and Sammy Sosa. When I hear Cub fans now dissing him, I cringe. I understand what he did last year was sophmoric and stupid. But we are Cub fans and history is writ in our bones, and we somehow have managed to forget those 5 great years when Sammy was one of the best in the game. And he helped remind me of the Cubs and what I grew up with.

And then 2003, which (like 1984, 1989 and 1998) kind of crept up on us. No one really saw it coming. And once again the Cubs lost (sort of) on my birthday. This time it was Game 1 against the Marlins. (I say sort of because in NY it was past midnight on the 8th when the Cubs lost the game). And then the collapse.

I wear my Cubs hat in New York and people give me strange looks. I get a lot of "Yo, you da guy who dropped the ball?" I wonder what they are talking about and then I understand - they think I'm Bartman. (I bear a passing resemblence to the man, though sans headphones and turtleneck). Some people give me smiles or pump their fists. At work after the Yankees swept the Cubs (I was at two of those, ugh) no one made fun, they were considerate.

And so I go on with my life, listening to the Cubs on my computer or watching Gameday at work when no one is watching. And even when we are losing it feels good just being part of what made me who I am in the first place.

watching he Cubbies for the first time. But I can vividly recall certain games. Games that aren't even all that memorable, like Luis Salazar driving in the game winner, then talking to Steve on "The Tenth Inning."

I watched a lot -I mean a lot- of Cub baseball on my grandfather's back porch in Yorktown, Va. Nine or ten years old, drip-soaking wet from the pool, tiptoeing through clovers and bumblebees to get to the 12-inch TV on the screened-in back porch to check the score. Then sitting there, puddle under my grandpa's rocking chair, to watch the bottom half of the sixth and what Ryno would do. My grandma would fix me a Country Time lemonade while I watched, then I'd sneak into the kitchen and put more lemonade mix in it.

I remember singing along to Harry with popsickle stains on my shirt. I still have a scorebook with random games from the '91 season scored all the way through somewhere in my boyhood closet at my parent's house. I could find it in 15 minutes if I looked hard enough.

I remember the Andre Dawason Tru-Link fence commercial so well, I can still see him standing in front of it, telling me that "When I hit one onto Waveland, it flies over a Tru-Link fence."

The first time I made it to Wrigley, as a 21 (of course) year-old college senior, I remember walking in and seeing the ivy. I know it's hokey, but I can't even put into words that feeling.

I drove three hours one way to watch the '03 clincher over Atlanta with my grandfather on the back porch, and i don't really know what prompted me to do it. It was a Sunday night, and I had to be at work in the morning. A 24-year-old kid, I guess. I watched it with my grandfather, talked about how we were nervous which Kerry Wood would show up, the dominating one or the one who can't throw strikes. Sat through the whole game with smiles on our faces, the dog, Gracie, named after you know who, sleeping on the floor under the ceiling fan. My grandma fixed lemonade without even being asked.

That's why I'm a Cubs fan.

forcing me to live and die by the Cubs, I was hooked when my dad to me to Wrigley for my 5th Birthday.

On this day, May 12th, 1970 Ernie Banks hit his 500th HR.  With a few tears coming down his cheeks, he said "Happy Birhtday Son!"

I remember it like yesterday.

I grew up with my grandpa talking about Phil Cavaretta and my dad about Ernie, Brock, Billy, Holzman, Fergie, and Santo.

I never had a chance and have been rock solid from a very young age.  

Personally, the first baseball game I ever saw was in 1988.  I live near Toledo OH, but I went down to see family and we saw the Cubs play the Reds at old Riverfront.  Never being one to pander to "hometown" allegances (I root for Michigan every last Thursday in November), I think thats what started it for me.  I've been hooked ever since.  I loved the Hawk and Ryno and the emergence of Sammy as a force.  I remember thinking in '98 that we were totally overmatched.  I remember following Mark Prior at USC at jumping for joy when I found out the Twins took Mauer with the first pick.  I cried in '03.  I'm hooked for life.

My girlfriend, much like a poster much higher up, actually hated baseball when we started dating 4 years ago.  "Its so slow on TV.  I can watch when I'm at a game, but watching on TV sucks" I believe was her exact sentiment.  But the magic of 2003 drew her in. I took her to her first game at Wrigley and watched Clement 3 hit the Giants.  She started following the team, getting disappointed with stupid losses, frustrated at Dusty's lineups, excited in the playoffs, crushed in the end.  Cubdom had gained another follower.

I know that the Cubs winning the WS would be one of the happiest days of my life - maybe the happiest since I'm not married and don't have kids.  But not a damn thing would change the next year.  I'm a Cub fan for life, loveable losers or winners.  Its all the same in my book.

Oh, and Al, you got Isha's name right in the post at the end of the Brewer series.  Thanks again for everything you did for us, and for an enjoyable afternoon.

It's a way to kill time, in the end.  With all the proliferation (sp?) of "news coverage" of Hollywood stars and goings-on, and fashion, etc. (think of the Red-Eye handed out on the CTA for those of you in Chicago), I was getting annoyed.  "Why cant we find any news about Iraq, or about G8, etc?  Why is so little devoted to things that affect our lives and so much to this superflous (sp, again) Hollywood stuff?".  Yes, I was having a bad day.

But then it dawned on me, and this is obvious I am sure to most, but it really hit me, that sports is just entertainment, no different, and look at all the time devoted to that, as leisure activity.  Same difference.

Basically, since we now live in a world of a 40 hour/5 day workweek (ok, ok, I know many of us work far far longer than that... but my grandfather worked from sun-up to sun-down in the summer on a farm, not the same today for most) we have a ton of time to kill.  It has to be filled with some form of entertainment.  We just happen to be a sub-set who fills that time with the Cubs/baseball.  We dress it up with meaning because it helps make it feel important and worth the committment of time we give it.

I mean, look at the Sox, having one of the greatest 1/2 years in their history and what difference does it make to me?  None.  Or when the Angels won it all, etc. etc.  It's just a time-suck.

That said, I soak up extra summer time (watching/analyzing/discussing/etc.) the Cubs b/c that is what my father did/does.

Shrug.

Why does a young guy from Alberta Canada become Cub Crazy? To everyone I know around here my name is synonymous with the Cubs. I can see people 4 months after baseball season and they will tell me: "When the Cubs choked last season, I thought of you."

So many people have asked me "Why do you love the Cubs?" It all started in 1984 with that incredible summer and the Sandberg game on NBC. At that time I got the see the Cubs only if they were on NBC or if they were playing the Expos (then I had to listen to the games in French). Then in 1985 we got WGN up here and I knew what my Grandfather must have felt like when he first got electicity or indoor plumbing. There was no broadcast team in the history of the world like Harry and Steve. Just the sound of Harry's voice in his prime was enough to bring chills up your spine. I even loved rain delays because then Steve Stone would talk candidly about the Cubs and I was glued to every word. Then WGN would cut to some rerun of Different Strokes and I would be upset.

I was a pastor and got moved around like a lot of pastors do. In 1995 I got moved to a church in the country where there was 2 TV stations and of course one of them wasn't WGN. It was a very conservative area so it created quite a stir when the first thing I did was go and buy an American DirecTV dish of which its legality was questionable at best. But there were no Canadian satellite systems at the time and "I had to watch my Cubs". I don't know if it was the smartest thing I ever did, but gives you an idea of what I have felt about them.

I lot of the mystique of the Cubs is the fact that they haven't won since 1908. C'mon Sox fans. 1917? That's nothing. It's the charm of Wrigley and the neighborhood. My first and only game at Wrigley: June 16, 1993 - Cubs vs Cards (Cards won - sniff! 12-11, but Sammy hit 2 HRs). It's WGN who used to show a game everyday. It's the anticipation of how great it would be if they ever win. It's the reputation of Cubs fans who support and stick with their team no matter what (Although this reputation is diminishing lately).

I have missed the family connections with the Cubs that many of you had. No family or friends of mine have ever caught Cubs fever. Everyone up here thinks Baseball is boring. I wish I could have that, it would be special. No, I am destined to love the Cubs alone, sharing them with no one, except for the Internet, where I can share them with you guys.

Al:

First time here, but what a topic.

I date back to 1953, when Gene Baker was playing second, Frankie Baumholtz in center, and a host of other heroes were beginning to catch my eye. Ernie Banks had just joined the team.  My reason for loving the Cubs is simple:  I learned this wonderful game by watching them, and being from the old school, I have stayed with the one that brought me to the dance (so to speak), and just as I have stayed with my first true love.

At age 5, Brickhouse and, first, Harry Creighton, then Vince Lloyd, then Lloyd Pettit, and all the wonderful guests on the Tenth Inning explained the game, with all of its intricacies and nuances--from the hit and run to the infield fly rule.  And since it was the Cubs I wwas watching, believe me, they used virtually every rule in the book--and even helped to add some to the rulebook.  

For shear enjoyment, what an incredible way to pass away a non-working afternoon.  What better companion to have than listening to the Cubs in the background while at work.  What an undemanding friend!  Just a little loyalty and a lot of patience.  What a return on such an investment.  I have seen Koufax, Drysdale, Gibson, Marichal, Musial, Clemente, Aaron, Matthews, Banks, Williams, Jenkins, and the incomparable Willie Mays.  I saw Sam Jones' no-hitter in 1955, and Cardwell's in 1960 (I think).
I watched the "two-ball" game which helped create a rule for the rulebook, and I watched Feleipe Alou get snookered by the Cubs bullpen while one of our guys rounded the bases--which helped create another rule for the rulebook.

I saw Billy Martin go absolutely berserk against Jim Brewer in one of the scariest episodes I have ever witnessed on television or in person--he darn near blinded Brewer.

I watched the insanity of Cubs ownership, with the college of coaches, and the one or two good years in the early sixties led by Bob Kennedy--the hopefuls like Dick Drott, and the recycled veterans like Ted Abernathy.  

I watched the 'this is not an 8th place team' prove Leo correct by finishing tenth.  I watched the day that Cubs were broadcast around the world by the satellite.

I laughed and cried with the 1969 team, and the 1977 team. I went crazy during the 1984 season, and in 1989, I shook my head just like all the rest of us.

The 90's and 2000's have brought more of the same.  Where else can one find high drama, and fulfillment--a time to think and contemplate, and see the lessons of life played out right before our eyes?  The Cubs are just like life, filled with disappointments and filled with promises of better days if you just keep on going ahead.

So, Al, baseball, and the Cubs, are a part of the great blessings of life.

I became a Cub fan because watching them on television is how I learned about baseball.
In 1984, when I was 11 years old, I'd started to get interested in baseball and caught a few Cubs games on tv during the stretch run. Even though I was born in Illinois, my family moved to Texas when I was 4, so I didn't know anything about the Cubs or their history.

So in 1985, when I actually became a Cubs fan, I had no clue what I was getting into. But I'd come home from school in the spring and there was nothing on television, so I'd turn on WGN and the Cubs would be on. Remember when they used to show so many of the games? So, I watched baseball and I learned from Steve Stone and to a much lesser extent, Harry Caray about the game.

Wrigley Field was just about the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and watching the Cubs play ball on that sun soaked field warmed my spirit and I became a Cub fan. I wonder if I knew more of their history if it would have influenced me, but with WGN I was able to see a lot more Cub games than Astros or Rangers.

Shortly after that, my mother started dating a guy, my current stepfather, who loved baseball. It was our thing in common and the one thing on which we could always agree.

Andre Dawson cemented my love for the Cubs and he is still my favorite all time player. My family and I went back to Chicago in August of 87 for a family reunion and I took my first trip to Wrigley and got to see Andre play and hit a homer. I was forever hooked at that point. Even named my dog Andre. Recently got a new dog and I named him Brix, taken from Bricks and Ivy.

In college, I turned a long time Braves fan into Cub fan one summer. The next year, we decided to make our first trip to Wrigley Field for Opening Day and have gone every year for the last 9 years (the last few thanks to Jessica letting us use her tickets for the game). Every time I walk up the ramp and see the field, it's pure beauty, until the cold wind hits you right in the face and brings you back to reality.

Baseball and college football are the only sports I still follow. The Cubs and Texas A&M are my favorite teams, both steeped in a lot of traditions and lore.

My long term memory isn't very good so that must be a perfect fit for a Cub fan who hasn't suffered nearly as long as some others who have posted.  I remember little odd things in detail but not everything.

Baseball has always been huge in my life.  It was a big part of my family and extended family.  I grew up the oldest of more than 30 grandchildren.  My mother was the oldest of 8 kids.  I spent a huge amount of time at my grandmother's house in the late 70's.  My youngest uncles are only 4 and 7 years older than I am so I spent a lot of fun times playing with them (and their friends) as a kid.  Always the last one selected in a pickup baseball game?  Yeah, that was me at age 6.

We live in the heart of Notre Dame Country.  Definitely close enough to Chicago and with so many close relatives in the vicinity, I guess you could say that becoming a fan was definitely a family thing.

EXCEPT WITH A SMALL TWIST...

This family celebrated Cincinnati Reds baseball!  The Big Red Machine!  George Foster, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose!!!  My first Major League Baseball game was at old Riverfront Stadium (visiting one of my aunts) and seeing the Reds demolish a very interesting Astros team. I absolutely loved Johnny Bench and rooted whole-heartedly for him.  We had terrible seats.  We sat way up top in the red section of the toilet bowl near first base.  The players looked small from up there.  I remember watching this young guy, Jose Cruz in the cool Astros Uniform, taking his cuts at the plate, lifting his front leg up to his chest before he swung.  I don't remember much else about the game.  I remember the crowd was somewhat quiet and the ushers wiped our seats (even though they were dry) for us before we sat down.

My favorite childhood portrait of my brother and I at ages 7 and 3 has us wearing Cincinnati Reds hats.

Ugh.  I'm still thinking about taking that photograph and getting it digitally redone with Cub gear.

So how does one get to be a Cubs fan after following a fairly successful Reds franchise in a family full of Reds fans?  Simple.  You go to Wrigley Field (to see the Reds) as a kid on one of those group bus trips for $20.  You get a box lunch of Brown's Chicken too.  Very nice.  My parents and brother grabbed our Reds gear and hooked up with one of my other (very, very pregnant) aunts and her (Big Cub Fan) husband for a bus trip and a day at the ball park.

My uncle heckled my brother and I (ages 12 and 8, I think) on the 1.5 hour bus trip to Chicago.  It was 1983, I think.  We heckled him right back and had a great time doing it.  He told us that Wrigley Field is much, much better than Riverfront Stadium.  We didn't believe him.  Then we saw this huge stadium in the distance with a gigantic scoreboard and my brother and I got a little excited.

"There's Wrigley Field?" I asked.

"Not even close," he said.  "That's Comisky.  Boo!!"

The bus kept going down Dan Ryan.  "There's Soldier Field!" my uncle exclaimed.  "Go Bears!"  The bus kept going.  No baseball field in sight.  Just where is this bus going?  It finally turned off on one of the exits (Damon Avenue?) and started making its way through some neighborhoods.  No Wrigley Field.  This had to be a joke.  Finally the bus got in line with a huge number of other buses and cars.  What's this, a cemetery?  Then, there were these nuns directing traffic.  It was a sight to remember, nuns waving a bus over to park in a big field.

My aunt could barely make the walk from the nearby Convent (?) to Wrigley Field.  At 4' 10" tall she was nearly as big around the waist as she was tall.  My chivalrous uncle carried my aunt (both wearing Cubs hats) most of the way.  All the while, Wrigley Field was hidden from sight.  Finally there it was, Wrigley Field, in the middle of a bunch of apartments.

"Looks small," I said disappointedly.

"Yeah, and the wind's blowing out today too," my uncle replied after looking at the flags on the scoreboard from Waveland.  "There's going to be some homeruns today."

We entered the stadium from the Waveland Avenue gate and walked to the ramps to the upper deck.  I remember how everything looked so old.  We made our way to the upper deck.  I remember seeing all the people.  Everyone seemed happy and more energetic (even pre-game) than the people at Riverfront.  We had terrible seats, the last row in the upper deck on the 3B side.  The ushers didn't even bother to show us to our seats nor did they offer to wipe off our already dry seats with a towel.

Finally, we sat down and I had my first look at Wrigley Field.  It was beautiful.  The grass was nice and green and the ivy walls were unlike anything else in baseball.  It wasn't sunny but at least it was comfortable.  The wind really howled and I could feel it on the back of my head sitting way up at the top.

I sat next to my brother and mother.  My dad had some beer with my uncle on the other side of us.  My aunt and mom talked about the baby and my uncle heckled us the whole game.  We loved it.  I don't remember the details of the game very much.  I remember the Reds took an early lead though.  That gave us enough fodder to heckle my uncle right back.

"The Cubs aren't done yet," he said and he was right.  Later in the game, the Cubs started to come back.  Someone hit a homerun for the Cubs and the CROWD went crazy!  That gave me Goosebumps on my arms.  I'm not saying that the crowd wasn't into the game until that point because they certainly were but the Goosebumps, man!  Wow.  In fact, the crowd was into the entire game rooting for the home town team, never giving up.  They gave the umpires hell on close plays.  They cheered for the players, even on base hits up the middle.  They booed the Reds.  They encouraged their players after a disappointing at bat, even if it was just a couple of loud voices in the distance.

"Get 'em next time!" someone would shout.

The Cubs still weren't done yet either.  I remember it was the bottom of the ninth and Cubs were down by a couple of runs.  The lead-off hitter got on and the heart of the lineup was coming up.  The crowd stood up and started cheering every at bat.

"One swing and this game is tied!" exclaimed my uncle.  Strikeout.  The crowd didn't boo. It was more like a disappointing, "awww!"  Still, nobody sat down.  The crowd cheered the next batter coming to the plate, even louder than before.  Goosebumps.  Pop out.  Awww!  Nobody sat down!!  The next batter was announced and the crowd became ecstatic.  People started to put their "rally" caps on.  Hats turned inside out, upside down, backwards, on top of the head like a "shark fin," (My favorite rally cap by the way...) you name it, the rally hats were out in full force.

Then, there was a deep fly ball to left center field.  The crowd went insane.  My heart started to thump harder!  The ball was high enough and it looked deep.  Slow motion snap shots are all that I remember and the sound of the crowd.  I remember my uncle shouting, "Go! Go! Go!"  I remember arms waving, people raving over this one long fly ball.  The ball is coming down now.  The Reds outfielder is near the wall, he has a bead on it, and he makes the catch near the warning track.  Cubs lose.

Funny thing is that no one booed.  They cheered!  They cheered the last out of the game that sent the Cubs to yet another loss.  Why?

We filed out onto Waveland Avenue after the game.  The crowd moved very slowly towards the Waveland gate but was still generally electric after the game.  My brother and I (wearing our Reds gear) were lost in a sea of blue.  We entered the street and happened to run into another "Reds" family who greeted us with a high five.  

"Good game," they said.  

My uncle retorted, "Yeah, but if the wind wasn't blowing out left to right, it'd have been tied."  We walked around Waveland for a bit.  The people were still in a good mood.  My uncle would shout, "Go Cubbies!" and he'd get more than three replies.  It was fun.  It was different.  It was unexpected, especially after a loss.

My brother (of all people) with the innocence (and perhaps, wisdom?) that only a seven year old can bring, turns to my dad and says, "Dad, will you buy me a Cubs hat?"

"OK.  But that will be the only thing you get today," he said.  So, here was this seven year old putting on a brand new mesh style Cub hat that absolutely went perfect with a faux Reds jersey T-Shirt.  Perfect like the most completely insane oxymoron that you'll ever witness!  But, I guess that is how a true Cub fan is "born again" and truly "baptized."

We made our way back to the bus and I asked my brother what he was doing?  He said, "I want to be a Cub fan like Uncle Steve.  Don't you want to be a Cub fan too?"

"No way!" I said.  "What about Johnny Bench?"

"What about him?" he retorted.

Sigh.

I remember spending a lot of time at Uncle Steve's house the next summer after my baby cousin arrived.    My brother and I would play Whiffle ball in the back yard, help with the baby, and every afternoon (well, it certainly seemed like it) the Cubs would come on WGN and everything would slow down.  My aunt would be watching every day and so would my new Cub convert (trader) brother.  I'd watch too, though.

It was different that summer.  The Cubs looked good.  They were winning.  My uncle would come home from his factory job about 3:30 PM and go directly to the couch.

"How the Cubbies doing?" he'd ask.

"Winning!" my aunt would say as she handed him a beer.

"Yeah, and that Ryan Sanderg made a couple of good plays too!" I exclaimed.

"It's Ryne," he corrected.  "You finally rooting for the Cubs?"

"Yes," I said.  "They keep winning."

"Hopefully they keep doing that.  What about the Reds?"

"What about them?" I asked.

The game progressed quickly and Harry Caray shouted his immortal, "Cubs win!  Cubs win!" for the millionth time.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Uncle Steve.

__

1984 was the turning point.  What a great summer.  I had become baptized into Cub culture.

My immediate family caught the Cub "bug" and starting in 1984 and we made a few trips to Chicago by car every year as a family but in Cub gear every time.

Our tradition was to go to Chicago early during the day.  Stop at some damn outlet store, in the middle of nowhere Chicago, named Silvestri's or something like that.  That was my mom's part of the bargain for going to Chicago.  Silvestri's was (is?) this Christmas decoration outlet store that my mom would spend "millions" of dollars at before the Cub game.  At least an hour and a half at that damned place every time.  It was torturous.

Finally, we'd get to the game and try to find a parking spot.  We usually parked at McDonald's across the street from Wrigley Field.  It was always unbelievable with the people and the cars all cramming into this very small neighborhood on a beautiful sunny summer afternoon.

"How much for parking?" my dad would ask the attendant.

"Ten dollars.  Twenty for easy outs."

"No easy outs, please."

"OK, no easy outs, leave the keys in the car and keep it unlocked."

"No way.  Not gonna happen.  We'll park somewhere else."

"Wait!  OK.  Ten dollars, you keep the keys."

"Easy outs" is such a scam too.  Sure you're parked bumper to bumper but you'll eventually get out.  Why would anyone be in such a hurry to leave Wrigley Field anyways?

We then would stop at McDonald's and eat before the game.  There was no way my dad was going to spend 2 bucks on a hot dog.

I still have many of the scorecards that I kept as a youth though my wife encouraged me to throw them out when we moved to a different house last November.  "Not gonna happen," I tell her.

My brother and I would make mini-bets on who was going to hit a homerun that day.  I always chose Leon Durham when he was playing for the Cubs.  My scorecards always showed him having a big game whenever we showed up.  It was true!  Durham never failed to disappoint me in the homerun department.  It's fun to see those homeruns from "The Bull" on my scorecards even today.

My mom always wore her Andre Dawson photo pin to the games and she bowed to him from the seats where we sat despite the fact that RF was a mile away from us.

She still has that pin and loves him just the same today.

The Cubs disappointed us in 1984 though but there was always next year.

__

1989 was joyous as I graduated from high school.  Jerome Walton, Dwight Smith, Mark Grace, Ryne Sandberg, and Andre Dawson were a great beginning to any lineup.  We always tried to sit next to the Shawn-O-Meter in the left field bleachers so we could get on TV.  It even worked once or twice.  

Then there were the playoffs.  I thought that the Cubs could do it but in the end even the mighty Dawson could not carry the Cubs to the World Series.  The showdown between Grace and Will Clark in the playoffs was fascinating but in the end, the Cubs still lost.

1989 ended in disappointment but there was always next year.

__

I had to endure plenty of ribbing because of my love for the Cubs when I went to college in Southern Indiana during the early 90's.  The Cubs looked badly and Maddux didn't re-sign with the Cubs.  Ugh.  

I remember that I had a Cubs waste can in my fraternity room that became the frequent "party foul" depository after too many drinks and partying.  One freshman had the nerve to tell me that my Cubs trash can was an appropriate place for vomit.

I made sure he never got in our fraternity and he eventually flunked out.  Good riddance.

__

I ended up marrying a very patient woman in 1996 that could put up with my Cub fanatic lunacy.  She had a son already out of wedlock and became my step-son.  We've got 4 kids altogether.

I remember watching the 1998 Cubs with passion.  Sammy!  My brother (who became a PE teacher in Cincinnati) and I really started to grow even closer together despite the long distance.  The Cubs were the catalyst.  We started to talk every day on the phone.  Some things that caused a rift in our pasts were healed that year.  Not necessarily because we acknowledged each others' wrong doing and asked each other for forgiveness but it was mostly because we loved the Cubs, we loved talking about the Cubs, and we loved each other.

My brother and I missed Harry Caray that year badly.  (Still do.)  The broadcast wasn't the same but at least the Cubs were winning.  The 1998 tribute to Caray was touching but enough is enough with the guest conductors.  I get terribly misty-eyed now when I hear Harry's voice in those little itty, bitty wave files that you can download on the internet.  I've got a ton of them and I would have turned them into a sound scheme for Windows except I don't feel like crying all the time.

I've worked the midnight shift as a middle manager (industrial) for most of my adult career.  Those type of hours suck unless you're a Cub fan and they're playing day games!  I'd get up early every afternoon and watch the games with my step son.  We'd talk about the Cubs.  My brother would call from Cincinnati during his last period to talk about the Cubs.

Sammy was magical that year.  I told my brother that he was going to be a big addition when they got him from the White Sox for George Bell.  He didn't believe me but I take delight in the fact that I was right.  I still heckle him about it.

I loved Rod Beck that year too not because he was great but because he had guts.  He had the guts to try and close games with nothing better than an 84 MPH fastball and lots of junk.  Nothing appeared to rattle him in the clutch, even when he got beat.  If only we could put his determination from 1998 and channel it into some of our relief pitchers today, they'd be unstoppable.

My son will never forget the infamous Brant Brown "incident" in left field against the Brewers.  I was talking about the Cubs with my brother on the phone, pacing madly with excitement back and forth in the living room in anticipation of the clinch.  We were both excited and I was giving my brother the play by play over the phone.  He had to finish his last PE class and had to get off the phone.  Good thing he did too.

Next thing you know, there's a fly ball to left field.  Brant Brown is under it.  He drops the ball!  I personally don't remember what I what I did because it was automatic.  It was a knee jerker type of moment.

My son recalls that I fell to my knees in front of the television set with arms wide open screaming at the top of my lungs saying, "No! No! No!" over and over again.

I'll just say this once though many may disagree.  I love Neifi Perez.  He wasn't even on the roster for the Cubs that year but it was he that made the 1998 playoff game possible.  Neifi, yes that's right.  He came through heroically for the Colorado Rockies and hit a walk off solo homerun against Rob Nen to save the Cubs' butts.  I'll root for Neifi forever because of that despite his abysmal career numbers.  It's even better now that he's a Cub, though having Nomar back at SS is better for the long term.
1998 was filled with ups and downs.  It was a thrilling roller coaster ride the whole way.  That team healed a relationship with my brother and started a new one with my son.

The Cubs disappointed us at the end of 1998 but there was always next year.

__

That Brant Brown game was featured on some type of Cub history playback on TV at the beginning of the 2004 season.  It featured Ron Santo's play calling at the moment that Brown dropped the ball and him moaning, "No!"  My son saw that and instantly remembered my reaction to that play.

"At least that guy [Santo] doesn't sound like he's dying like you did on that day.  By the way, who's Ron Santo?"  (I must have sounded horrible compared to Santo because he certainly does sound like he was dying.)  

Well, I never got to see Ron Santo play and didn't quite know how to answer that question for my son.  I knew that he did the radio color for WGN and was a beloved Cub player of old.  I prefer television over radio when the Cubs are on though.  I always thought Santo was a little out of his league on the broadcast.  Pat Hughes more than makes up for Santo so it isn't a loss at all if the Cubs aren't televised.

I also knew that many people thought he should be in the hall of fame.  He was my Uncle Steve's favorite player too.  The thing that I knew about Santo is that he loves the Cubs (Banks and Williams too) as much as I love the Cubs and that's just fine for a Cubs color announcer.

Well, my uncle Steve died suddenly at the age of 45 in 2002.  He left behind 3 teenage daughters. Life was just getting a little better for them as they had just moved into the house of their dreams too.

Steve was watching a night telecast of the Cubs when he decided to go get a beer from the fridge.  He stood up and walked a couple of steps towards the kitchen when he fell over face first to the floor.  He had a massive heart attack.

The funeral was sad and the recovery for the daughters has been very long.  We all cried at the funeral over several things.  He definitely touched the hearts of my whole extended family and also many of his friends throughout the area.  He is missed.  He loved the Cubs.

My brother and I spoke to each other at the funeral and my brother said, "You know, it was Steve who got us into the Cubs, right?"  No answer was needed, just a big hug.

You see, Steve had diabetes too.  It's a dangerous disease and Santo has lived with it his whole life.  I finally got to see "This Old Cub" on DVD this past year.  It's a wonderful tribute to the man and his character.  He's an inspiration.

I knew him as the color guy who loves the Cubs before.

I know him now as a hero back when he was a player and a hero now.

There is no doubt in my mind that he deserves to be in Baseball's Hall of Fame.

__

Then there was 2003.  Next year had finally arrived!  The Cubs finally had the pitching, the reputable manager, the hitting, and the drive.  Outstanding.

I went to eight games that summer and made sure to buy tickets for the home field clinch in mid-September.  (I was sure that they'd clinch then but I was wrong.)

Eight games were the most I've been to in person in one season.  You see, I started a new tradition in 2003.  I know now that I will always go to two Cub games in a row with my wife on an overnight stay in Chicago in late May as a birthday present.

My brother and I talked up the Cubs to each other nearly every day.  I talked up the Cubs to my co-workers and subordinates every day.  I took the ribbing for so long but now was payback time.  Redemption.

I gleefully swatted down Cub negativity everywhere that I could.  There was plenty of it too!  No co-worker was going to steal this thunderous year from me.  Finally the ribbing will stop, I thought.  

I had fully convinced everyone in my work radius (a quality lab) that the Cubs were finally going to do it and they'd be sorry they weren't Cub fans.

I had finally busted the budget by mid-September (when I thought the Cubs should have clinched) and could not afford to buy playoff tickets.  I was out of vacation time too but I vowed to be standing on Waveland Avenue with the rest of the Cub lunatic crowd when the Cubs squared off against the Boston Red Sox at Wrigley Field in the World Series.  (You see, I was wrong about a lot of things in 2003.)

I had to work the night of game 6 of the NLCS against the Marlins but I had thought ahead.  An indifferent but empathetic co-worker brought in about 90 feet of coaxial cable and an amplified TV antenna. I borrowed my son's 13 inch color TV.  I spent an hour connecting and wiring up the quality lab in preparation of watching game 6.

You see, the quality lab is in the middle of a high frequency machine shop, totally enclosed and air conditioned, with cinder block walls.  AM radio will not penetrate it and UHF TV signals have a very hard time getting through.

I sent the coaxial cable through the drop ceiling, through the cinder brick wall, and hog tied it to some electrical conduit that ran along the north wall.  I strung it as far as I could to an air collector that happened to have an electrical outlet about 15 feet off the ground right next to it.  I pointed the amplified dish towards the open dock doors in the foundry and switched in on.

I had no less than four co-workers helping me do this so if I would have gotten reprimanded for this type of shenanigans, the others would have to definitely go down with me.  It was comical to watch me point the dish and rabbit ears and yell down to the guy at the bottom of the ladder, "how does the TV look now?"  This was followed by a human chain of thumbs down hand signals.  Then there was a human chain of so-so hand signals.  Finally, a thumbs up!  NLCS game 6 is on the air!

We all watched the game in the lab.  It was wonderful.  There were exactly two Cub fans, one White Sox fan, and the rest were either indifferent or just wanted to razz me about Cub curses and other types of negativity.  

"They can't do it," a female co-worker snorted.  "Cubs suck and you know it."  

"Shut up, woman!  Game is on!" I would joke with her.

"There's work here that needs to be done," she retorted.

"Do it yourself.  Now quiet!"

The Cubs came out strong; it really looked like they were finally going to do it.  Even my good friend Chris, the White Sox, fan finally stopped his Cub taunts and got into the game.

"Those Cubbies are finally going to do it, I think," he said.

"Let's go get a coffee real quick while they're at commercial break.  The eighth inning is coming up!"

Everyone in the world knows what happened next with the infamous Bartman miscue.  That miscue even caught the eye of Ms. Negativity and said, "Uh oh.  That's not a good sign."

Everyone stopped working and huddled around me in front of the 13 inch color TV.  Only five outs to go.

Five outs.

Alex Gonzalez booted the ball and the Marlins swung open the rally gate for a huge finish.

If you can remember the episode of the hit TV show M*A*S*H when Henry Blake finally got sent home from Korea and when "Radar" finally comes into the O.R. to tell everyone that Henry Blake didn't survive the crash into the Sea of Japan, then you'll know what it was like at my work the moment the Cubs blew it.  Everyone in the lab was solemn for a moment in time and then, without any words, went back to work.

As I left work that morning, Ms. Negativity offered this encouragement, "They'll win it tonight for sure and you'll be at home with your family to enjoy it."

They didn't win it.

They blew it.

I'm glad I wasn't at work too because I actually cried.

The Cubs broke my heart in 2003 but there was always next year.

___

Well, this is certainly much longer than what I really intended to write.  I guess my long term memory isn't that short.  The details are tough but the basics are there.

My memory works in funny ways.  For instance, I can't remember my high school sweetheart's face unless I look at her picture.  But I can remember her hands as clear as anything in my brain.  Funny thing about that is that once I remember her hands, I can see her face quite clearly.

And so it is also with this monologue.

It took a lot out of me to write this response.  I wanted to do it.  Now that I am close to closing it, I know that I needed to do it.  These are my Cub memories that have deeply affected me personally but have never really expressed before.  Not only did I write it because I wanted to share it with other like minded individuals but also so that I could always remember how I feel, even when I'm not totally honest with myself in that area.

Now these words are preserved forever on the most appropriate website for such things, "Bleed Cubbie Blue."  I certainly do bleed Cubbie blue.

So, how do I bring it full circle to answer the question in your original post, Al?

I know that the ushers are never going to wipe off my seat for me whether it is wet or dry but they're ready to give me a big high five at the appropriate moments.

I know that Cub fans are an entirely different sub-culture and that I have friends everywhere in the country even if I've never met them or even known them.  For instance, my brother and I were able to sneak to some seats directly behind home plate in 1998.  It was the 8th inning.  No sooner than we had sat down that the usher approached us and asked us to leave.  The guy on the cell phone next to us turned to the usher and said, "it's ok.  They're with me."  After the usher left he turned to us and said, "These seats are for my business partners but you can stay.  I think they went to the bar so screw them!"  Sammy Sosa came through with a beautiful two run shot in the bottom of the eighth.  We cheered!  The crowd roared!  That nice man took my brother and me to the Cubby Bear after the game and bought the beer.  It was great fun!

I know that Wrigley Field is the most beautiful place to witness a live baseball game.  It gets more beautiful every year to me.  My wife and I have been redecorating our new country house recently.  She got to design the bathroom, dining room, and bedroom.  She told me that I could design the living room.  I told her that I was going to make the living room into Wrigley Field.  She paused for a beat, looked around the living room, and then said, "Ok.  Let's do it."  It's a work in progress and it's going very slowly.  The sky on the ceiling is sky blue and the walls have clouds in the sky.  The skyline behind the bleachers is starting to fill in some and some of the key buildings are in place but not in detail.  At least just yet, that is.

I know that the scoreboard operator will have the balls and strikes up there faster than I can look up there and catch him/her flipping the switches.

I know that the crowd lives and breathes with the action at Wrigley.  You can't beat it.  Crowds are annoying at any other venue but at Wrigley Field it's different.  People watch the action.  They cheer for the cheap base hits.  They roar for the big plays.  They groan at the stupid plays.  They boo the umps when they screw up.  They sing the seventh inning stretch.  And they hug, shake hands, exchange high fives at the appropriate moments.

I know that I don't have to see the Cubs in a playoff game to know what playoff atmosphere feels and sounds like.  I know that on the right day when something happens that is good for the Cubs, it will be electric.  That could be on a Saturday afternoon in September with the Cubs in first place or a Wednesday afternoon in August when someone hits a walk off homerun with the Cubs in last place.  The standings matter very little in those situations.  It's the thrill of the moment that counts.  It's the thrill of that moment that stays in your memory too.

Sometimes the Cubs win and sometimes the Cubs lose.  Though it will always be exciting!  That is another constant.    Will I be changed if the Cubs win it all?  I hope not though I really, really want them to win it all.

I never want it to change either.  If you knew for a fact that Cub fans would forever be changed if they won it all, I'd curse the team myself right now.  

This team and field is a little slice of heaven in a world that isn't always pretty.  It has the power to form relationships, heal relationships, make people laugh, shout for joy, groan in agony, and even cry.  It brings new hope every single year because that is just it; the constant is that there will ALWAYS be next year.

It's about the people.  It always has been.  

Will it change you?  I hope not.  I already know that you want them to win it all.

Will it change others?  I hope not.  It's pretty much a given that every fan wants them to win it all.

I hope and pray that the "not changing" part will be a constant (Just like the other constants that I've just listed here.) for the true Cub fans that Bleed Cubbie Blue.

There are many of us out there so we might as well win it all!

Never forget that no matter what happens, win or lose, laugh or cry that there will always be a next year.  If you have long term memory problems, this team is for you.  The past is well behind us but not totally forgotten but the future is bright even in the darkest of times.

Remember Cub fans that once you start "Bleeding Cubbie Blue" that there are no more "easy outs" for you.  That was the scam all along but I'm glad I fell for it.

Copyright 2005
BJ Simpson

I've always been a baseball fan.  As a child, I spent many evenings listening to any baseball game I could find on the radio.  My love for baseball carried into adulthood but I never had a favorite team.
That all changed when I found my soulmate.  His love for the Cubs was contagious, and because he was my soulmate, I could understand his passion for the boys in blue.  He is rabid, and is the ultimate fan, sitting in snow, rain, oppressive heat, and 15 inning losses, and still he persists and loves.
At first, I was interested, but over time, as my love for my soulmate grew, my love for his beloved Cubs grew as well, and I fell in love all over again with men I had never met who happen to wear blue shirts.  Now I find myself pleading and hoping for what has eluded them since 1908.  I now find my love for the Cubs is part of us, an integral part of our lives together.  Loving the Cubs is like loving your soulmate.  You understand that when they run, you won't laugh if they trip,  you hold your emotional arms out, support them, and hope that the next time, they run and win the race.  For Cubs fans, it is a love that is more than love, it is time spent in common laughter and weeping, sharing victory and defeat, and encouraging one another.
Loving the Cubs is a delicious torment that we hope will turn into delicious victory.  It has no ending, and once begun, I have found you cannot wait for the story to unfold.
May it unfold in splendor in 2005.

I'm 23.   I got into the cubs because my dad loves the cubs.  I live in orlando and it was easy to get into the cubs because we get wgn on tv down here and drawing off my dad's obsession with them was easy.  My best memories of the cubs were harry caray singing take me out to the ballgame, and the amazing lineup that zimmer had with andre dawson, ryno, shawn-o-meter, and mark grace... and with mitch williams hitting that clutch homerun in the tyebreaker match with the giants... that, apart from 2003 was the best cubs experience I ever had, but since then, I bleed cubbie blue

What got me hooked on the cubs was Michael Jordan. As a kid growing up, with the growing popularity of basketball and the Bulls, i wanted to see as much Michael Jordan as possible. And since i lived in NM the best way to do this was through WGN.  
When basketball season was over there were no Jordan games so i started watching the cubs games......and i got hooked quick.
Some of the greatest memories are of ryno and dawson. And then came Sosa. As much as everybody has already ridden him off, i still haven't forgotten the years of yelling at the top of my lungs over every homer he blasted. Or how much i hated McGuire and how it seemed to me that every pitch Mcguire got was a chucked meatball down the center of the plate.
One of my favorite cubs memories, if i can still recall it correctly, was during that fated 2003 season against the Marlins. I think it was game 5....I dont remember the exact inning or how much the cubs were down by, i think it was by 1 run and it was a night game, but they were playing at wrigley and sammy was up to bat. I remeber he hit a homerun to tie the game and everybody at Wrigley just went nuts. I mean NUTS. I remember going NUTS. Fox TV showed a shot of wrigley and the bleachers looked like they were about to fall apart from all the fans jumping and cheering, I mean NUTS!!! I remember seeing that scene and getting goose bumps all over. And now when i still think back to that scene I don't care that they lost, what i really remember is how i felt seeing the cubs play in the post season. It was a magical feeling, almost surreal. I think thats why cubs fans are cubs fans, because those are the magical moments that we all wait for.

Im new to this.  Only about a year.  I used to think baseball was only about going to the games and what kind of food you could eat, who you would see, etc.  

then I met a true cubsfan who taught me so many things about baseball (who knew you could actually keep score? LOL!) and the Cubs.  I will always be thankful to him for helping me see the light and sharing something he loved so much with me.   I used to want a Cubs series because he wanted it so badly.....now I want it for me too.
And I hope we get to watch it together.  

Go Cubbies.

This is my first time EVER posting - on anything - but you guys have just moved me and inspired me.  My earliest memory of being a Cubs fan is as a 6-year-old little girl, coming into our little house in Dickeyville, Wisconsin in 1960 after playing outside on a hot summer day, and sitting down on the kitchen floor beneath the radio on top of our refrigerator that my Mom always had tuned to the Cubs game.  (I know you guys must think I'm ancient, but honest to God, it really doesn't seem like that long ago!)  In those days it was Jack Quinlan and Lou Boudreau broadcasting on the radio, and I still remember the "It's a Beautiful Day for a Ball Game" lead-in.

A couple of years later my parents began taking us to a couple of Cubs games every summer.  By this time we were living in Dubuque, Iowa and were able to watch the games on WGN-TV.  We usually tried to go to a doubleheader - there were always a number of them on the schedule every year, and none of this day/night stuff either; it was one game right after the other.  Of course, my Dad was able to just walk up to the box office and get 6 excellent seats together for that day's game.  I think in those days they must have opened the park at 10:00 a.m., because we always got there very early and were able to watch both teams take batting practice.  There were pictures of the individual players mounted on the walls as soon as you got inside Wrigley.  I loved those pictures!  And I know it's a cliché, but it's true of Wrigley Field more than any other ballpark - OH, that first sight of the green grass and the ivy when you walk up the ramp.  It brings tears to my eyes right now.  I just love that place so much.  By the end of the day, after we had been at the ballpark for about 6 or 7 hours, my dad would get anxious to leave, thinking of the 4-hour road trip ahead of us.  It was usually about the 7th inning of the 2nd game.  I NEVER wanted to leave early, and I remember one year the Cubs pulled off a triple play after we left.  I was crushed that we had missed it.

In 1965 my sister, younger brother and I each picked a Cubs player to follow for the year.  My sister picked Don Kessinger, I picked Glenn Beckert, and my little brother picked Chris Krug -- so much for his baseball acumen, huh?  I think that was also the year that my birthday gift from my parents was a Ron Santo baseball glove - which I still have, by the way.  But while my two brothers never quite got hooked, my sister and I both fell in love with the team and the city and the ballpark.  Through the good and the bad, we just continue to hold on.  The collapse in 1969 was so traumatic that any reminders of it even today are painful.  In 1984 when the Cubs clinched the division in Pittsburgh, my sister called me in Washington, D.C., where I've lived for the past 30 years, so that I could listen to the last inning over the phone, and we both cried.

The company I work for has season tickets to the Nationals, and I have attended a number of games and become somewhat of a fan.  I foolishly wondered before the Cubs' first series here in May whether my loyalties would be divided.  What a ridiculous thought!!  As soon as I saw MY team on the field it was as if the Nationals were just any other team - namely, the enemy.

I do believe the promised land is ahead of us.  Fate cannot be so cruel as to deny us much longer.  I will never give up hope, because I'm a Cubs fan, forever and no matter what.

First, Al, I love this blog. I love that you keep the faith.

I am a Cub fan by lineage. My maternal grandmother, Grandma Flo, still kickin at 92, loves her Cubs and keeps a TV in the kitchen so she can watch games while making Sunday dinner. I have few memories of my paternal grandfathr, but I do remember him taking me to Wrigley for the first time when I was four. They gave away Jody Davis kids jerseys that day and I was in love with the man from then on! I love talking about the Cubs with my father - he bought me my BELIEVE bracelet in March. And the Cubs love has moved past my generation. I took my nephew, Payton (his name inspired by a devotion to another Chicago team) to a game this season and he got the wild-eyed Cubs fan look. He can never go back.

The Cubs also can count me as a fan because of another person - Harry Caray. I usually got home from school just in time for the 7th inning stretch, just in time to sing along with Harry. He ran into my mother after having a bit too much Budweiser when I was five years old, and he told my mom that he'd marry me when I was 18. When I turned 18, Harry died. Now doesn't THAT sum up being a Cubs fan?

I was one of the many kids who grew to love the Cubs due to the long reach of WGN. As a kid in Tennessee, I had a choice of watching three teams on TV: the Mets on WOR, the Braves on TBS, and the Cubs. I loved baseball, ALL baseball, so I watched all three; but there was something about the Cubs and that field on which they played...

My first televised memory is Dave Kingman rounding third after hitting a monstrous home run (did he hit any other kind?). This was '79 or '80 and I was five years old, a baseball neophyte, collecting stickers for the annual baseball albums and begging my parents to buy me baseball cards. I knew the team was no good, but the world of the Dodgers and Yankees seemed so far away from me, and Chicago seemed strangely familiar. I kept watching.

My family moved to Ft. Wayne, Indiana in 1982, and I was suddenly much closer to my team, and before long, we started making annual pilgrimages to Chicago to visit family friends and, at my insistence, go to Wrigley Field. At the time of my first Cubs game, the only other ballpark I had been to was the old Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, and you can bet there was no contest. I'll never forget walking out into the stands and glimpsing Wrigley for the first time. I was hooked for good.

Then things got interesting, of course: 1984 and my Cubs were winners. Naturally, Ryne Sandberg was my favorite player. I remember reading Ryno!, his biography, and collecting all of his cards into the 1990's. I even worked on mimicking his batting stance in the backyard, decked out in my Cubs jersey, wrist-bands, and plastic batting helmet. My best friend at the time was a rabid Reds fan, and he loved to poke fun at my team and Sandberg in particular, much like Joe Morgan. I was constantly defending Ryno against the likes of Steve Sax and Bill Doran, and remembering these guys as Ryno's chief peers in the 80's and early 90's goes a long way to explaining how great he seemed in the pre-Alomar/Kent days.

My first heartbreak was also '84, of course. My family were travelling in Europe that October, and I remember rushing around the hotel searching for AOR to tell my brother and I that the Cubs had lost to the Padres. My love tasted its first of many bitter disappointments.

The Cubs were, and still are, one of the few things I can talk about with my family, a strange ritualistic bond that momentarily covers our divergent attitudes toward politics and religion, the other two great American pasttimes. I have rational faith that the Cubs will one day win the World Series because all teams are likely to win one day, right? But I've never felt that my devotion has any relation to my team's performance. I've also never known anybody since that Reds fan of my youth who liked baseball, let alone the Cubs, as much as I did, so my faith in my team and this most glorious of sports has always been somewhat private.

The organization has always been run poorly, its players and fans are subject to irrational bouts of superstition, and they've failed more often than not. But I keep coming back, year after bloody year, to follow my team. I've often said that my religion is the Cubs, since one can learn so many of the moral and existential lessons of life while being a fan. Only the Red Sox can teach you more about faith, hope, love, and the wisdom that knows you can't cheat the end, no matter how much money you throw at it.

I have faith that my Cubs will win the World Series, if only once, during my lifetime. And I know I will be in the streets of Chicago, crying like a little baby when it happens. This is the belief that unites us, regardless our own creeds and beliefs, and this is the faith that, for better AND for worse, makes us Cubs fans.

May I offer another link to display the interconnectedness of Cub fans.....

Wait till next year!

I consider myself of the generation when the National Pastime of the United States was baseball, where as a youngster and onward baseball became" life" and  "what till next year" best described being a loyal Cub fan.
I had the good fortune (or misfortune?) of being born in Chicago during the 1935 World Series between the Cubs and Tigers-which the Cubs lost. My dad was an avid Cub fan and obviously in my mind this was the foundation of my affection for the Cubs. However, this affection often seemed to become over the years also a kind of a `spell' over me, which I attribute to aforementioned event at the time of my birth.
 At a young age I moved away from Chicago to the West Coast where my later friends and fellow "baseball is life" diehards found it difficult to fathom my dedication to the lovable loser Cubbies.
I grew up in Los Angeles. The other Wrigley Field (a smaller version of Chicago's) was my "friendly confines". It was home for the Pacific Coast League Angels and each spring for the Cubs.
 After doing whatever the team did for spring training on Catalina Island (owned by Mr. Wrigley) the Cubs would come to the mainland and Wrigley Field for a splendid exhibition schedule against other major league teams passing through the area. I cherish the opportunity that I had to see such stars as Bob Feller and Satchel Page pitch with the Cleveland team as well as the various Cub players who would be going `up' and coming `down' for each season.
 Because of the Cub players who arrived to and departed from the Angels frequently I found it easy to keep up with the current team.  Also my uncle in Chicago gave me a subscription to the St. Louis Sporting News and on the radio we received the "Ol' Scotsman"- Gordon MacClendon recreating an occasional Cubs game of the week from Chicago.
When I finished High School I visited my older brother in Chicago and was finally able to attend the actual Wrigley Field for a Cubs game, the first of many over the years, thanks to him. It was an unforgettable experience to say the least.

As an adult I moved to the San Francisco Bay area and when the Giants and eventually the Athletics' arrived -as a baseball is life person, I could not help but become a fan of both those teams.

Yet, I can truthfully say that was never a game of either of those two teams, no matter how exciting, that I attended or followed on the radio where I was not looking -`spellbound' at the scoreboard or waiting for the Cubs game score to be announced.

My own family proved their respect for both my affection for the Cubs and the `spell' that held me by providing extreme patience towards me during the end of the 1969, `84, and '89 seasons. And while my kids did not `become fanatic Cub fans they are still today true baseball fans. I can't ask for more!

Both my brother, who is eighty, and I are entering the era when we wonder if we will see a Cub Series before we `move on'. We joke together a lot about that and I suppose there may be more like us out there that wonders the same thing.

The Baseball is life T-shirt I often wear reads - "Baseball is life" the rest is just details- perhaps a Cub Series is just one of those details.

No matter- at this stage of my life how can I be anything other than a Cub fan?

I've read this site throughout much of the season, but for some reason haven't posted until now. Anyway, I am a Cubs fan and a baseball fan first and foremost because of my grandfather, who passed away last october. He himself was a diehard Red Sox fan, born in boston in November 1918. The night the Red Sox won the world series -- the night before grandpa's funeral, I wrote about his life, his death, and his team. It's largely a piece about the Red Sox and what they meant to him, but it reflects how I became a Cubs fan in the best way I can describe. Here is some of what I wrote that night.
-------

...When I was a kid he used to tell me stories of him and his brothers spending their summers in Fenway Park, buying a bleacher seat for three or five dollars, seeing Ted Williams, Dom and Joe Dimaggio, Johnny Pesky, Jimmy Foxx, Eddie Collins. Legends, all of them. He came to Nebraska during the war, met a nice girl, served a tour in Europe, and then came back. He always lived and died with the Red Sox, though. He was the epitome of Red Sox Nation. No Diaspora could separate him from the Jerusalem of Yawkey Way. He survived the heartbreak of 1946, 1967, 1975, 1986, and 2003.

This year would be no different. At the all-star break, the team was an also-ran. They were stuck where they so often found themselves; distantly trailing the Yankees, without even much hope of the Wild Card to deliver them to October once again.

Earlier today my mom said that after the rosary, those who wanted would have the chance to get up, to share some memory they have of Grandpa. I thought about it, but what I came to realize was that specific memories were hard to grasp. Grandpa had such a huge influence on me and informed so much of what I am that there is no specific memory. I am a baseball fan today first and foremost, I think, because when I was a kid I would go to Grandpa's and we would sit and watch the Cubs, and listen to Harry Caray, and what bound us together, in a way, was the perpetual wretchedness, the feeling of "Almost!" which ran through our chosen teams. All too often we found ourselves commiserating about how bad the Cubs and the Sox were, about the prospects for next year, about the need to fire "that bum manager" and what players to pick up in the off season. Last year, as both teams put together great teams there was an unbelievable sense of expectation of the long awaited and fabled Chicago-Boston series that it didn't seem possible. And, of course, it wasn't. Both teams got within five outs of the fabled goal, but both fell short in such fashion that it's almost fitting of Greek Tragedy. We both cursed our poor luck and waited for this year, but only the Red Sox had what it took to push into the playoffs...

Anyway, that's my most fundamental reason: Grandpa.

My love for the team was adapted.  My father has always been a huge cub fan and used to go to the North Side while living in South Shore.

I'd have to argue with the person that said that though.

It all started around the age of 7, my favorite baseball player was tearing it up around 2nd base where I played as a little leauger.  I was finally taken to the hallowed ground.  I can't remember exactly the date or who they even played, the only thing I could remember is watching the team and being completely oblivious to anything else going on.  I knew from then on, no matter how hard it might be to be a Cubbie fan on the south side, I couldn't have it any other way.

In my youth I was taken to many other sporting events, Bulls, Bears, I've seen hockey games, but I could never develop the bond I did with any of those teams as I did with the Cubs.

Many have attempted to convert me, ever since my youth taking me to 'The Cell'. It's never worked, nor will it ever.

I don't know why I'll always love this team as much as I will, I don't know why this is the answer. Nor do I care. It feels right.

Throughout my years I've watched the Cubs. Finally what I thought was the end of the pain in '03 only threw salt in the wound.  I'll continue to watch and comiserate next to my north side bretheren though, and we'll have our day.

For now, we'll just bide our time and wait, but when that time comes, I will be at the corner of Clark and Addison celebrating with tears in my eyes.

21 years strong, I'm not going anywhere until I see them do it.

To me being a Cub fan is like a birthright or inheritance. In 1984 I was eight years old, I remember my dad working third shift and he would ask me to wake him from his nap so we could watch the games together. If I wasn't playing catch with my dad that was the next best thing.

My Grandparents lived right off of Ravenswood about eight or nine blocks from Wrigley and we would always park in front of their house and walk to the games. The anticipation and excitment I felt walking into that ballpark of the team I fell in love with as a child,has not left me to this day.

I equate being a Cub fan to an inheritance because I don't remember the day I became a fan, so I feel that I was just born into it. Living in the Chicago area my whole I can't draw off of an experiance I had as a child that made me a Cub fan, I can only draw from childhood memories, Great memories.

 

I am a Cubs fan like my father, grandfather, and (so  I've heard) great-grandfather before me. I've been going to games at Wrigley since I was a little kid, my best guess is either 3 or 4 (so '87 or '88). Anyways, I vaguely remember watching the '89 playoffs with my family but really don't remember much. Growing up a Cubs fan in the '90s I didnt have much to cling to. The Cubs fielded some pretty bad teams, but I had Mark Grace. He was my favorite growing up. I remember being amazed by the way he played. I've been to probably somewhere in the area of 50 Cubs games in my life and would go to every home game if I had the finances. Like some others on this board I have had several people in my life try to convert me to the dark side, I never turned. I have so many great memories of Wrigley Field, just like my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather before me, and I hope that some day I have a son, and I can help him form his own memories with our Cubs at Clark and Addison.

I became a Cubs fan because I was raised a Cubs fan.  I can retell a bunch of sappy memories from my childhood, but thats only half the story.

I stayed a Cubs fan because whenever I change cities, schools, jobs, or boyfriends they are there.  Whenever there is a problem with family, friends, finances, health they are there.  And however they are doing, losing 90 games, or going to the playoffs I am there.  

Watching a game, whether in the bleachers on a perfect sunny June afternoon with a dozen or so friends, in the upper deck freezing in April, or on tv in a new apartment in a city where I don't know anyone, is one of the true simple pleasures in life. And those 3 hours at a time, where everything else melts away and I can watch the boys in blue, is worth my loyalty.  

I was born into the Cub nation.  I grew up in northern Indiana, no cable but we did have a three story T.V. antena.  On a clear day we could pick up WGN and my father and I would sit around a snowy tv and watch the game.  Our family vacation was always to Wrigley Field.  I grew up with Jack Brickhouse, Rick Monday, Jose Cardinal, Larry Bittner and I can remember Bill Madlock playing third base.  I am now the father that takes my kids to Wrigley every year and carry on the family tradition.  There is now way to accurately discribe what it is like to be a devoted Cub fan to a novice.  It is both magical and frustrating at the same time, but I would have it no other way.  Its the only way I truly know.

Love is the only word I could use to describe what we all feel for our Cubs. It's the only word that fully captures how simultaneously wonderful and terrible the ride is. Since before I can remember, I've been a Cubs fan. My parents divorced when I was very young, and teaching me to love the Cubs was about the only worthwhile thing my father ever did for me. I grew up with Ryno and Mark Grace, along with a string of forgettable third basemen and the gladiator-turned-spectacular a-hole Sammy Sosa. In '95, I got to meet most of the Cubs team in September after winning some contest, and I still remember telling Randy Myers how cool I thought it was seeing him take down that fan who tried to tackle him. He responded with a simple, "You do what you gotta do." And I remember witnessing the colossal mistake of letting Maddux walk, though it would take the whole of the '90s for its magnitude to hit home.

While I have always loved the Cubs, 1998 brought me more fully into the fold than any moment before. As I was only 3 in 1989, it was my first chance to see the Cubs in postseason baseball. I also relished being able to laugh at a close friend of mine (a Sox fan), if only for a few days. I remember catching most of Kerry Wood's 20 strikeout game after school, and I was thrilled to see an excellent young pitcher out of our system, one who (at least I thought so then) could anchor the staff for years to come, after the Maddux debacle. Since 1998, Kerry has been my favorite Cub, and I feel the best metaphor for our team the past few years: the potential is definitely there, but for one reason or another, it just doesn't happen.

I remember 2003 like it was yesterday; seeing Wood outduel the Rocket in June to deny him his 300th win, the elation after the Cubs clinched the Central, the glorious NLDS, and the deflating agony of games 6 and 7 of the NLCS. The night of game 3 of the NLDS (Prior against Maddux), I had to work at a school dance for the freshmen, and some of us who were supervising had brought in portable TVs or radios. When one of the deans passed by a suspicious looking crowd of us and found us huddled around my portable TV, she simply told us to carry on. I remember the joy and exuberance I felt going home to watch game 6, the fearful hope I held out the next day, and the utter emptiness the day after. My teachers were understanding when I said I hadn't had the energy to do homework for that day.

The Cubs are constant. Whether in dead last or making a run for the playoffs, I can always count on them to be there. Every year, I hope that this is indeed the year. I hope for the sake of all my fellow Cub fans who have been suffering longer than a mere 20 years. Every time I come up the stairs and into the stands at Wrigley, and take tha first look at the field, I feel like a kid again. There's just something magical about the experience, and it's somehow worth all the pain. It's love...it's knowing you're going to be hurt 99 times out of 100, but living for that one time when it all falls into place. Going to school on the east coast, I always love seeing someone wearing a Cubs hat or something Cubs-related. It's something that makes me feel closer to home. Win or lose, good times or bad, the Cubs are my team, and no amount of rings on the South Side will ever change that.

My first Cub game was in May 1961 against the Cardinals, when I was 7. I was awestruck at how beautiful the grass was -- we didn't have much in the Indiana dunes where I was living at the time. Ed Bouchee hit a home run and the Cubs won 1-0.
 Like many of us, I spent most of my childhood watching on WGN... but it was better outside in the lazy summer sun, listening to Vince and Lou.
 Moved to California at 18. I was at the Dave Kingman game in Dodger Stadium that prompted LaSorda's famous tirade -- what fun! I still have managed to hit a game at Wrigley every few years and get to a Cub game in SF every year.
 A lot of my family are longtime fans (though oddly, not my late father, who could care less about any team that wasn't the Bears.). When the Sox were in the World Series last fall, my great-aunt, who is 87 and went to Cubs games with her father as a girl, told me that if I rooted for them, she'd never speak to me again.
 I'm also a 49ers fan and nothing in my sports fan life has matched the thrill of the Dwight Clark catch in '81 against Dallas when they reached their first Super Bowl. I jumped up and nearly broke my knuckles on the ceiling. But weirdly, by the time they won their third and fourth Super Bowl, I hardly cared. I think that being a lifelong Cub fan makes you suspicious of Yankee-like teams that win too easily, and contemptous of their fair-weather fans. (Luckily, being too successful is not a problem for 49ers fans any longer.)  
 I hope, pray the Cubs will provide an even better memory than that catch during my lifetime. As a child, the best year has been '67, when the Cubs returned to respectability. The last month of '69 was a terrible shock, the '84 playoff were awful. In '89 I went to a playoff game at Candlestick as a guest of a big San Francisco company and sat in the second row behind the Giants dugout wearing my Cubs hat -- I was disappointed, but it didn't matter as much as those other years because the A's were much better than either NL team and going to win the Series anyway.
  '03 was ... well, whatever. Crushing.
   I know some true Giants fans who are disappointed by the fact they've never won a World Series in SF despite having the two best players of the last 50 years -- but most Giants fans show up with their cell phones, eat their garlic fries, talk business and only pay attention when Barry's batting. Too bad.
 I root for the A's in the AL and my three kids are mainly A's fans, but that team has a bad stadium and not very many real fans. They won't be in Oakland forever. It's much better to be a Cub fan, you know you will never have to worry about your team abandoning its city.
 I believe the World Series victory will occur in my lifetime. Even if it doesn't, I know it will eventually and I'm prospectively happy for the Cub fans who will be alive at that time. If my kids are around, they can put a pennant on my grave.
   Bottom line: There's a timelessness and a sense of connection with past and future genertaions that seeps out from Wrigley Field and an unmatched nobility that goes with having the Cubs as your one true love.

am a cubs fan because the total package, whatever misery it includes, is more fun to be a part of than to be a outsider of.  even after the southsiders won the world series, there still seemed to be a pensive look northward, kind of like passersby peeking in the frosted windows of a nice restaurant on a cold night.

my dad hooked me, and his dad hooked him, so the family loyalty and nostalgia are there as well. in fact, the three of us were able to go to a game together this summer before my grandfather passed. my grandfather was 95 when he died. he wasn't born yet when the cubs won their last world series.

its interesting, i think there si something that separates the die-hard fan from the casual observer or the chronic complainer. there's a certain amount of pride and a sense of belonging to something that comes with being in a group with similar interests. but i think it was kierkegaard, talking about religion, who said that current christians couldn't appreciate their christianity fully, and probably didn't feel it as deeply, because they haven't suffered enough for it. its too easy to be a chrsitian these days, he said.

well, i think those of us who are true fans HAVE suffered plenty for these cubs, so we CAN truly appreciate it, and we DO feel it plenty.

That might be why there is such animosity from many towards people like Gaius, who really don't support the cubs, but still claim to be a fan. They haven't suffered, because they are emotionally isolated from the team, and SEEM to just follow them because they are an entity that they can complain about and point out the flaws in.

Anyways, I haven't looked at this before AL. A little too fluffy for my interests normally. But i don't like basketball or hockey, the bears broke my heart again, and there's no julio lugo or barry zito news, so i had to look at something.

I first became a fan back in the 80's when I was just a litte squirt. I remember watching the games on WGN on those summer days where it was just too damn hot to go outside (anyone else from the South knows what I'm talking about). Being from Nashville, we didn't ever have a team to truly call our own, but I never hopped on the Braves bandwagon. I think it was the combination of Harry Caray's announcing and the tremendous abilities of guys like Ryno that got me hooked. My first trip to Wrigley was the season just before Harry passed away. I only got to see about 1 1/2 innings before it was rained out, but that's a memory I'll take with me forever. Asking me "why the Cubs?" now is just like asking "why is the sky blue?" - I can't really explain it, it's just that way. And that's a good thing.

we all seem to have the same story-with different variations. my dad loved the cubs. i can remember chanting ryno or jodi at the t.v. as if they could hear me. i remember thinking that if i chanted hard enough they would come through for me. guess that why my wife leaves the house when i watch a close game-she can't stand watching me get all worked up and scream at the t.v. she undestands though-she watched her grandpa bust a t.v. over a bears-packers game. i remember listening to many games on the radio while running around the yard playing with various friends. (dad would pass out on many of these occasions-after many beers and plenty of hot sun-the eigth inning sure is long!) so many times he had to explain to someone or other about his crazy sunburns! i remember our first trip to wrigley-cubs v. pirates. cubs lost. it was cold. it was awesome. my own son is almost old enough to goto his first game now. his favorite player is sammy sosa-he knows that sammy doesn't play anymore though. ask him-"hey aaron, who's your favorite ballplayer?"-"sammy sosa, even though he doesn't play baseball anymore." it's amazing. i almost hope that he doesn't grow up to be a cub fan-the dissapointment/pain never seems to end-but i know that it is hopeless. my dad loved the cubs because my grandpa loved the cubs. the memories all tie together. i love the cubs because my dad loved the cubs and my boy will/does love the cubs because i love the cubs.
stupid sentimental bullshit anyway!

I blame myself for the Cubs most recent tragedy.  See, in 2003I moved to Chicago from Miami, where I had been a pretty serious Marlins fan for the previous 2 years.  But when I got to Chicago that winter, I abandoned the Fish and immediately adopted the Cubs.  When they went on a tear, I couldn't believe my luck.  I had left a sub-500 team in Florida for a true rarity - a Cubs playoff team with a real shot at winning it all.  I think losing baseball just follows me.  

Knowing this, why am I still a Cub fan?

Because shivering through 9 innings in mid-April, with a breeze that cuts like a knife on an overcast afternoon is fun.  

Because telling your buddy's girlfriend that if the Reds don't score in the top of the 9th, we can leave early is funny.  

Because on my birthday, Corey Patterson made a terrible play in the 3rd that cost a run, but then hit a walk-off in the 10th while I was sitting in the bleachers with 5 of my best friends in the world.  

Because the fans cheered almost as loudly for the sun coming out on that cold spring day as they did for base hits.

Because the bars were empty and the streets were full in Wrigleyville 3 minutes after the last out of game 5 of the '03 Divisional Series.  And people cheered for what seemed like hours for a team that was 750 miles away.

Because Alex Gonzales hit a homer 2 seconds after I referred to him as "Alex - Guaranteed Out - Gonzales".  

For Eric Karros' walk off against the Yankees that I could hear from my apartment on Irving Park and Sheridan.

Because I've walked to 30 games in the last 3 years.

Because every one of those spring days when the sun comes out and it's 70 makes you believe that there is good in the world, and that hope is not foolish.

Because of the red ivy.

Because on photo day you can sneak a handful of warning track dirt into your pocket, and see 15 other grown men do the same thing.

Because Ron Santo goes to work every day.

Because opening day on 2004 held as much hope as opening day 2003.

Because opening day 2007 will hold as much hope as opening day 2005.

Because, when that day finally comes, and the ticker tape parade runs down Lakeshore, or Addison, or Michigan, would you want to be anywhere else in the world?  Could you look at yourself in the mirror and think that this was the year when you finally gave up hope and quit watching?

Because.

im often asked ,why are you a cub fan when you,re from new england.i dont know.all i know is i love this team with all my heart.when they win,when they lose.it,s true what they say you stay a cub fan your whole life.with al the dissapiontment and heartbreak none worse than 2003 im always looking forward to the next year.

When I was seven, a friendly neighborhood teenager gave me his copy of the 1947 Cubs Yearbook when he was through with it. I think I slept with that thing under my pillow for a month.I started listening to the WIND Cubs' radio broadcasts then and never looked back.

In the late 1950's I went to a Wrigley Field game with an uncle and cousin and saw Ernie Banks lead off the bottom of the ninth with a home run to win a 1-0 game. We lived over 200 miles from Chicago, so I got to few games and seldom saw them on TV (except for a rare Saturday game) until I was old enough and solvent enough to make the pilgrimage a few times a year to Wrigley.

Now, thanks to TV cable and the internet, I can see or hear every game they play every season. One of these years the Cubs will take it all, and I will be there, at least in front of the television, to see and hear it. I've outlasted Vietnam, a ruptured aortic aneurysm, and cancer surgery, waiting for that world series to happen. My wife has put up with baseball insanity for forty years; I figure we both can endure a few more until that series finally gets here.

I haven't really followed the Cubs for long; I've been a casual fan since the Great Steroid-Fueled Home Run Bonanza of 1998.
But going back a little further, I'm the first person in my family to follow baseball at all, so I had the benefit of choosing my team, not having one foisted upon me (not to diminish all the parent-child legacies out there). I moved around a lot as a kid--and all over the country--finally landing in the far south suburbs. Everyone around  was a Sox fan, so naturally I tried to jump on the bandwagon. I paid special attention to their cards and even attended my first major league game at New Comiskey, a win against the Royals. Overall, I wasn't too excited about it; I was just going through the motions.

Then came the day when my dad took me to Wrigley to see the Cubbies. I don't remember the final score. I don't even remember who we played. But I've never looked back.

I was a Cubs fan.

In fact, I'm pretty sure before they cut the cord, they slapped the hat on me.

Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but not far off.  My grandmother is most responsible for my love of the Cubs.  She has been a die-hard Cubs fan forever, and she made sure that my older brother and I were raised correctly.

She took my brother and I onto the field when I was 6, he was 8.  I played catch with Ryne Sandberg, and fielded ground balls from Mark Grace.  I was, of course, far too young to remember any of this now...but there are pictures.

Every summer since I was born, my grandma has taken me to at lease two games.  She taught me everything; the names, the stats, the lingo, and how to cheer the right way.

About two years ago, it finally hit me.  I finally realized how special the Cubs are to me.  It sounds silly, because obviously the Cubs are special to so many (here and elsewhere).  But I walked up to Wrigley and just looked at it.  I just tried to imagine what it was like 50 years ago (probably not much different).  I tried to comprehend that Babe Ruth played here.  I tried to understand the history, and the significance of that building; and I actually started to cry.

Since then, every time I'm near it, I have to touch the bricks.  And every time, I get goosebumps.  It's that feeling of so much past and so much history in one symbol; one I can touch, and see, and watch new history being made in.

My girlfriend recently asked me, "What's with all the Bears hoopla throughout the city?  Are there really that many Bears fans?"  I explained to her the meaning of 'fair weather fans' and we both agreed.  When the Sox won the Series, when the Bulls dominated the 90's, the city was full of fair weather fans.  

And while there will always be those type of fans, even in Wrigley, I have never seen a more loyal group than Cubs fans.

The summer of '98 was when I became obsessed with the Cubs.  I was always a fan of Grace, Dawson, Sandberg, and the Cubs of the early 90's.  But blame it on Sosa, he reeled me in and I haven't stopped since.  I was lucky enough to get to three different games that June, and watched Sammy hit four homers in those games combined.

...and saw McGwire hit one...which was kind of cool.

I've moved into uncharted fan-territory, though, as the past two seasons I've seen every single game, and have made it a point to (which my girlfriend LOVES...cough...)

I will always root, root, root for the Cubbies; and if they don't win...well...it's a shame.  But nothing new.  :)

GO CUBBIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why do I eat Habanero salsa with a spoon?

Why do I have an inner passion to someday get struck by lightning?

Why do I get bored at work and stab my hands with paper clips?  

To satisfy my inner masochist.

I blame my late grandmother, whose Cubbie coffee mug I still drink from every day.

She loved sports. She loved to compete. She was probably the best athlete our family still has ever seen. And she was a nutty Cub fan.  And she passed it on.  Not with words or edicts.  But with just sheer enthusiasm for the Cubs and baseball. So, naturally, the next three generations of our family and counting are Cub fans.  Even today, a family gathering for any occasion, solemn or silly, will still find ALL of us around the TV watching the Cubs, if they happen to be on.  Nobody thinks anything of it.

I was fortunate enough to be able to bring my grandma to her last Cub game at Wrigley(a victory over the Cardinals) before she passed several months later. At that time, she was being a real pain to those taking care of her about eating.  But on that day, she wolfed two ballpark hot dogs like nobody's business. The Cubs cured whatever ailed her on that day.  Like they still do for me.

That day will always be one of the highlights of my life.  Something I'll never forget.

I grew up around baseball. I played little league and American Legion ball. Summer in Fairbanks included the Alaska Goldpanners, a National Baseball Congress summer team, which has featured some outstanding players. But I had never seen a live MLB game.

I went to law school in Chicago. One of my profs had been on the legal team for Curt Flood in the baseball antitrust case, Flood v. Kuhn. He took a few of us to do "field work" in antitrust law in the bleachers at Wrigley Field in the fall of 1973. By that point in the season, the Cubs were eliminated, the game was completely meaningless, and yet the stands were 3/4ths full, the crowd was noisy, and the atmosphere was wonderful. And the Cubs won 1-0 when Santo drove in a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the 8th. I was seriously hooked from that point forward.

Sometimes I can go a couple of weeks during the season without compulsively reading everyting I can find, or avoid listening to MLB audio broadcasts. But it never lasts; I always relapse.

I've concluded I'm a Cubs fan because the Cubs are an addictive drug, and that Cubs fans are a large group of mutual enablers. The rush is the win; just look at the comments here following Aramis's homer against the Brewers. Like junkies everywhere, we are desperate to get and live for that rush. I don't need to tell you about the lows, the love-hate relationship with the team, the despair or the longing. All classic indications of addiction.

Is there an AA for Cubs' fans? Probably not (although the idea was handled billiantly in a Get Fuzzy cartoon after the Bosox and Pedro imploded). You want proof? My second game was the second half of a double header, which the Cubs lost badly, 9-2.

We're Cubs fans because we are Cubs junkies. It's simple.

I've enjoyed watching baseball since '84 (our town had just gotten cable the year before, and had access to WGN and WTBS). I started watching baseball to while away the summer break (was in elementary school at the time) and fell in love with listening to Harry Carey and Steve Stone. Also liked the uniforms that the Cubs wore over the god-awful baby blue ones that the braves wore. So I've been a Cubs fan ever since.