News Staff Reporter
Sometimes I wonder why I continue to endure the mental and physical suffering that comes with being a Chicago Cubs fan. Do I have some sort of deep-seated self-loathing?
April comes around the same way every year. Yankee fans confidently believe that their latest 100 million-dollar acquisition will bring them yet another World Series trophy. Red Sox fans futilely hope that they will finally steal the pennant from the Yankees. Mets fans eagerly explain to everyone within earshot why they will finally be able to retire the “My Entire Team Sucks” t-shirt. Loyal to my native Chicago suburbs, I languish, agonizingly aware that there is no way my beloved Cubbies will win a World Championship.
Ninety-eight years have passed, two world wars have been fought, and seventeen presidents have held office since the Cubs’ last World Series victory. I now believe firmly that Jesus Christ himself could stand on the mound for the Cubs in game seven of the World Series and they would still find a way to lose. Their bad luck has held with incredible tenacity: what other team has had the misfortune of starting three seasons consecutive seasons with their best two pitchers disabled? The organization itself blew up the ball from the fabled Game 6 of the NLCS in attempt to shed the team’s Curse of the Billy Goat.
Red Sox fans believe that no one could rival the pain they felt before their 2004 World Series victory. The scars left by the grounder through Buckner’s legs in ’86 and the walk-off home run by Aaron Boone in 2003 are certainly deep and draw my empathy. In the last twenty years, however, the Red Sox reached the playoffs nine times and captured three division titles. Though they may have choked in the post-season, at least the Red Sox have put a competitive team on the field every year.
All my time as a Cubs fan falls within this same twenty-year period. In that time, the Cubs have reached the postseason only three times! But until several years ago, the consistently sub-par performance of the Cubs never bothered their diehard fans. As long as the Old Style was cold, Harry Carey was in the booth, and Slammin’ Sammy kept on bashing homeruns, Cubs fans were a happy bunch. Win or lose, they always enjoyed themselves at Wrigley Field, the greatest place man to watch a baseball game that man has ever known.
Dusty Baker was hired as manager after the especially abysmal 2002 season, and Cubs fans lost much of their cheerful “win or lose—we still booze” mentality. Baker promised to bring a winning culture to the North Side. Win he did, guiding the 2003 Cubs to an 88-74 record and their first division title in fourteen years. The city had not been so animated and energized since the Bulls won their first NBA Championship in ’91.
The team rolled through the playoffs, gaining a promising 3-2 lead over the Florida Marlins in the NLCS. The Cubs were just one win away from their first World Series in fifty-eight years, and the city was on the verge of an explosion. Game 6 was to be played at Wrigley Field, with star pitcher Mark Prior on the mound for the hometown Cubs. No longer would we have to “wait until next year.” Our beloved Cubbies were finally going to break the Curse of the Billy Goat and shed the label of the “Lovable Losers”.
Prior came out throwing flaming fastballs and biting curveballs. As my buddy Andrew and I watched the game from the third baseline, I told myself, “Prior is throwing the game of his life, there is no way we’re losing this game!”
Thanks to the sheer brilliance of Mark Prior, timely hitting, and great defense, the Cubs took a 3-0 lead into the 8th inning. The inning started innocently enough as Todd Hollingsworth flied out to Moises Alou in leftfield. Five outs to go. 39,000 screaming Chicagoans rose to their feet, and an involuntary tingling shot up my back as I began to comprehend the magnitude of what I was witnessing.
This feeling only lasted a brief moment, however, as Marlins centerfielder Juan Pierre roped one into the right-centerfield gap for a double. Still optimistic, the fans rose again, attempting to will Prior to victory.
Prior rifled a fastball down the middle, and Luis Castillo cracked a fly ball down the leftfield line. I held my breath for a moment, and exhaled as it appeared Moises would be able to get there.
Alou stretched his glove over the leftfield wall to make the play, but the ball never got there. A fan, later identified as a man named Steve Bartman, stuck his hand out and knocked the ball from Alou’s grasp.
Alou slammed his glove into the turf and Dusty furiously pleaded his case for fan interference to the umpire. Prior, irrevocably rattled by the chaos, proceeded to give up eight runs that inning in the greatest collapse in Cubs history.
The ensuing pandemonium felt surreal. Grown men sobbed in the street, and had it not been for twelve city policemen in full riot gear, Steve Bartman probably would have died that night. In typical Cubs fashion, they went on to lose game seven, shattering the dreams of millions in the process.
A little part of me died that night, and my attitude towards baseball is now comparable to that of a middle-aged man’s attitude towards life after a divorce. Deserted and confused, I am stuck in no man’s land.
I curse Dusty Baker and the rest of the 2003 team for tempting me with the taste of success. The tantalizing experience stole from me the contented bliss I could once feel watching the Cubs lose in peace. 2004 somehow proved nearly as agonizing as 2003: the Cubs lost eight of their last ten games to choke away a spot in the playoffs.
In 2004, the Red Sox won their first title in eighty-six years; in 2005 the hated White Sox won their first title in eighty-eight years. These were the third and second longest World Series droughts respectively. If the trend continued, this would be the year the Cubs finally bring home a World Championship.
I would pray to God to bring the much-deserving fans of the real Chicago team their first World Series title in ninety-eight years, but last night I witnessed Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo, a lifetime .073 hitter, blast the go-ahead homerun to hand the Cubs their first defeat of the 2006 season. With the sheer horror of this latest episode fresh in my mind, I am confident that even God cannot remedy the incurable woes of the Chicago Cubs.
