Althouse: "If the Cubs would’ve won it when I was, say, 3 years old, the rest of my fandom wouldn’t have been imbued with a greater, Sisyphean meaning."

October 26, 2016

"If the Cubs would’ve won it when I was, say, 3 years old, the rest of my fandom wouldn’t have been imbued with a greater, Sisyphean meaning."

"So, on my deathbed, yes, I should want nothing else than to cash in [on the 'American option — a piece of paper we Cubs fans carry around in our pocket and turn in at the bliss counter one day when they Win the World Series']."

24 comments:

mccullough said...: Typical Cubs fan. Young and ignorant.; 10/26/16, 12:05 PM
Meade said...: I don't believe he's a genuine Cubs fan. The tell is in his referring to them as "the Cubbies."; 10/26/16, 12:06 PM
MadisonMan said...: My hope is that Cub fans will STFU if they win. Or if they lose.; 10/26/16, 12:06 PM
Meade said...: Reminds me of Barack Obama fondly recalling his time spent at "Cominsky" Park.; 10/26/16, 12:09 PM
Big Mike said...: @Meade, you caught that, did you?

I was a kid living in Illinois back in the days of Ernie Banks. Now there's a guy who deserved to be in the World Series.

At any rate they're not off to a good start.; 10/26/16, 12:13 PM
rehajm said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/26/16, 12:14 PM
CWJ said...: A Cubs win simply means they're now just one more team that's won a WS. Look at the White Sox. Similar level of frustration, but now just another team. A lot of the Cubs identity will evaporate with a win. But yeah winning is more fun.; 10/26/16, 12:18 PM
rehajm said...: 'So, on my deathbed, yes, I should want nothing else than to cash in on the American option...'

Cashing in on your deathbed sounds more like a European option, which can only be exercised at expiration.

It's funnier, anyways.; 10/26/16, 12:18 PM
Bricap said...: Meade, I have heard Comiskey pronounced as you say Obama pronounced it, but that is often part and parcel of a native South Side accent, and not from a transplant. I do remember when Obama said "Comiskey Field," however. Not quite as bad as Kerry referencing the mythical "Manny Ortez" in the wake of the Red Sox' big vicotry, but still bad enough.; 10/26/16, 12:21 PM
CWJ said...: "Cominsky Field," Meade.; 10/26/16, 12:25 PM
Meade said...: Here's Obama the Sox fan.

How Obama the phony lost me.; 10/26/16, 12:31 PM
Meade said...: "Cominsky Field," Meade.

Yes, well, I grew up an admirer of Luis Aparicio but a fan of the Cubs. Until I moved to Cincinnati in 1974 and learned to love the Big Red Machine.; 10/26/16, 12:35 PM
Wilbur said...: A life-long Cub fan, I lived through and learned from the crash and calamity of 1969 (and '70, '71, and '73, which no one but a real fan remembers). I learned the hard but useful lesson that to invest your emotions in the fortune of any sports team is a foolish thing to do.

My life will not change an iota if the Cubs win the World Series. People don't like to hear this harsh reality because they feel it's attacking them and their way of thinking, but it's true nonetheless. So I follow sports with great interest and very little emotion. It works for me. You don't want to? Knock yourself out.

I think the current owners and management team have done a great job putting this team together, and I fully expect the success to continue for years. I just wish they'd end the "celebrity conductors" for the 7th inning stretch and the ridiculous song they blast after the Cubs win. Both are obnoxious off the scale.; 10/26/16, 12:36 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: If the Chicago Cubs win the World Series, Hillary Clinton will lose the election. That's the Kerry rule, but does it apply here?; 10/26/16, 1:10 PM
mezzrow said...: When I sing the seventh inning anthem, I sing "let's all root for the Cubbies." That's about it, for that particular diminutive. I'm more Eamus Catuli. I picked up my affliction about the same time Meade picked his up in Cincinnati, for which he has paid dearly this year.

Anything's still possible, and I just watch.; 10/26/16, 1:23 PM
CWJ said...: No Meade, I was saying that "Field" is what Obama said, not Park. Park is correct. I was only correcting your incorrect quote of Obama's even more incorrect comment. Thereby correctly capturing the full incorrectness of the original.

BTW, my boyhood hero was Nellie Fox so between us we have that legendary pairing complete. I guess that makes us baseball brothers, or something.; 10/26/16, 1:41 PM
Roughcoat said...: Northsider here, Cubs fan from birth. Took the el to Wrigley with my pals in the 50s when I was 8 years old or thereabouts (the world was safer and saner back then); dad gave me the few bucks needed for a ticket and a couple of dogs, enjoined me to be home when the streetlights came on, and I was off. Had a big color photo of Ernie taped to my bedroom wall. Listened to (on transistor radio) and had my heart broken by the 69 Cubs while trimming hedges on the Northwestern University campus, working my summer job for the Building and Grounds Dept. I maintain that Jack Brickhouse is and always will be the real voice of the Cubs. Got misty-eyed when they won the last one with L.A. to get into the Series. I love the new song and when I jumped up to sing it after they got the double play to win my border collies got so excited they started barking (rare for a border collie) and tried to herd me back to the couch. Greatly enjoying this seasons, more than words can say. My heart is full. Go Cubs go.; 10/26/16, 1:51 PM
Roughcoat said...: Also attended Sox games in the 50s. Remembering the night in 1959 (it was a night game) when the Go-Go Sox managed by Al "The Senior" Lopez won the Pennant and the Chicago Fire Dept. chief/commissioner set off the air raid sirens in celebration. My brother and I were in bed and when the sirens went off we got up all wide-eyed and scared and asked our parents if an atomic war with the Russians had started.

In those days during the World Series the teachers would set up televisions in elementary school classrooms to watch the games. It was a big deal, the World Series, and a very special occasion for the new medium of TV broadcast. Ken Kesey made the nascent tradition of watching the Series on a TV a centerpiece scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -- a scene that rang true.; 10/26/16, 2:01 PM
SukieTawdry said...: My husband is a Dodger fan. There's no love for the Cubbies in my house.

I was on a Chicago River excursion once (which I highly recommend--the architecture is fabulous) when a guy wearing a Cubs 1908 World Champions shirt sat down across from me. I looked at his shirt and then looked up at him, we both smiled and he kind of shrugged. Then I took my Yankees cap out of my tote and put it on and watched while the smile faded and a look of genuine hostility took its place. I try to reinforce the Yankee fan stereotype whenever I can.; 10/26/16, 2:14 PM
buster said...: I saw Ernie Banks hit an in-the-park homer against the Pirates at Forbes Field. What an athlete.; 10/26/16, 2:59 PM
Big Mike said...: Baez looks like he's dressed for a trip to the North Pole.; 10/26/16, 6:42 PM
HT said...: By the Redskins rule (in effect this year as we won last home game before the election), the incumbent party holds.; 10/26/16, 7:56 PM
HT said...: I notice tonight, they dropped the CHC and went with the correct CHI.; 10/26/16, 9:05 PM
Curious George said...: "buster said...
I saw Ernie Banks hit an in-the-park homer against the Pirates at Forbes Field. What an athlete."

baseball-reference.com says no you didn't. Says he hit two, both at Wrigley. Don Kessinger, Cubs SS in the 60's and 70's hit two in Forbes. It was the easiest park to do it in with that crazy deep CF.; 10/27/16, 4:22 PM