My brother Jay and me standing outside Wrigley Field.
PUBLISHED: October 18, 2004 (12 years before the Cubs won the World Series title)
Losing is easy when you’re used to it
There’s something tranquil about losing. Especially when it happens all of the time.
What’s the point of winning anyway? What do you really get for capturing the World Series crown? Flat champagne and a nasty headache. Face it. After winning there’s only one direction — downhill, that inevitable fall from grace.
Trust me. As a diehard Chicago Cub fan for the past 45-odd years, ever since sentient feelings began to crackle through my nervous system, I have welcomed defeat, knowing it will eventually come.
And really, what’s wrong with losing the seventh game of the National League playoffs? It’s not that Cub fans are accustomed to unfurling pennants. It’s been nearly a century since the Cubs last won a World Series. We have made defeat the national pastime, not baseball.
To follow the Cubs is a solitary act of defiance, sprinkled with highs and buried by lows. Wednesday night was no exception. You sit there alone with your thoughts, staring blankly at the television screen as the Marlins hurl themselves atop each other in a celebratory mosh pit. You are a Buddha with a blue Cubs’ hat on, contemplating nothing in particular because if you do, the veins in your neck might explode.
Yes, to be a diehard Cub fan, you must accept the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, accepting the interference of a hapless fan on a foul pop fly with a shrug of the shoulders. Yes, even with a smile.
But to enter the diehard ranks, you need to fulfill one very important task. You must make a pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine, the Valhalla of Cub misery — Wrigley Field. It’s sacred ground. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Holy Grail is stuck somewhere in the green ivy in right center field.
Growing up in the Chicago area, I spent many afternoons watching the Cubs getting caught in rundowns, leaving runners in scoring position and bringing in a relief pitcher who promptly would load up the bases on three straight walks, only to hit the next batter and bring in the eventual winning run. How do you script losses like that?
Wrigley Field is like no other. It’s smack dab in the middle of a bustling city, the one Carl Sandberg called “hog butcher of the world.” It’s squeezed amid tenement flats, bars and Vienna sausage stands.
It’s not one of those cavernous modern-day sports complexes with acres upon acres of parking, a million seats and an electronic scoreboard that does everything except tell you the score. At Wrigley, the scoreboard is hand-operated, you can’t fit the city of Yakima in its bleachers, and the best parking spot is in an alleyway. That’s baseball, folks. No silver lining, no pampering, nada.
I first stepped into Wrigley as an 8-year-old back in the 1950s. It was a sensory explosion. Back then, before smoking became a federal offense, you were greeted by a thin cloud of cigar smoke that wafted gently over you. It was like being blessed by holy water, except this time it came courtesy of a well-chewed Roi-Tan.
Then there’s the green. What a vision, like seeing Dorothy’s Emerald City for the first time. The outfield grass was so finely manicured it looked fake.
But the ivy. Ah, that’s the coup de grace, the showstopper. I marveled at its beauty. What a tapestry, what a tangle, what a way to get a ground-rule double. Only at Wrigley.
Finally, there’s the fabled catwalk in the corner of left field. It runs for 20 feet or so and serves as a gangway between the outfield bleachers and the grandstands along the third-base line.
One Cub player, in particular, loved that catwalk. He was Ernie Banks, one of the great shortstops of all-time and the Cubs’ most famous ambassador of goodwill. To the dismay of the opposing pitcher, Banks would take his familiar stance at home plate, his wrists cocked in an oblique angle, and then “nine-iron” a low, inside fastball out of the park, just far enough to reach the catwalk in left. There, it would rattle around in the fenced walkway until some lucky fan would clutch it in his hands and raise it up for everyone to see. Banks owned that catwalk.
Going to Wrigley, of course, is more than just notching another loss on your infielder glove (yes, I always took mine to the games). It’s about the memories.
One of my best times at Wrigley happened when I was 10 years old. I was there with my big brother Jay, and it was a doubleheader. Our last-place Cubs faced their bitter rivals, the Milwaukee Braves.
The stadium was packed, as it always was when the Braves came to town. We were forced to find a seat in the upper deck, the first time we had ever ventured into Wrigley’s Stratosphere.
We sat on the stairs and watched as the Braves sent Warren Spahn to the mound. Henry Aaron and Eddie Matthews were also in the lineup, all future Hall of Famers. We answered back with our only superstar, Ernie Banks at short. It was hardly a fair fight.
Sure the Cubs lost two that day. Spahn threw a shutout and Aaron went deep. But who cared. We thrilled at the chance just to be there, gulping down an Orange Crush or two and tossing peanut shells into the sultry summer air.
My brother is no longer alive, but the memories still are of that day years ago. It’s my piece of Wrigley that will always be with me. If I close my eyes, I am there, just the two of us, our knees knocking together, high in the upper deck, a step closer to heaven, where the ivy never fades and where Ernie Banks just might swat one to the catwalk in left, the ball falling gracefully like a dove descending.
PUBLISHED: October 18, 2004 (12 years before the Cubs won the World Series title)
Losing is easy when you’re used to it
There’s something tranquil about losing. Especially when it happens all of the time.
What’s the point of winning anyway? What do you really get for capturing the World Series crown? Flat champagne and a nasty headache. Face it. After winning there’s only one direction — downhill, that inevitable fall from grace.
Trust me. As a diehard Chicago Cub fan for the past 45-odd years, ever since sentient feelings began to crackle through my nervous system, I have welcomed defeat, knowing it will eventually come.
And really, what’s wrong with losing the seventh game of the National League playoffs? It’s not that Cub fans are accustomed to unfurling pennants. It’s been nearly a century since the Cubs last won a World Series. We have made defeat the national pastime, not baseball.
To follow the Cubs is a solitary act of defiance, sprinkled with highs and buried by lows. Wednesday night was no exception. You sit there alone with your thoughts, staring blankly at the television screen as the Marlins hurl themselves atop each other in a celebratory mosh pit. You are a Buddha with a blue Cubs’ hat on, contemplating nothing in particular because if you do, the veins in your neck might explode.
Yes, to be a diehard Cub fan, you must accept the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, accepting the interference of a hapless fan on a foul pop fly with a shrug of the shoulders. Yes, even with a smile.
But to enter the diehard ranks, you need to fulfill one very important task. You must make a pilgrimage to the hallowed shrine, the Valhalla of Cub misery — Wrigley Field. It’s sacred ground. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Holy Grail is stuck somewhere in the green ivy in right center field.
Growing up in the Chicago area, I spent many afternoons watching the Cubs getting caught in rundowns, leaving runners in scoring position and bringing in a relief pitcher who promptly would load up the bases on three straight walks, only to hit the next batter and bring in the eventual winning run. How do you script losses like that?
Wrigley Field is like no other. It’s smack dab in the middle of a bustling city, the one Carl Sandberg called “hog butcher of the world.” It’s squeezed amid tenement flats, bars and Vienna sausage stands.
It’s not one of those cavernous modern-day sports complexes with acres upon acres of parking, a million seats and an electronic scoreboard that does everything except tell you the score. At Wrigley, the scoreboard is hand-operated, you can’t fit the city of Yakima in its bleachers, and the best parking spot is in an alleyway. That’s baseball, folks. No silver lining, no pampering, nada.
I first stepped into Wrigley as an 8-year-old back in the 1950s. It was a sensory explosion. Back then, before smoking became a federal offense, you were greeted by a thin cloud of cigar smoke that wafted gently over you. It was like being blessed by holy water, except this time it came courtesy of a well-chewed Roi-Tan.
Then there’s the green. What a vision, like seeing Dorothy’s Emerald City for the first time. The outfield grass was so finely manicured it looked fake.
But the ivy. Ah, that’s the coup de grace, the showstopper. I marveled at its beauty. What a tapestry, what a tangle, what a way to get a ground-rule double. Only at Wrigley.
Finally, there’s the fabled catwalk in the corner of left field. It runs for 20 feet or so and serves as a gangway between the outfield bleachers and the grandstands along the third-base line.
One Cub player, in particular, loved that catwalk. He was Ernie Banks, one of the great shortstops of all-time and the Cubs’ most famous ambassador of goodwill. To the dismay of the opposing pitcher, Banks would take his familiar stance at home plate, his wrists cocked in an oblique angle, and then “nine-iron” a low, inside fastball out of the park, just far enough to reach the catwalk in left. There, it would rattle around in the fenced walkway until some lucky fan would clutch it in his hands and raise it up for everyone to see. Banks owned that catwalk.
Going to Wrigley, of course, is more than just notching another loss on your infielder glove (yes, I always took mine to the games). It’s about the memories.
One of my best times at Wrigley happened when I was 10 years old. I was there with my big brother Jay, and it was a doubleheader. Our last-place Cubs faced their bitter rivals, the Milwaukee Braves.
The stadium was packed, as it always was when the Braves came to town. We were forced to find a seat in the upper deck, the first time we had ever ventured into Wrigley’s Stratosphere.
We sat on the stairs and watched as the Braves sent Warren Spahn to the mound. Henry Aaron and Eddie Matthews were also in the lineup, all future Hall of Famers. We answered back with our only superstar, Ernie Banks at short. It was hardly a fair fight.
Sure the Cubs lost two that day. Spahn threw a shutout and Aaron went deep. But who cared. We thrilled at the chance just to be there, gulping down an Orange Crush or two and tossing peanut shells into the sultry summer air.
My brother is no longer alive, but the memories still are of that day years ago. It’s my piece of Wrigley that will always be with me. If I close my eyes, I am there, just the two of us, our knees knocking together, high in the upper deck, a step closer to heaven, where the ivy never fades and where Ernie Banks just might swat one to the catwalk in left, the ball falling gracefully like a dove descending.
