I am 46 years old, and I have been a Cubs fan all my life. I was 2 years old when my parents took me to my first game, and I went every year thereafter. By the time I was 10, I was keeping score to every game and listening to Jack Brickhouse’s eternal optimism. I suffered in 1969, yet came back year after year after year, hoping for the best, reveling in the friendly confines, the beautiful ivy, the rooftop apartments (I was lucky enough to live on Waveland Avenue in the ’80s, where I watched almost every game from the rooftop in left field).
I cried last year when the Marlins defeated the Cubs in that heartbreaking Game 6.
Yet there is one thing that I will never, ever do, and that is, degrade my own team. Recently I’ve had to endure the “boos” of so-called Cubs fans who think that Sammy Sosa isn’t doing enough for their team–the same Sammy Sosa who has led the Cubs from obscurity to contender over the past few years. Last year I had to defend the entire city of Chicago because a few pretend fans thought it was cool to threaten and attack an innocent fan named Steve Bartman. And I’m fed up. The joy of being a Cubs fan lies in the eternal optimism, the albeit foolish but endearing belief that this might be the year.
To those of you fair-weather, bandwagon, ignorant non-fans, please, go somewhere else. Cheer for someone else’s team. The Cubs fans I know don’t boo their own players. For the sake of my father, for my father’s father, for Brickhouse, for Ron Santo, for Ernie Banks–please, get off the bandwagon, go home and leave us in peace.
Go Cubs. This is the year!
