Every year they build up my hopes, and every year I think we have a chance. Every year my hopes are crushed, and every year I wonder why I do this to myself.
I am a Chicago Cubs fan.
Anyone who follows baseball knows the Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. But unless you are a die-hard Cubs fan like myself, you have no idea how gut-wrenching it is year after year to see your team flounder at the bottom of the National League Central.
It seems that with the beginning of each new season we have a "chance." On paper, the Cubs always look like they can be a title contender. On the field, they look like a little league team.
This off-season, the Cubs spent more than $300 million, and that hasn't translated into much in this young season. Sure it's early, but then I ask myself, "Why do I keep doing this to myself every year?"
Ever since 2003 when they were just six outs away from the World Series, the Cubs have been ... well terrible. But I still watch every game, when I'm at home in Chicago and I have a free afternoon, I'm at Wrigley Field. When I'm at school and the Cubs play in Cincinnati, I'm there. Win or lose, I cheer until the final out, no matter if they are up 10 runs or down 100. I even bought MLB.tv just so I can watch every game on my computer; I actually paid extra money just to see the Cubs lose.
What's even sadder is that I'm not alone. Cub's fans are some of the most loyal fans of any sports team. Wrigley Field is constantly sold out and alive with energetic supporters of the perennial losers.
So when is our time going to come? Other teams have had great success, but it always seems to elude the Cubs.
I guess the only thing I can attribute to the Cubs being so terrible is that the Curse of the Billy Goat is real. In 1945, the last time the Cubs were in the World Series, a man named Billy Sianis came to Wrigley Field with two tickets to watch the game. He brought his pet goat along with him to watch as well.
Everyone loved the goat; he was wearing a blanket with the words, "We've got Detroit's goat" on it. Sianis and the goat were even allowed to parade around the field before the game. Things were going well.
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However, during the game, team owner Philip Wrigley kicked Sianis and the goat out of the stadium because of "objectionable odor."
As Sianis left he allegedly placed a curse on the entire Cubs organization saying that the team would never win a World Series again or play a World Series game at Wrigley Field. So far he has been right.
And that is why I sit here, a broken man.
In order to keep their hopes up, Cubs fans have cute little slogans to have them forget about the past. When a season starts, "Next year is here," when the season ends, "Wait until next year."
It's a vicious cycle which we have become so absorbed in we don't realize how many years now those two phrases have been uttered.
You see being a Cubs fan means more than just going and watching the games - those are not real fans. The real fans are the people who put everything on the back burner when the Cubs are playing. Nothing else in the entire world matters when the Cubs are on the field playing the great American pastime.
In fact in 2003, during the National League Championship Series, my high school had its homecoming dance. However, they didn't realize that the dance overlapped with game four of the NLCS.
Well the dilemma was pretty clear: take homecoming pictures or sit upstairs and watch the Cubs game. Luckily the rest of the guys in the homecoming group supported my decision and we successfully delayed pictures 45 minutes until the Cubs held a six-run lead and I felt safe enough that the game was in hand.
But even after delaying pictures, being up 3-1 in the series and needing just one win to go to the World Series, the Cubs began playing like the Cubs of old.
Game five in Florida, with a chance to go to the World Series -
they choked.
Two days later, with the Cubs up and just six outs away from making it to the World Series, the curse reared its ugly head in the form of Steve Bartman.
With Moises Alou going up to catch a foul ball, Bartman decided a souvenir was more important than the Cubs going to the World Series.
Chicago lost that game and went on to lose game seven, and that was that. I'm not an emotional person; it takes a lot to get me to cry, but I definitely shed a tear or two that night as the Cubs' season ended.
Life goes on somehow. And every March we prepare ourselves for what could be a winning season. And every September we go back into hibernation, waiting out the winter until the next season begins.
Well this season isn't over yet. I'm still holding strong for my Cubbies. And when they are 19 games back of the division leader come July, I've only got one thing to say: Just wait until next year.
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