It started as a purely defensive thing...and then I surpassed all of 'em.

They're my guys!

Heh...and yup...I've got a soft-spot for the underdog.

This is from a few years back (obviously):


Only a Game


Being a transplanted Cubs fan, even though there are tens of thousands of us scattered from Boston to San Diego, from Seattle to Miami, is a lonely thing. From April to September I sit in my living room and watch my loveable losers while everyone else on the block is mowing their lawns. I’m yelling at Dusty Baker for what I see as his unforgivably managerial decisions while my neighbor is out in his back yard, pushing his kids on the swing set that appeared just after Christmas. The sun sinks below the horizon, coloring the evening sky an incredible shade of magenta, streaked through with vibrant purple but I don’t see any of it, too pre-occupied with Gonzales’s wide throw to first with two out and a runner on third that’s going to score on the error.

It’s a full-time obsession. Every April, hope grows and blooms along with the daffodils…and wilts just as quickly, fading as the injuries mount: Sosa out for two weeks with a concussion and then, before he gets his swing back, an ingrown toenail; Choi with another concussion; Prior with a deep bruise to his pitching shoulder; Patterson, lost for the season, is replaced in the lineup by Goodwin who’s hitting over .400 since coming in for Patterson and then pulls a hamstring running – not sliding, running into second base. The DL turns into a WL: “I wish Prior could start in the series with Houston.” “I wish Choi hadn’t been out so long.” “I wish Goodwin was back – he coulda beat that throw.” And on and on it goes. The injuries and the players change from month to month, season to season, but the refrain’s the same.

This year was going to be different. This year was different. This year we had a shot. Despite the injuries and the fielding errors; despite bad calls by umpires and the media frenzy surrounding a broken bat; despite a year of one setback after another – we were winning. Finally. All alone at the top of the Central Division for most of the first half of the season, we were actually winning for once.

And I had tickets.

The week before the game crawled by but eventually each day came to a close and finally it was Saturday. Deborah had picked up my Cubs jersey from the cleaners on her way home from work on Friday but – and I know she meant well – she went too far when she scrubbed all the grime from the sweatband and bill of my cap.

“I just wish you’d checked with me first,” I said when she showed me the cap. I thought I showed admirable constraint.

“But it was just so…filthy,” she wrinkled her nose as though even the memory of it disgusted her. “I don’t see how you could wear that nasty thing. Besides, it looks so much better now. And it’ll be completely dry by morning.”

I wanted to scream at her. I didn’t want it clean! Who cared about clean? I had worn that hat every time we won. That sweat was winning sweat. That grime was ground in from tearing the cap off to cheer – that was good grime. And now it was gone and she didn’t get it. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

I snugged the still-damp cap on my head and settled in to watch the game.

We lost, 8-2.

************

We got up early on Saturday to make the 75-mile drive to the ballpark and get there in time for batting practice. I tried to feel the excitement that I’d felt for the past month, ever since I had picked up the tickets, but instead, there was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“I still don’t get why you’re mad about the cap,” Deborah said. I had tried to explain it to her. You don’t wash ball caps. Especially not lucky ones. You wear them until they either fall apart or your team starts losing. And then you retire them reverently and honorably. You don’t wash them. You don’t throw them away.

We walked the three blocks between the parking lot and the park and I hadn’t trusted myself to say much to her since the night before when she had presented me with my freshly laundered cap. I still didn’t. I tugged on the bill of the cap, adjusting it yet again, and just looked at her. She wasn’t going to get it. Ever. But from now on I’d keep the cap in my truck, safe from her well-meaning fiddling.

If it wasn’t too late.

We found our seats and settled in and, despite the dread I’d felt since the evening before, the excitement of the park started to work its magic on me. Little by little I started to relax. I could feel the enthusiasm begin, first as a little pinpoint somewhere behind my breastbone, then spreading throughout my body. Deborah must have felt it, too. She listened attentively as I explained what was going on down on the field and asked fairly intelligent questions about the scorecard that she found in the program and the starting lineup. She cheered and didn’t duck under the seats when a ball landed in the glove of a little boy sitting in the row behind us.

Then the game began and it started with a bang. Kenny Lofton doubled to the left-field corner on the first pitch he saw and then Sammy hit a ground ball into the gap and brought Lofton home. Alou got on base, advancing Sosa to third and we had runners at the corners when Gonzalez launched a pitch over the wall at straightaway center and then, defensively, Estes went three up, three down. At the end of the first inning Cubs led 4-0.

It was hot, we were in the lead and I’d started to sweat into my hat. Now all I needed was a mustard stain or two to grime up the bill and it might be okay. I headed off to the concessions.

Then it all fell apart. In the bottom of the third, Martinez bobbled a ground ball and then completely missed the throw to second, not only spoiling the double-play but allowing the runners to advance to second and third. Now they had runners in scoring position with no outs and the top of the order coming to the plate. This wasn’t good. Not only that but, in my irritation with Estes giving up a hit to the pitcher, of all people, followed by the error, I kicked the drink holder and sprayed my drink all over myself as well as the guy that was sitting in front of me.

At the end of the third inning, Houston was leading, 6-4, and Estes was still in. What was Dusty thinking? I looked frantically at the quiet bullpen, hoping that maybe if I wished hard enough someone would get up. Farnsworth. Veres. Cruz. Somebody. Anybody. Just get Estes the hell out of there. The Cubs went down in the top of the fourth – one, two, three. A strikeout, a fly ball, and a ground ball to second. Houston scored three more runs in the bottom of the fourth and at last the bullpen was starting to move.

Alfonseca. Of all the pitchers available, Dusty had to call on Alfonseca? He couldn’t pitch his way out of a Little League game any more. Maybe he’d been good in his prime but his prime was long gone. Now he was old and fat and slow and all but put gift bows on his pitches. I slumped down in my seat, wishing I’d never looked.

I tugged the bill of my cap down over my eyes. I didn’t want to watch.

The slaughter continued. Every time the Cubs would threaten, Houston’s manager would go to his bullpen. The threat remained just that. A threat. Meanwhile, stalwart Dusty left Alfonseca in for both the fifth and the sixth innings, finally pulling him after he’d given up two more runs and loaded the bases with only one out in the bottom of the sixth. Then he replaced him with Remlinger who promptly gave up a grand slam.

15-4.

I closed my eyes and hoped for a quick and merciful seventh and eighth inning. I didn’t think we’d make it to the bottom of the ninth.

At last the game ended. 16-6, Houston. We fell yet another game back and now we were four games out of first place. To her credit, Deborah seemed to sense my mood and quietly gathered up our program, the sunscreen and the souvenir cups and then waited for me to rouse myself.

16-6. Four games back, and we were in Houston for two more days. Six games back if things kept going the way they were and, with my hat freshly laundered, there was no reason to believe things were going to get better soon. I slowly stood up and wordlessly followed Deborah down the stairs to street level and out of the ballpark.

“I suppose it could have been worse,” she finally said. I couldn’t believe it. How could it have been worse? I raised my eyes and looked at her and she smiled. She smiled! What was there to smile about?

“Besides,” she kept going. Some people just didn’t know when to shut up. “It’s only a game.”

It was going to be a long drive home.