The Year Finally Came

For as long as I can remember, being a Cubs fan was less about baseball and more about belief.

Not belief in winning, not really, but belief in the act of believing itself. The kind passed down by fathers and mothers, and the grainy glow of a daytime WGN broadcast. I was born a Cubs fan, but my first memories of being a Cubs fan are from the 1970s, sitting cross-legged on my Granny's living room floor, watching Jack Brickhouse call day games from Wrigley Field. Hey-hey! The sun always seemed to shine a little brighter through those dusty windows, and for a few hours, the Cubs were everything. My mom, my grandparents, they all loved the Cubs. But it was my great-grandmother’s house where that love was sealed. That’s where I learned how to sit still for nine innings and how to hold onto hope even when the standings didn’t make any promises.

Cubs fandom wasn’t a hobby; it was a lineage. And it came with its fair share of heartbreak.

In 1984, I paid a lot of money for tickets to see the Cubs play in the National League Championship Series. They were up two games to none against San Diego and then lost three in a row at Jack Murphy Stadium. I was there. I watched it slip away in real time. Five years later, in 1989, the Cubs were back in the NLCS this time against the Giants. And after San Francisco won the series, I remember feeling something strange: guilt. Because when the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit just before the World Series, a small part of me wondered if it was a sign from God that the Cubs were supposed to win, that the world itself had tried to intervene.

But I kept watching. Always. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, WGN was still my summer companion, and Harry Caray's voice, raspy, joyful, half-in-the-bag by the seventh inning, was the soundtrack to my hope. "It might be... it could be... it is!" he’d shout, and for a few moments, you'd forget how many games back we were. Even in the losing seasons, and there were plenty, I’d find myself drifting back to that kid sitting on the floor at my great-grandmother’s house, watching day games and believing, simply because that’s what we did. We hoped. We waited. And Harry helped make that waiting feel like something close to joy.

Then came the Lou Piniella era, and for a little while, it felt like we were onto something real again. In 2007 and 2008, the Cubs looked like contenders, good ones. They won the division both years; the team was balanced, confident, and tough. I let myself believe, just a little more than usual. But then came the postseason, and with it, the gut punch. Swept out of the NLDS two years in a row, first by the Diamondbacks, then by the Dodgers. The hope I had carefully built was flattened. Not because we lost, but because of how we lost. Swiftly. Quietly. Like we didn’t belong there after all.

Then came 2003. The Bartman Ball. My son and I sat together and watched as the Cubs fell apart against the Marlins. It wasn’t just a loss; it felt like a family wound. I remember wondering, with real fear, if I was just another link in the chain, if generations of my family had lived and died without seeing the Cubs win it all, and if I was about to pass that legacy down to my own kids.

And yet despite everything, I kept watching. I kept hoping.

The 2016 World Series itself was a gauntlet of emotion. The Cubs had finally made it, and after everything, that almost felt like enough. But of course, it wasn’t. Not now. Not when we were this close. Then came the Cleveland Indians, and a series that turned every inning into a cardiac event.

When the Cubs fell behind three games to one, it felt like fate had returned to finish the job. I told myself I’d seen this movie before. That maybe I should spare myself the heartbreak. But I couldn’t not watch. It was like waiting for a train wreck, I couldn’t look away from the slow, the inevitable, the painful.

And then came Game 5 at Wrigley. Elimination night. Lester on the mound, the offense still tight, the crowd a knot of hope and fear. The Cubs scratched out a 3–2 win, barely holding off Cleveland, and you could feel the gears start to turn. Kris Bryant homered. David Ross caught the final out. It wasn’t dominance, but it was life. The kind of game that reminded you why we watch, because even in the darkest moments, there’s always a chance.

Then Game 6 in Cleveland. Arrieta was sharp, the bats came alive, and suddenly the Cubs looked like the team we’d watched dominate the regular season. Bryant went deep. Russell hit a grand slam. The Cubs scored early and often. It wasn’t close. A 9–3 win, the series tied, and all bets were off. They hadn’t just forced a Game 7; they’d swung the emotional pendulum completely. From dread to fire. From “here we go again” to “maybe this is the year.”

Somewhere deep down, I started to believe. Not with bravado. Not with certainty. But with that quiet, familiar flicker that’s carried Cubs fans through lifetimes.

So on November 2, 2016, when Game 7 of the World Series stretched into its tenth inning, it felt less like a baseball game and more like a reckoning. Rain had paused the world, the score was tied, and a century of ghosts seemed to lean in a little closer.

I watched that game from my living room, surrounded by people who weren’t nearly as emotionally invested in the Cubs as I was. They knew I cared, knew it mattered, but they didn’t feel it in their bones the way I did. Still, they watched with me, patiently riding the emotional roller coaster, quietly supportive while I paced, shouted, swore, and occasionally buried my face in my hands. I was alone in the depths of it, but I wasn’t truly alone, and somehow, that made the night feel even more desperate, more personal, like I was carrying the weight of generations all by myself in that room.

The highs and lows of that night were biblical. Fowler’s leadoff homer felt like a miracle. Baez going yard, Ross’s redemption. A 5–1 lead in the fifth. A 6–3 lead in the eighth. And then, suddenly, it started slipping.

Chapman came in overworked, exhausted, and human. And just like that, the ghosts showed up. Davis homered. The game was tied. The stadium in Cleveland thundered, and a familiar voice started whispering in my head: We blew it again.

It wasn’t a thought. It was a reflex. Nearly every ounce of my body was screaming that we’d seen this before, that we’d lived it before Brant Brown, Bartman, black cats, Leon Durham, the curse of whoever you chose to blame. All of it, suddenly alive again in the worst possible way.

But I didn’t turn away. I didn’t shut it off. I just sat there tense, sick, silent, and kept watching. Somewhere beneath the dread, I still hoped. Not in a loud or defiant way. Just a flicker. A little pilot light that had never quite gone out, no matter how many times the wind had tried.

And then the rain came. And the Cubs gathered in the weight room. And something shifted. I don’t know if it was divine intervention or just resilience forged by a century of heartbreak, but when they came back out, they looked different. And then Zobrist. And then Montgomery. And then Bryant grinning as he fielded that final grounder, slipping ever so slightly on the throw, almost too perfectly, Cubs and Rizzo stuffing the ball into his back pocket like a secret he never wanted to let go.

The room erupted, but I just sat there. Not out of disbelief, but because I didn’t want the moment to move past me too quickly. After 108 years, I had learned how to wait.

The next morning, I found myself watching a 30-second Budweiser commercial that had somehow appeared overnight. It featured Harry Caray’s voice, layered over scenes from the night before Bryant to Rizzo, the dogpile, the scoreboard, the roar. I watched it over and over again. Hearing Harry call the Cubs’ World Series victory nearly two decades after his passing, it broke something open in me. That voice was the soundtrack of my summers, of my childhood, of the long, slow decades of hope and heartbreak. And here he was again, calling it home, just like he always did.

That video was the connection I didn’t know I needed to my past, to the generations before me, and to the version of myself who had waited so long for this. I could live inside those 30 seconds. And maybe I still do. The same way a song can pin you to a summer, or a smell can send you back to your childhood bedroom, that video takes me straight to that night. I remember how it felt. I remember how I knew—knew that nothing in baseball would ever mean more than this.

I thought about Wrigley. About the bricks and ivy that had seen so much futility and hope and human comedy. About the way that ballpark holds onto memory like ivy clinging to stone. I thought about all the times I walked into that place and looked out at the field like it was a cathedral. Because for many of us, it was.

The Cubs didn’t just win a championship that night. They untied a knot that had lived in generations of stomachs. They let us feel joy not as an abstract idea or a stubborn hope, but as something real, tangible, and earned. And in doing so, they reminded us why we believed in the first place, not because we thought they’d win, but because we knew what it meant to keep showing up anyway.

There are a million stories from that night, and they’re all true. Mine just happens to be one of them. But the magic of November 2, 2016, is that it belongs to all of us. Every fan who waited. Every parent who passed it down. Every kid who first heard, “Just wait ’til next year,” and somehow believed.

Well, next year came.

And it was everything I dreamed.

Trains, Presidents, and Baseball

A Cross-Country Road Trip with My Daughter

Earlier this month, Kailey and I packed up a rental Toyota Corolla and pointed it East—driving from La Crescenta, California, to Philadelphia, where she would begin medical school at Thomas Jefferson University. It was a practical trip on paper, but we planned to make use of the time to hit touristy things along the road. However, the trip soon became something more: a chance to share time, places, and stories with my oldest child in a way we hadn’t for years.

We set off under the California desert sun, bound not just for Philly, but for a series of mutual passions we’d charted together, natural wonders, national parks, presidential history, and baseball among them. First stop: the Grand Canyon. A classic detour. Entering the National Park, we were greeted by the sight of a family of Moose. We hurried to reach the South Rim of the canyon in time for the "Golden Hour," where I was able to snap a photo of her with the majestic vista of the canyon as the backdrop.  We continued our drive with the intent of seeing the Four Corners Monument, but we misjudged the distance and arrived too late to visit. We continued driving to our first overnight stop in Durango, Colorado, where I talked Kailey into indulging one of my more niche interests, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum. She was a good sport, smiling as I nerded out over old locomotives and track gauges. She even asked a few questions, humoring me like I must have done with my own dad at some point.

The proprietors of the hotel we stayed at directed us on a scenic route through the high desert of the Colorado Plateau, driving through valleys flanked by Colorado's 14ers. We made our way to Salida for lunch beside the Arkansas River’s headwaters, at the Boathouse Cantina. As we enjoyed our lunch, we watched as tubers and a Black Labrador frolicked in the river's gentle rapids before making our way through Monarch Pass and over the Continental Divide, down the Front Range, and across the plains via Interstate 80 to Kansas for our second night on the road. The next morning, we detoured off of I-80 to Abilene. Here we really hit our stride at the Eisenhower Presidential Library. This wasn’t just a dad stop. Kailey and I both have a deep respect for American presidents and the stories that shaped their legacies. We lingered over Ike’s leadership in WWII and the 1950s’ transformation of America, taking it all in like two history buffs on pilgrimage.

After a couple of hours at the library, we decided to push on to St. Louis. Arriving in the early evening, I bought us two tickets to ride the tram to the top of the Gateway Arch, where we caught a few innings of a Cardinals game far below. After a quick stop in the museum gift shop beneath the Arch, we rushed to our car to avoid a thunderstorm rolling in. As we crossed the Mississippi into Illinois, the heavens opened up with some of the heaviest rain and most intense thunder and lightning I have ever experienced. Slowly making our way, we realized we had totally forgotten about dinner.  Kailey found a Steak 'n Shake near our hotel outside Springfield, Illinois, and we enjoyed a meal of burgers and shakes before calling it a day.

The next morning, we made another joint stop: Abraham Lincoln’s Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery, the Lincoln Home Historic Site, and the Illinois State House. This was holy ground for both of us. Lincoln has always been my hero, and Kailey has always been thoughtful and intellectually curious, and watching her engage so seriously with Lincoln’s legacy reminded me of how much we truly share values, interests, and a reverence for history that runs deep.

That afternoon, July 20, 2016, we reached Chicago for a highlight we’d been looking forward to since planning the trip: a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Colon vs. Hendricks. The Mets vs. the Cubs during what would become their curse-breaking championship season. It was sweltering, the energy was electric, and we soaked it all in. Sharing that game with Kailey, shoulder to shoulder in the Friendly Confines, was one of those moments you don’t fully appreciate until much later.

After the game, we cruised through the University of Chicago campus, then headed east again, spending the night in Ohio. The next day, crossing the Ohio/Pennsylvania state line, we neared my last wishlist item: the East Broad Top Railroad in Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania. Sadly, however, it had been closed since 2011, something I hadn’t realized until we arrived. Ever the trooper, Kailey gamely followed me to the Friends of the East Broad Top Museum in Roberstdale, but it too was closed. We laughed off the failed detour and made our way to Duck Donuts in Mechanicsburg to regroup, ice cream and donuts lifting my spirits.

Eventually, we arrived in Philadelphia. Kailey was eager to move into her new apartment and begin this next chapter of her life. Thankfully, her grandparents lived nearby and had furniture to spare. We picked up a U-Haul, conquered IKEA, and even caught a glimpse of the SS United States docked along the Delaware River, a quiet, majestic piece of history just waiting to be remembered. One last fitting tribute.

It took a long day, but between her grandparents and me, we got her settled. I stuck around just long enough to see her begin her journey to becoming a doctor. Not quite ready to finish the trip and return home, I decided to take a walk through Washington Square, Independence Hall, and the Liberty Bell, sites I’d visited before, but which now carried a new emotional weight. They reminded me not just of America’s story, but of mine and Kailey’s.

This trip didn’t just deliver my daughter to medical school. It delivered us back to each other. In between the national parks, presidential libraries, the baseball stadiums, and yes, even the train museums, I saw how deeply we were connected. Kailey may not share my passion for narrow-gauge railroads, but she shares so much else: a curiosity for history, a love of learning, and a reverence for the moments and people that shape our world.

Somewhere between the Grand Canyon and the Gateway Arch, Ike and Lincoln, Hendricks and Colon, I realized the rift that had opened between us during her teenage years had quietly begun to close. Not through a single conversation or dramatic reconciliation, but through something much simpler: miles on the road, shared passions, and time.

Angels, Demons, and the Question I Wasn’t Expecting

I came across my old GoodReads review of Angels and Demons recently. I wrote it in the summer of 2008, and reading it now, I barely recognize the guy who wrote it. Not because the opinions are wrong, but because the review contains nothing. Plot summary, a few complaints about the ending, and a rating. It tells you nothing about why I was reading that book, or what that summer was like.

That summer, I was coaching baseball and going to church. Neither was something I would have predicted for myself.

The baseball part had a natural explanation. My son Ted was playing, and I'm the kind of dad who can't just watch. I'd just taken over as president of Crescenta Valley Little League, which meant fielding long, accusatory emails about whether a ten-year-old played three innings or four. If you've spent any time around youth baseball, you know the drill. The kids are having a blast. The adults are treating a recreational game like Game 7 of the World Series. I was spending so much time managing the adult chaos that I didn't always stop to appreciate what I was actually watching: Ted developing into a real player, game by game, summer by summer. I was keeping score in the wrong column.

The church part was harder to explain.

My parents raised me in the Catholic tradition, though not the daily Mass, every Sunday kind. We went when we went. I never had the full sacramental program run on me, but the Church was still part of the scenery growing up: the liturgy, the ceremony, the sense that something old and serious was happening at the altar. I absorbed more of it than I realized. I just never had a tight grip on any of it, so there wasn't much to walk away from.

What drew me in that summer wasn't a crisis of faith. It was a pastor named Dave Roberts at Montrose Church, just down the road. My kids were in youth groups on Sunday mornings, and rather than sit in the parking lot for an hour, I'd started going to the services. Roberts had been there since 1988. What he'd built was something I didn't expect: the congregation was filled with families I knew from the kids' school, Boy Scouts, and Little League. His sermons weren't just scripture. They were history lessons. What was happening in the Roman Empire when Paul was writing his letters. What the political situation in Jerusalem meant for the people reading the Gospels. He preached context. He made the ancient text feel like a living document.

I found myself looking forward to Sundays in a way I hadn't since I was a kid.

So that's where I was that Fourth of July weekend: spirituality stirred back to something approaching consciousness, history on my mind, managing an All-Star baseball tournament in hundred-degree heat, and refereeing adult nonsense. That's when I picked up Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.

I'd been told it was similar to The Da Vinci Code, which I hadn't read yet. What I hadn't been told was how directly it would walk into the question I'd been quietly turning over for months.

The premise: someone murders a physicist-priest at CERN named Leonardo Vetra. He and his daughter, Vittoria, also a scientist, had been creating antimatter and simulating the conditions of the Big Bang. Vetra's purpose wasn't ambition. He believed that if he could reproduce the moment of creation, he could offer physical evidence of God's existence. Science, in his view, wasn't the enemy of faith. It was a road that led to the same place.

Robert Langdon gets called in, and what follows is a frantic race through Rome and Vatican City chasing a stolen antimatter canister and a string of ritualistic murders tied to the ancient Illuminati. Brown does plot mechanics the way a good pitcher throws heat: fast, relentless, hard to put down. The first 450 pages are genuinely fun. What makes them work isn't just the pacing. It's history. Brown wraps his story around the Illuminati, the Vatican, and Bernini's Rome. He uses historical context the way Roberts used it in his sermons: not as decoration but as what makes the story matter. A different kind of pulpit, but the same instinct.

The last 50 pages are another matter. The story collapses under its own contrivances, wrapping up loose ends in a rush of melodrama that Brown's editors should have sent back for a rewrite. There's also a plot hole that drove me a little crazy. In a world where you can triangulate the signal from a wireless video camera, the canister's location shouldn't be much of a mystery. But I'm a science fiction reader by habit, so suspending disbelief is a professional skill. The weak ending doesn't ruin what came before. It just means the book fell short of what it could have been.

But I kept coming back to Vetra's idea. The scientist-priest who believed the same truth could be approached from two directions.

Growing up around the Catholic tradition, even loosely, the relationship between science and faith carried a particular weight. The Church has a complicated history there. Galileo is the most obvious example, though far from the only one. The faith I grew up around asks for trust in things unseen and unprovable. That's not incompatible with how science works at its edges, but the two don't always sit comfortably together. Roberts had been quietly suggesting something else: that the tension between faith and evidence isn't a contradiction to resolve, but a conversation to keep going. He'd probably like Vetra.

Vetra, a fictional creation in a thriller built around secret societies and ticking antimatter bombs, was trying to hold that conversation. He just blew up in the middle of it.

I'm not sure that was an accident on Brown's part, though he isn't the most theologically subtle writer around. What he understood, well enough to keep me up past midnight on a holiday weekend, is that the God question doesn't go away. It keeps showing up where you don't expect it. In a church parking lot in Montrose. In a book you grab on a whim. In the middle of a baseball season.

That last one lands differently now. Ted's junior year of college baseball just ended with an injury. I've been here before. Back in 2009, I watched a line drive catch him in the knee during the championship game at the Babe Ruth Regional tournament up in Eureka. We drove home the long way that trip, through the redwoods, and I remember standing among those trees thinking that they'd been growing since before baseball was invented and would be standing long after both of us were gone. The game shrinks to its proper size in a redwood forest. It didn't make the loss hurt less. It just put it somewhere you could carry it.

I've been thinking about the summer of 2008 more than usual these past few weeks. The Little League all-stars run. The car rides home. I was so busy managing adult egos that summer that I didn't always appreciate what I was watching. Five years later, I'd be standing in a high school stadium watching him launch a three-run homer in the seventh inning to win a Pacific League title. I didn't know any of that was coming. You never do. You don't ask the God question about the small things until the small things are gone.

Ted's got one more year. I don't know how it ends. But the Cubs look like they might be real contenders this year, which is its own kind of theology. And I keep coming back to Brown and Roberts, two people who share nothing except the instinct to use history to make the present feel like it matters. That's not a small thing when you're sitting in the spring of 2016 trying to figure out what you believe, and why, and what all of it was for.

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Angels & Demons

by Dan Brown

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Angels & Demons is an effective and engaging page-turner that introduces Harvard professor Robert Langdon as he races through Rome and Vatican City to prevent a catastrophe involving stolen antimatter, Illuminati murders, and ancient secret societies. The story takes a while to find its footing, with the first 50 or so pages being heavy on exposition, but once it picks up speed the intricate and fast-paced plot makes it nearly impossible to put down. The novel isn't deep literature, but it succeeds as a fun and easy read. The ending stumbles, but see the full review for details.

Read the original review here.