© Mike Royko - October 6, 1989
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| photo credit: benihana03 ©2006 |
We were several blocks from the ballpark and the crowd had scattered, so there were few others on the quiet street.
Suddenly the father and son stopped. The boy had his head down and a hand over his eyes. As I caught up with them, I could see that he was sobbing.
The father dropped to one knee, put his arm around his son's shoulders, and said: "Hey, it's okay. Come on, it's not over yet. They can come back tomorrow. It's just one game. You watch, they can do it."
For a moment, I considered stopping and saying something. Then I decided not to intrude on so private a moment, and I kept walking toward the neighborhood corner bar.
Over a cold one, I thought about what I might have said if I had stopped. Not to the boy, but to the father. I would have told him: “What kind of father are you, lying to your son? For that matter, why did you bring him here in the first place, causing him to suffer?
“You should be prosecuted for abuse and neglect and jailed for inflicting what will probably be a lifetime of suffering, depression and disappointment on a helpless child.
“For shame! You are no better than a drug pusher. And you must forever bear the guilt of having placed the terrible Cubs monkey on that innocent lad’s frail back.”
Of course, the father might not be entirely to blame. Chances are that his father did the same thing to him. This type of cruelty is usually passed along, from generation to generation.
Take my late father. He was not without vices. He sometimes drank, gambled, brawled and had an eye for a shapely leg. I could forgive him these minor character flaws.
But to this day, I cannot forgive him for taking me to Cub games at an impressionable age, hooking me on Herman, Hack, Jurges, Nicholson and Cavarretta. And telling me tales of Grimm, Hornsby, Wilson, Stephenson and other earlier heroes.
He didn’t tell me that I was going to have to live through Smalley, Jeffcoat, Miksis, Chiti, Dave Ding Dong, ‘69 and ‘84.
That’s why, while I made mistakes as a parent, I did one thing right. I didn’t raise my kids to be Cub fans. When they were tiny, I would point at the TV and say: “See those vines on the outfield wall? You know what’s in those vines? Big, black, mean spiders and other crawly things.”
So today, as young adults, they wouldn’t dream of skipping a Beethoven concert or an Eric Clapton performance for a Cub game. What the heck, Beethoven is already dead, so what’s there to cry about?
Oh, they have a casual interest. But when this season ends, they will not have shed a tear or lost a night’s sleep over a ball game.
Some might say I deprived them of the thrills, excitement and suspense of a baseball season. Maybe. But unlike hundreds of thousands of other Chicagoans, when they awoke Thursday morning, they weren’t suffering from melancholia, mumbling about Will Clark, or praying for a West Coast earthquake.
No, that man was not doing his sobbing kid any favor. And if he happens to read this, I suggest he heed this song (with apologies to Willie Nelson):
Daddies, don’t let your babies grow up to be Cub fans.
Don’t let them get snared into lifelong nightmares,
Let them play guitars, go bowling or such.
Daddies, don’t let your babies grow up to be Cub fans,
‘Cause they’ll never lose hope and it’s worse than most dope, even with one out to go.
So I say to that young father and to others like him: It’s probably too late for you. But it isn’t too late for your kids. Wean them away or don’t let them get started. When they grow up, they’ll be grateful.
I know it isn’t easy. But isn’t it better than seeing a small boy standing there, heartbroken and crying?
For that matter, as the bartender said as he dabbed my nose with a bar rag: “It ain’t easy seeing a grown man cry.” He also said: “Hey, there’s still time. They can do it.”
The fool. Of course, if Dawson gets hot, and Sutcliffe comes through, and. . . .
Pa, see what you did to me?
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