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—slow, inevitable, 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—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 depth of it, but I wasn’t alone—and somehow, that made the night feel even more intimate, 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, 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, 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 we 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 totally forgot 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.

Just Wait 'til Next Year!

Today is the day that all true Chicago Cubs fans dread...today is the day that our beloved Cubbies were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs (worst of all, by the hated Cardinals). Today is the day that the season officially ends for all true Northsiders (even if there are still 8 games remaining in the season).

Yes, it is true that the Cubs still have an outside chance at the National League wild card, and yes the remainder of the season schedule is pretty soft, but for a team that came off the 2008 campaign touted as the best team in the National League, 2009 has been nothing but an abysmal disappointment. But why am I disappointed? Am I really disappointed? I mean for the last 40 years, I have felt the same pain and endured the same taunts from Dirtybird fans come October. Is 2009 so different from all of those other seasons?

Now that the season is (nearly) over, I find myself going through my annual ritual of second-guessing my pre-season optimism and trying to answer Skyler Fishhawk's question (with all due respect to Jeff MacNelly, who penned the comic Shoe).

First off, was this year any different? No, not really, I go into every season expecting the Cubs to win it all. Yes, the Cubs won the NL Central title the last two years and so there was some expectation on my part that they'd repeat this year as well, but really history wouldn't bear that out, and even the Yankees and Braves have had some poor seasons in the midst of good runs... Besides, I really can't remember three years in a row where the Cubs had a winning record (so 2007-2008-2009 are good from that perspective).

But from the beginning, personnel issues were clearly going to dominate the 2009 season, and not in a good way. First was the team's decision to trade DeRosa, and then the decision to pick up the mercurial free-agent Milton Bradley. By the way, to everyone who told me that the Milton Bradley acquisition was going to end badly, you have been vindicated (and I'll be the first to admit that I was too Pollyannaish about him), then the whole where do you bat Soriano fiasco. Adding to those sagas were injuries to Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly, Giovani Soto and Alfonso Soriano and you have the makings of a sub-par season (which would be "normal" for us true die-hards). The fact that Lou (as in Pinella) has been a kinder, gentler version of himself, at least in public, is also of some concern.

But still I remain optimistically disappointed...

The drama around Cubs ownership also weighed heavily at the start of the season. Others have compared Sam Zell (current Tribune Co. Chairman, and Cubs owner) to Henry F. Potter, the Lionel Barrymore character in It's a Wonderful Life and I am starting to believe them. If ever there was a question about why the MLB owners get to screen and approve new potential team owners, Sam Zell has to be the answer. So, like most die-hards I crossed my fingers that the sale would be accomplished quickly -- to whom was irrelevant -- practically anyone would be better. But as the bidding dragged on, and the team entered the season with Zell still at the helm (and all of the drama about selling Wrigley Field), I should have realized that things would be the same. Still, I remained confident that this year, 2009, was going to be our year.

With the perspective of 20-20 hindsight, I can see that I had no reason to be optimistic: The facts show that the past off season was perhaps the worst in Cubs history (or at least in my memory) and that the Cubs current ownership is among the worst in baseball. But that wouldn't have deterred me in any case.

I have many fond, albeit bittersweet, summer memories that recall the Cubs failing to live up to my (our) expectations. As a matter of fact, twenty years ago today, I was glued to the television watching the Cubs clinch their last NL East title (during the 1989 campaign). That post season series ended up being dominated by the Giants (and then the World Series by the Loma Prieta earthquake). But the late September days of 1989 were heady times, as have been the late days of the last two seasons (and 1984, and 1998, and 2003...).

Twenty years ago next week, during that fateful series against the Giants, Mike Royko typed his famous column: Sins of the Fathers. The column expresses the life-long, and even generations-long, suffering of Cubs fans everywhere and how our "optimistic pessimism" is passed from parent to child. Royko implores fathers not to pass on the disease of "optimistic pessimism" to our sons, but it is too late for me. I am the Dad telling his son that tomorrow is a new day. And I do believe that there is always next year, and I always will. Royko, and Cardinals fans, may call me a sucker (Royko wouldn't really mean it) but I do have faith that the 2010 season is going to be the Cubbies year.

I am painfully aware that legions of die-hard Cub fans, including Mr. Royko, Mr. MacNelly, and my great-grandmother, have passed from this earth without seeing the Cubs win a world series... and tonight, I find myself disappointed that, once again, my Cubbies won't play into the depths of October.

But, to answer your question Skyler... As painful as it sounds, there is always another next year. For us die-hard Cubs fans, our "next year" starts tomorrow, September 27, 2009. That is the day I will start to dream about April 2010 and the chances for the Cubs to win a World Series after 102 years of drought...

P.S. Oh, and if Tom Ricketts happens to read this, I'd love to help you re-build the team!

This is Our Year!

Whew, boy! Hey-hey! Cubs Win! Cubs Win!! Cubs Win!!!

Day one of the 2009 MLB campaign and the Cubs are in first place with a 4-2 victory over the Houston Astros! A lead-off home-run from Soriano, coupled with "staff ace" Zambrano hurlig 97 pitches over six innings (his control wasn't too bad, 6 Ks to only 3 walks) to get the win, followed by closer Kevin Gregg's first save as a Cub (despite giving up 2 hits and an earned run) made for an exciting opening day game.

Wrigley, a photo by rpongsaj on Flickr.

I know it is too early to start thinking about the playoffs, and after the Cubs collapsed the last two Octobers -- I don't have any right to be optimistic, but despite my common sense, I know this is going to be our year! But, with a rotation that features Carlos Zambrano, Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster, and Rich Harden, the Cubbies will have one of the better starting rotations in the division. I think keeping the starting pitchers healthy will be the key to a successful 2009 season.

Now, I wouldn't be a true Cubs fan if I didn't have a grumble or two, so the one thing I am disappointed about is that Sam Zell and the Tribune Company still own the team. The franchise has been on the auction block for nearly two years, but it looks like the Ricketts family will be the owners sometime this Spring, but the fact that Zell is still in charge is a huge disappointment (maybe more so than the playoff collapse against the Dodgers last October).

At any rate, there is light at the end of the ownership tunnel (finally!) As Tom Ricketts, a native Chicagoan and life-long Cubs fan, stated goal is to “...win a World Series and build the consistent championship tradition that the fans deserve.”  The change in ownership can't come too soon for me.

On the field side of the equation, I am sad that we lost Derosa and Wood.  I know why the Cubs let Kerry go, but really hope that Fontenot will be able to step up and replace Derosa at second base--our losses are Cleveland's gains... That said, the acquisition of Bradley, Gregg and Miles during the off season should be interesting. Jim Hendry is either going to look like a genius, or a complete fool.  I know Bradley was a headcase in Los Angeles (and everywhere else really too), but he can produce offensively, and if Lou can get his head straightened out, so much the better. Overall, I'll say that, on paper, the off-season's plusses certainly outweigh the minuses.

Some offensive tweaks, for a team that had the best 2008 regular season record in the National League, coupled with five Cubs' starters who can be dominant, and a combination of Marmol and Gregg closing out the late innings, means we should be in very good shape this year!

I hate to say World Series title contender in April, but 90 wins should lock up the Central Division and if the bullpen can step up and save some wear-and-tear on the starting rotation, the 101 year drought will be over. I know this is going to be our year!

That is of course, if we can get past the Curse of the Billy Goat, damn you Billy Sianis! Why did you have to go and bring a goat to the World Series?!