I'm not exactly what you'd call a sports fan, and I realize I'm a couple days late on this (for those of you living under a rock). I won't regale you with my take on the Chicago Cubs victory over the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series, which was nothing short of a storybook ending to an already successful season. I won't layout all of the coincidences tied to this series, or the historical tid bits over the last 108 years. I just want to give a sigh of relief, a nod of satisfaction and relate to you the words of an old Cub fan.
The Cubs club has not always been the first to do something; Wrigley (1914) is only the 2nd oldest continuously operated field behind Fenway (1912), and wasn't even original built for the team (it was built for the Chicago Whalers, a defunct team). In fact, the Cubs aren't even the oldest team - the Boston Red Stockings (now the Atlanta Braves) were enfranchised in 1871, three years before the Chicago White Stockings (now the Cubs). So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the most recognized Cub fan, late announcer Harry Caray, whose face is painted on the press box at Wrigley, wasn't originally a Cub fan, wasn't born in Chicago, and only announced at Wrigley sixteen of his fifty-two year career.
In any case, something about the Cubs, something about Harry Caray, and something about the 108 years without a Championship, including 71 years without even seeing a pennant, drew fans close to their club. And that's the interesting part, because that's the thing that takes a guy like me - a non-sports fan - as well as millions of other people back to a time when this country was an entirely different beast. It takes us back to a time when a sport as low impact, low key and often low energy as baseball was plenty entertaining without the need for "bigger", "faster" and "stronger" things; when time out in the sun of the ballpark, a drink and a dog could mean such satisfaction.
I often comment about the things we've lost in our country, the culture we've forsaken, the people we've forgotten. I bemoan the buildings that others bring down to replace with things of lesser quality. I even gripe about the way this country has turned into something else our ancestors wouldn't recognize - and not because we've somehow degraded socially, but because we've let ourselves become bloodthirsty and strange.
But at Wrigley, watching the Cubs, feeling the breeze, out among the fans of an old American pastime, we somehow resurrect our beautiful heritage, which, like some religious deity begging us to remember it, brings us closer to divinity than anything else could. I know...it sounds ludicrous. It sounds like something a "sports fan" would say. But I dare you to find a means of coming back to your ancestors without religion; I dare you to find an America buried in something not already tarnished by violence and lies. Watching baseball may be the last thing we have left. And watching the Cubs win a World Series after 108 years may be the only thing reminding us that we Americans are still great somewhere deep down, that we haven't entirely lost our way, that we are OK. We don't need the bitter conspiratorial ramblings of some pseudo-nationalist pretend politician, or the cackling of his leering do-gooder opponent. We don't need the constant bloodshed we're imposing throughout the world. We don't need the hatred and lies that we cling to. We need a goddamn Cubs victory - finally - to know we can do it, we can get through this, we can be the great things we thought we could be, even in the face of a century of pain.
That's some pretty heady bullshit, so I'll leave you with something a little more touching. As the Cubs finished their final game of the 1991 season, a thinning Harry Caray congratulated the team for their victory over the St. Louis Cardinals and related a message to all Cubs fans that finally rings loud in their hearts. With the Wrigley Field organ playing its last song of the season, and with those few fans leaving from the stands, Caray wondered,
"...too bad we couldn't'a had a victory that meant a pennant. But that will come. Sure as God made green apples, someday, the Chicago Cubs are gonna be in the World Series, and maybe sooner than we think. It seems to me we don't have too much time, it seems the ingredients and nucleus is there, it's just a matter...I don't know who the manager's gonna be...one thing's certain, it requires a veteran manager because this is a veteran team. It's a mixture of guys who are young, but still are veterans. ...From Wrigley Field, until next Spring, God willing, so long everybody."
Rest in peace, Harry Caray. Rest in peace Championship drought. Rest in peace curse of Billy the Goat. And rest in peace all of those fans who had waited so long to see the white championship flag with their year run up the pole at Wrigley, but died before it could. We don't have to wait until next year anymore; our North Side boys have finally brought it home, and thank God for it.