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BobD (Bobd)
Intermediate Member
Username: Bobd
Post Number: 1581
Registered: 3-2001
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 9:15 pm: | |
I was in Chicago this week on business and brought Thursday's Sun-Times home for my 10-year-old-boy (who didn't miss a pitch of the playoffs). The headline simply read, "HEARTBROKEN" and it had a pic of Kerry Wood on the front page with his chin in his chest walking off the mound.
Cubs and Cubs fans have nothing to be ashamed of... they had a great year. The kid who tried to catch the ball on Tuesday night did what any other kid would try to do... get a souvenir from the NLCS. |
Vince (Manatee)
Member
Username: Manatee
Post Number: 370
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 8:37 pm: | |
I thought this was excellent: Written by Mark Bradley
http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/columns/bradley/index.html
Cubs not only Chicago losers
You've waited all your life for this. You're in the front row. Your team is about to win the pennant your team never wins. You're wearing your Cubs cap and you're following the game on your headset radio and you're counting down the outs until you get to shout "Hallelujah!" and then Luis Castillo slices one your way.
You do what every red-blooded American would do.
And when you sit back down, you wonder if your life is ruined.
You aren't Jeffrey Maier. In New York, the homer-helping Maier is regarded as a hero. (Famous headline: "Angel in the Outfield!") Maier reached over the wall and interfered with a fair ball in play. You did not. You stood at your seat and lifted your arms and became, in that videotaped instant, a civic villain.
Those around you -- your Cub brothers and sisters until Castillo lofted Mark Prior's pitch -- begin cursing you and showering you with beer. You leave your seat accompanied by security. Catching on, you hold your jacket over your face. A guy under the stands tries to rip it away. You've rooted for this forlorn team all your life and now, on your night of nights, you flee the hallowed halls of Wrigley like a felon.
You don't go to work the next day. You go into hiding. Maybe you see this in The Chicago Sun-Times: "Call it the Curse of the Idiot Fan, the Revenge of the Nerd, the Stupidity of the Goof in the Cub Cap with the Headset Radio." In the same righteous tabloid, you can also find yourself described as a "schmo" and a "sad sack." You could be as rich as Bill Gates and as cool as Johnny Depp for all anybody knows, but because you happened to be sitting where Castillo's ball landed you're branded a lifelong loser.
More from the Sun-Times: "[He] looked like he has spent one too many nights keeping score and not enough at Murphy's Bleachers." As if knowing who Ken Hubbs was makes you less fan-worthy than the ability to hoist a few brewskies with those trendy yuppies who gravitate to Wrigley because it's the happenin' place to be.
Your name, naturally, gets plastered across the Internet. Your business card is put up for sale on eBay. Your house -- you live with your parents, it's reported -- is surrounded by TV trucks. Your neighbors give the sort of "He-seemed-like-a-nice-guy-who-kept-to-himself" sound bites voiced by acquaintances of spree killers. Except you didn't kill anybody. You tried to catch a foul ball.
Maybe you hear the governor of Illinois describe this act as "stupid." Maybe you read this from a Tribune columnist: "This young man will almost certainly have to leave town and start again elsewhere if he wants some semblance of a normal life." Tar and feathers? In the year 2003? For trying to catch a freakin' foul ball?
The sainted Prior could have struck out Castillo with the next pitch but did not. The shortstop Alex Gonzalez could have done what he's paid to do, which is field grounders, but did not. The beloved Dusty Baker could have managed more judiciously -- why have Kyle Farnsworth issue two intentional walks? -- but had another of his Game 6 panic attacks. Nobody remembers these failures. They remember you instead. They remember you because Cubs fans are wallowing whiners who can't admit their cuddly team lost because it wasn't good enough to win.
You issue an apology, though none is warranted. You watch Game 7, hoping your Cubs will get you off the hook. Being the Cubs, they don't. They blow another lead, another NLCS. And now you're wondering if you'll ever know another moment's peace. You're wondering if you should move, where you should move. In your time of torment, you should know this:
There are better places to be.
Remember what the Sun-Times proclaimed during the division series? That Cub fans were going to "show a sleepy Southern city how a real sports town acts"?
Way to go, Chicago. You folks sure taught us a lesson.
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