The World Champion Chicago Cubs
"There's always next year" turns out to be 2016
Deploying almost everyone in uniform in relief, the Cubs reclaimed the title of World Series Champion defeating Cleveland, 8-7. The seventh and final game in the best of 7 series went 10 innings. Even then, it seemed to require the direct intervention of the heavens and a delay of game rainstorm to slow Cleveland's late momentum and invite the lads in Cubbie blue to regroup in the clubhouse and upon retaking the field claim the W and a leap for joy.
The Cleveland team and fans were gracious in defeat. Their team competed well. In the end, the Indians were edged out by the prayerful intercessions of thousands of Chicagoans like my late father and father-in-law who lived and died without ever having their boyhood dreams of a Cub Series victory materialize.
My children came to know their grandfathers by their Cub affinities. One of the grandpa’s – Papa Joe as the kids called him -- endearingly excused himself to lie down and rest whenever a past Cub defeat was mentioned. My own father was more inclined to send detailed handwritten coaching notes to the Cubs’ management, some of whom Dad called “fish-hooks” meaning cheap. (“When asked to dig into their pockets, their hands would come out so quickly you would think there were fish hooks in there,” Dad explained). During some years, it seemed to my Dad, Cub owners spent less on the team than old man Wrigley dished out testing a new gum. Wrigley wasn’t the sole owner during the winless decades, as the Cub organization was touched by everything from bad real estate ventures to newspaper bankruptcies.
Nonetheless, we held onto "there is always next year" for our own consolation and to keep faith with our ancestors.
Year upon year, north-siders, as Cub fans are known in Chicago both because of Wrigley Field’s location and to avoid any chance of being confused with the sometimes insufferable White Sox fans of south Chicago. The Sox did have more success in the American League than the Cubs in the National, and annoyingly, there was just a little too much charitable “there, there” understanding in their voices.
For decades, Cub fans would hope to redeem the “next year” coupon. With even greater certainty than an Illinois governor serving jail time, after a long cold Chicago winter, any hint of spring would nourish renewed Cubbie dreaming. From opening day in April onward, Wrigley would be filled to its upper decks, which always brought to my mind the question: why aren’t these people at work?
A few years ago, south-sider, Sox-fan Obama asked this north-sider Cub-fan to head up a diplomatic mission. During the following ambassador years I would give Cub caps to the heroic migrant families we were able to save from the sea between Malta, Italy and North Africa. The families cherished that quirky gesture. It was likely – nay, certain – that few of the migrants knew of, let alone understood, baseball. Yet, these Eritreans, Somalis, Nigerians and others perceived the cap as an easy first step to fit in culturally, and they embraced it with pride.
Helping resettle those desperately fleeing violence and starvation has become complicated politically, and suspect, thanks to the risk of ISIS infiltration.
The World Series offered the nation a chance to escape the venomous presidential contest. Watching the Series with my sons and some of their friends, one of them remarked at how ugly the political ads were in comparison to the competitive, but healthy, spirit being played out on the field
Baseball remains "America's game," and for me, the Cub's remain “America's team." In the face and anxiety of the unknowns of November 8, both the game and the team inspire optimism. It is by keeping up the late Ernie Banks "let's play two" attitude that we are reminded of how important we are to each other and how challenging an opponent can be, without being in the least uncivil.
The Cubs have persevered to show us what a genuine victory looks like; it comes not by belittling your opponent, but by understanding the source of an opposition’s strength and an illustration of a better way. And even in that demonstration of a mastered, superior skill there is affirmation that in our different uniforms, we remain the same. Para-phrasing best-selling author Jodi Piccoult “when there is a tear in the fabric of which I happened to be made, the only color thread that matches to stitch it back up is you.”
My boys hugged their father when the Cubs triumphed, and the strength of their embrace was powerful enough to reach a century and eight years back, such that my father too was present for a moment well deserved, and much needed.