Intervention For a Cub Fan

I expected a bachelor party.  Ain't nothing like an Old Style too many and a parade of strippers to forget what just happened.  Instead, there sat my family and some hippie chick with a psychiatry degree.

"We're here to help you, J.C."

They locked the doors and suddenly I had to face my lose-lose addiction to a baseball team head-on.

Millions of Americans suffer from addiction.  Most need help to quit.

I sat down and buried my head in my hands.  My mother removed my Cubs hat and set it on her lap.  "It's okay, son."

Many Cub fans become addicted due to a phenomenon known as Cubs Optimism Addiction.  COA produces a "high" of hope throughout the baseball season followed by a fit of depression, hopelessness, and self-constructed existential crisis.  COA can cause an individual to express extreme irrationality, both in placing expectations and relieving the anger.

"I don't understand why I'm here. I'll be fine."

"J.C.," my brother Alex said, "you spent three hours this morning staring at preprinted World Series tickets and crying."

"I just don't understand!" I yelled, straining to hold back hysteria.

J.C. has been a fan of the Chicago Cubs since birth. His mother would often dress him in Cubs clothing while his father and older brother taught him to say "Dernier."

"We're all here today because these people have seen what this baseball team is doing to you and they want it to stop."

"Where's dad?" I asked.

"Dad is..." my sister Gwen fumbled for the words.

"Your father," said the hippie, "has agreed to a recovery stint at the local country club."

J.C.'s father would sit for hours and watch the Cubs with his son.  WGN would often be left on, even between games.  It served as an important "bonding" element between the father and his children.

"Your mother has something she would like to say.  Do you want to hear it?"

I said nothing.  I knew what was coming and I didn't want to hear it.  I quickly tried to find consoling thoughts: brilliant rainbows arching over verdant Spring fields and the fact that the Cardinals and Mets didn't even make the playoffs.  Such comforts have their limits.

She pulled out a stack of paper handwritten and smeared with 30 years worth of anguish.  She rattled off the moments one by one and images of goats, black cats, Steve Garveys, and avid 26-year old fans haunted my conscious.

Many Cub fans suffer from delusional thoughts which cause them to redirect their ire at items unrelated to the actual game of baseball in order to rationalize their pain.  Often they will go through ridiculous rituals, such as blowing up a baseball in public, in order to "cleanse" the franchise of its "curse."

"Well, what's this year's excuse?" inquires the hippie.

I struggled to make something up.  "You just don't understand!" I said.

"Yes, I do," said the hippie.  "I was a Cubs fan for twenty-six horrific years. I watched a complete meltdown with three Hall-of-Famers on the roster."

"Four, and it was nothing compared to what happened in '03."

"Stop!" my sister Gwen screamed and cried.  "Don't you see what you're doing?  It's just one endless cycle of misery, year after year."

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