Looking Back at My Life As a Chicago Cubs Fan

A few tears rolled down my cheeks at my in-law's house this morning after church. Nobody noticed, but they did. It wasn't cause for a box of Kleenex to be emptied, nor was it a nose-running mess. But I shed a couple tears today.

In the sports section of the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times, tucked just in back of the box scores in between the hunting reviews and the Bulls, was a full-page ad. It had a nice collage of photos, come marked with the year they were taken, some not, and at the top was a note.

"It has been an honor to have been a Chicago Cub for the last 13 year and to have played in the greatest ballpark, Wrigley Field. My deepest thanks go to my teammates and the Cubs organization for taking a chance on a kid from Texas and welcoming me into the Cubs family.

"Thank you Cubs fans, the greatest fans in all of baseball, for believing in me and supporting me over the years. I will always be proud to have been a Chicago Cub. Although I'm a member of a new 'Tribe.' I will forever be a Chicagoan."

Signed, Kerry Wood.

I saw this page, with pictures of him signing his first contract and the hug he got from Mark Grace after his 20th strikeout, and a couple tears rolled down my cheeks. The note he paid to run in the newspaper thanking me, a Cubs fan, for buying into him for 13 years drew on my emotions. And it made me think.

As I look back on my life, all of which has been as a Cubs fan, I see this formal good-bye from Wood as the end of an era in Chicago that means something to me.

I was born in 1980. Obviously, the first couple years of my life were a blur, have it be from the diaper changing to the puke-and-rally Cheerios binges of an infant, you don't take much with you as far as memories go before a certain age. Some of my earliest memories, though, are of the Cubs.

When I was little, in preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school, I would run home to catch the afternoon games at Wrigley on WGN. I was thrilled to hear Harry Caray tell me about my first hero, second baseman Ryne Sandberg. He was so smooth defensively, and was as good at the plate as any second baseman who's ever played the game.

With the exception of his sabbatical year of 1995, Sandberg was on the field for the Cubs from 1982 to 1997. He was an MVP, the leading vote recipient for the All Star Game, and is in the Hall of Fame. For the first 17 years of my life, Sandberg was the Cubs. But he retired, on his own terms (twice), and left his legacy on the North Side.

When Sandberg left, the torch had to be passed. It was easy for me to move my affections from one hero to another; Mark Grace had been a Cub for much of the same time period. Grace, the luscious lefty with the flowing blonde mullet, broke in with a bang in 1988 and was a staple at first base for the Cubs until 2000.

In the fall of 2000, I was a 20 year-old college student who was playing intercollegiate football and writing for the newspaper. I tracked the Cubs through ESPN and the Internet, and my mother went as far as to FedEx me every week's sports sections from the Chicago Tribune so I could read the local reaction to the games and players.

When Grace left, it was different than with Sandberg. Ryno had hung up the spikes and Golden Glove and walked away from the game. Grace was simply not offered his job back; the Cubs believed they had a better option in Hee Seop Choi.

I own a Sandberg jersey and a Grace jersey. They were my youth. They are icons in my heart. They are why I am a Cubs fan.

But just towards the end of Grace's time in Chicago, a kid from Texas showed up at Wrigley with enough fan fare to make you think it was Tom Seaver's second coming. After just a handful of appearances, on a rainy day in May against the Houston Astros, Kerry Wood stamped his name on the heart of every Cub fan on earth.

If you haven't seen the game Wood pitched the day he struck out 20 Astros, I encourage you to look for some film of it. There are closers in the game today, Francisco Rodriguez, Carlos Marmol, and Bobby Jenks certainly come to mind, that have breaking pitches that make even the best batters in baseball look like middle school kids.

Wood threw the best slider, the best fastball, and the best curveball I have ever seen for nine innings. He wasn't just setting up a couple guys to get out of a two-run lead in the ninth. He did it for an entire game. Craig Biggio was quoted years later as saying it was the best pitched game he had ever seen, and Biggio saw a lot of baseball.

I was a senior in high school when Wood arrived and blew away the Cub faithful. I fell in love with his arm, and the promise that he would take the Cubs, and their fans, to the promised land.

But just as Sandberg had experienced in 1984 and 1989, and just as Grace had felt in '89 and '98, Wood would see the mountain top and then have the avalanche of fate crush his hopes.

In 2003, with Mark Prior playing Robin to Wood's Batman, the Cubs were supposed to do it all. They were within just a few heartbeats of the Series, but never got there.

I am now getting close to my 29th birthday (Feb. 4). As I look back at my life, I see these three distinct eras of Chicago baseball: Sandberg, Grace and Wood. I am older, and perhaps more jaded now as I look at the salaries of players and the politics of the game.

I pray my heart is never hard enough that I lose my love for the Cubs, though I doubt it's possible for that to happen because of my friendship, albeit through the television, with Ryno, Gracie and Kid K.

I have a son, who will turn two in late February. I wonder who will be the Sandberg, Grace, and Wood in his life. I hope he finds someone with a heart for the game, and this city, as genuine as Kerry Wood.

So, in response to Wood's ad in the Sun-Times today, let me say thank you to you, Mr. Wood. Thank you for endearing yourself to the fans, for giving back to the community, and for being the Chicago Cubs to a guy who, just a couple weeks short of his 29th birthday, wept when reminded of what you have been in my life. Thank you.