With Curse of the Bambino Long Dead, Cubs Now Have Baseball's Most Hardcore Fans

A crossing of paths between a Boston Red Sox fan and a Chicago Cubs fans used to be a heck of a thing.

Imagine, if you will, a city street circa 2000-2002. A Red Sox fan would have approached from one end, and a Cubs fan from another. Upon noticing one another, they would have acknowledged each other and shared one word:

"Someday."

And that was it. That's all it took.

You see, Red Sox and Cubs fans used to share a weird sort of bond. They shared a mutual misery, to be sure, but also a mutual respect. Cubs fans realized that Red Sox fans knew how to suffer, and Red Sox fans realized that Cubs fans knew how to suffer more than any fans rightfully should. 

And above all, there was a realization that, hey, they were baseball's lovable losers!

Alas, this bond is gone now. It was shattered when the Red Sox did something on the night of October 27, 2004 that they hadn't done in 86 years. They won the freakin' World Series.

The Curse of the Bambino died that night. While Red Sox Nation celebrated the curse's demise, somewhere out there was the Curse of the Billy Goat, still very much alive.

I trust that at least a few Cubs fans were happy for the Red Sox and their long-suffering fans, but probably not many. After all, Boston's victory in 2004 was just another incident in which the Cubs didn't win the World Series. It was just another heartbreak in a long line of heartbreaks.

When the Red Sox gave the Curse of the Bambino the double tap in 2007, all Cubs fans were aware of was the fact that the blasted Billy Goat curse was turning 99 years old. A year later, it turned 100.

It is now 103 years old, and counting. Like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Boris the Blade, the Curse of the Billy Goat just...won't...die...

I'll tell you what else is alive, though: Cubs fandom. And it's not just alive, it's alive and well.

Despite the team's longstanding suckitude, the Cubbies are working on a string of eight consecutive years in which they've drawn at least three million fans to Wrigley Field, according to BallparksofBaseball.com. The Cubbies are already on pace to make it nine straight this year, and there's a good chance they'll beat their 2011 attendance total of 3,017,966.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, the Cubs are drawing an average of 37,570 fans per game to Wrigley Field this season, the seventh-highest attendance average in baseball. What's more, they're averaging over 2,000 more fans per game this season than they were last season.

Cubs fans are giving off the impression that Theo Epstein is a tremendous home run hitter, and that Jed Hoyer has a mean fastball and sick 12-to-6 curve. They're making it look like the two of them are well worth the price of admission.

But nope. Epstein, formerly of the Red Sox's front office, and Hoyer, also formerly of the Red Sox's front office, are just guys in suits trying to figure out how to do the impossible. The bright side is that we're talking about two men who already have done the impossible.

But Cubs fans are turning out to see them, of course. They're turning out in tens of thousands to watch a Cubs team that is on pace to win about 54 games this season. If they trade all their talented players at the trade deadline, which is likely, they'll win even fewer games.

This team doesn't deserve to be watched by nearly 40,000 people a night, but, well, there are the numbers.

Let it never be said that Cubs fans are fair-weather fans. They've proven that they're not again and again...and again and again and again. What they're doing this season is nothing they haven't already done before 103 times (and counting).

Cubs fans, my hat is off to you. Seriously, you guys rock. 

Cubs fans are now what Red Sox fans used to be like: a crowd of faith-keeping zealots that numbered in the hundreds of thousands, maybe even in the millions. They were united by a single hope. Yet year after year, they came, saw and retreated disappointed into the New England winter.

Red Sox Nation certainly does have a population in the millions now, but that's not the only thing that's changed about Red Sox Nation. It's residents are, shall we say, a little different.

Red Sox fans used to whine a lot about the team not being lucky enough to win the World Series. Now they whine about the team not being good enough to win the World Series. They treat the World Series like an actual attainable thing that the club should have a shot at every year, as opposed to an ethereal thing that didn't owe the Red Sox any damn favors.

In other words, Red Sox fans now treat the World Series the same way Yankees fans treat it: as a right, not a privilege.

Red Sox fans are filling Fenway Park like never before, but they're not the same. They have all but forgotten their old roots. They are no longer lovable loser fans. They have become the enemy without even realizing it.

So that leaves you, Cubs fans. When it comes to baseball's lovable losers, you stand alone. You guys have had a raw deal for over a century, but you just keep coming back. You put all other suffering fanbases to shame.

I only have one simple favor to ask, which I don't think will be much of a bother:

Just keep doing what you're doing. And as they used to say in Boston, keep the faith.

Rest assured, it'll happen.

Someday.

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