A Cubs Fan's Attempt at Reverse Psychology

It has been almost a week now.  That is enough time right?  Like when someone dies and you don't really want to bring up the past for a while, a week is long enough.  A week was all I needed for this type of mourning, so here it is.  R.I.P. to the Chicago Cubs because you are dead to me now.

 Allow me to put this into a personal perspective.  I love the underdog in sports.  I cheer for those teams who nobody ever thinks deserve to be there in the midst of winning.  I like to think that this is an expression of my humanitarian side.  So by some some subconscious alignment of synapses, I have been a perennial fan of teams like the Chicago Cubs, the New Orleans Saints, and the LSU Tigers (stay with me here and research how many national titles the Tigers won between 1959 and 2002).  But this all goes back to the Cubs and their now 100 years of futility.  I realize that I have been on one hell of an underdog ride, and that was never my intention at all.

When I was a little boy, probably about 1st grade, I remember looking in a book at a list of all the MLB teams. I remember for some reason feeling the need that I must have a "favorite" team. I had obviously picked up on that feeling from baseball fans at school because my dad was never a big baseball guy, hunting and fishing were his thing. Anyway, I looked at that list and decided then and there that the Chicago Cubs were going to be my favorite baseball team. A few years later WGN was added to the cable lineup in my hometown and lo and behold, my favorite team was on TV all the time!

I watched the likes of Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, and Rick Sutcliffe.  For some reason I remember Jody Davis, Keith Moreland, and Gary Matthews Sr., aka "the Sarge".

I remember when Jamie Moyer pitched for the Cubs, and when they had center fielders like Dave Martinez, Dave Dascenzo, and rookie of the year Jerome Walton.

I remember the great showdowns between first base studs Mark Grace and Will Clark, especially in the 1988 NLCS. I remember Greg Maddux's first Cy Young ,as a Cub, Kerry Wood striking out 20 astros as a rookie, the glowing promise of Mark Prior as an unhittable mound presence. I remember Sammy Sosa hitting all those jonróns, corked bat or no... I remember names like Damon Berryhill, Hector Villanueva, Bill Mueller (whom one of my girlfriends' sisters dated when he played double AA ball).

I remember too much of Harry Carey's drunken slurring of "let's get some runs... alright."

I saw the infamous Moises Alou/Steve Bartman moment back in 2003 and the more infamous collapse to the Marlins.

I saw them squeak in last year, then mount "this is the year" numbers all year long in 2008, pitch a no-hitter in the process, and then TOTALLY BLOW IT against the Dodgers.

And you know what?! I am DONE!  Finished, kaput, down for the count. Screw the Chicago Cubs. Call me fair weather, call me a quitter, call me a whiner, I don't care anymore. In fact, I hope the Cubs lose for all eternity. I will forever root against them from here on out. Actually, I will stop caring about MLB altogether since my fanship of the wretched team was really my only link anyway. Screw it all.  When Bill Murray sings, "root, root, root, for the Cubbies" for the umpteenth time, I think I will boycott his movies, and "Groundhog Day" will be hard to give up!

I am done with these losers in baseball!  I mean the Saints I can't let go of... they are my home state team. I have a connection of heritage and birth. LSU is my college team (ok so my alma mater Pilots didn't have a football team, I went with the next logical school of proximity and familiarity, loved visiting and going to those games... and graduating on time). Tigers rule anyway, but I was there with them in the horrible Josh Booty days among others... poor Tommy Hodson.

But the Cubs?  What connection do I have to Chicago? I have only been there for about 12 hours to see a Grateful Dead show at Soldier Field, and honestly I don't remember much of it and kind of didn't have as good a time as I should have.  It was a year before Jerry died and they honestly sounded like crap.  Steve Winwood and Traffic as the opening band were actually better that night.  My personal Chicago experience is in reality, sportsless.

So here I declare, The Cubs are the new Dallas Cowboys, the hated team who have always leeched fans from Louisiana.  But that doesn't work because I don't even hate the Cowboys as I once did, so the Cubs are on a new level of sports hatred for me. I will relish in their every defeat and disappointment. I will laugh at the unconverted fans like myself a week ago. I am DONE!  Good riddance Lou Pinella, et. al.  If I wasn't wearing the shirt in the picture right now, it'd already be on fire.