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An Open Letter
By Dan Marlin
...to those "We'll get 'em next year" Cubs fans
Cubs fans:
You got trouble.
That's right, trouble right here, in the Windy City.
Now I realize you've known this for, oh, let's say about 99 years. But who's counting.
Oh wait. You are.
(And so am I...but with me it's for fun.)
Here's the problem: you're ok with that.
You may not think you are, but you are. You don't love it. You suffer through it. But ever since that "lovable" label became attached to your losers, you've been ok with it.
You love talking about your Bartman and your billy goat just as much as you like your (Ernie) Banks.
Trust me, I understand losing. I've suffered through 15 seasons of below-.500 Pirates baseball (well 14, but I'm counting this year already.)
I saw the Steelers lose 4 AFC Championship Games and a Super Bowl before they won Super Bowl XL. Then, apparently, I wasn't allowed to complain about the Steelers anymore. It happened with Red Sox fans, too. It's the idea that you can't complain about your team if you win.
So congrats, Cubs fans. You'll be able to complain about your team forever. Just what you want.
There's something that exists in sports that I like to call the Cubs theory. A great stadium + a great fan base + big-name players & team chemistry = more money to buy more big name players and pseudo-success once every 10 years or so. It's worked so well that some other teams (like the Pirates) set up a lot of promotions to get fans to the park and don't really care about the product on the field.
Summer is on the way Cubs fans, and right now, it looks like another stinker. Players are fighting, the (overrated) manager is going nuts already...and it's not even the All-Star Break yet.
Yet the names on your team's roster and the number of millions attached to your team's payroll, as usual, is not directly proportional to your win total.
So what to do?
First, I thought: stop going.
Just stop.
Stop buying the hats, stop buying the t-shirts, stop buying the damn tickets.
Look, I love Wrigley Field as much as the next guy, but it sends the wrong message to show up and pay the ticket price (plus the $5 for those "hot dogs") day in and day out.
Sports teams are like the government: they exist for the fan, by the fan, of the fan. The owners and GMs work for us, not the other way around. If we pay the gate price, we should be entitled to a return on our investment. Hold upper management responsible. Trust me, if they start losing and you start showing up again, no one's going to refer to you as "bandwagon fans."
See isn't that a good idea?
Oh wait. One problem. You're good fans. You care. A lot. Enough to go to games and suffer through the losses. Enough to finance the payroll and the big name-no chemistry combo that will undoubtedly lead to a 100th year of disappointment. And upper management knows that.
So what else?
I'd say to stop talking about the curses, that they bring negative energy to the team. Does something that happened in 1945, or in 2003, really matter? It's not like the Red Sox-the Cubs haven't won a pennant since 1945. There hasn't been as much big-game heartbreak...just small-time suckage. And there's no Yankees-like rivalry to overcome.
But again-the curses (and Old Style) are the heart and soul of this team and its fans. Hard to change that.
In this column, I was hoping to find a solution for you, Cubs fans. Something to help alleviate your hurt and make your owner and GM accountable at the same time.
I failed. It's tough to fix 99 years of futility.
Oh yes, you got trouble.
Trouble with a capital T
Which rhymes with C
That stands for Cubs.
Gonna be a long summer.
Think the boys in blue can break that Billy Goat Curse? E-mail Dan Marlin at d-marlin@northwestern.edu
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