Being a Cubs Fan

In honor of today's Cubs home opener at Wrigley (literally one block from my house-- I can see the actual field lights from my kitchen window) I decided to discuss a theory I've been mulling over in my head.

I'm from Chicago.  I've been a Cubs fan since birth and everyone knows it.  No one would ever dare call me a fair-weather fan.  That being said, I'm actually not sure I want the Cubs to win the World Series.

I know, I figured you might have that reaction.

Of course, I cheer my heart out for my Northsiders and am crushed when, year after year, our season ends in or before the playoffs.  But lately I've been considering what it would mean for our city, nay, our country if the Cubbies actually pulled off clinching the Fall Classic title.

It's a bizarre phenomenon that everyone loves the Cubs (sorry Sox fans).  We haven't won the World Series since 1908 and honestly haven't even had that many awesome seasons.  Yet year after year, people from all over the world come for a photo with our iconic red scoreboard, a foil-wrapped hot dog, and severely overpriced Old Style beer.  Why?  Because they want a piece of tradition.  Baseball is America's game, and (outside of the East Coast) the Cubs are America's team.

We're the underdogs.  The long-shot.  And I think I'd like to see us stay like this.

See, if we win the World Series, I think our Cubbies would lose a lot of their magic.  Everyone loves to cheer for them, but strangely enough I think a lot of that comes from our losing streak.  People know the legend of the goat, and nobody really cares what the score of the game is going to be.  Sure, we love seeing the white W flag flying high over the ivy but at the end of the day, watching the Cubs play is more about the experience than the outcome.

Plus, I can't even fathom what ticket sales would be like for the years following a championship victory.  Well, actually I can.  The White Sox won in '05 so it would probably be like that-- a few years of madness and raised prices, then back to the same-old-same.  And that's not ok!  I'm worried everyone would be even crazier for the Cubs than they already are, and then with a recent championship on the board, we'd sink into anonymity.  I love seeing Cubs fans everywhere across the country and I never want that to change.  I'd rather have over a century without a title than a few years of fair-weather fans and a couple decades of apathy. *shudder*

On the other hand, it would be a ridiculously euphoric dream come true if my boys on the North side won the Series this year, while I'm living near Wrigley Field.  Earlier this week I came across a blog: Rants of a Deliberate Smartass.  Basically it sounds like my everyday Tweets.  Anyway, this anonymous (well, at least to me) Cubs fan blogged about the commercial for video game MLB 2012 The Show.  Oh. My. Gosh.  He's 100% correct-- this is what it would be like if the Cubs won the championship.  I straight up almost cried.



So I guess I'm torn.  I've lived here long enough to see the mania surrounding the Bulls' 90s Dream Team, the South siders' 2005 World Series win, and the Hawks' 2010 Stanley Cup victory (sorry Bears, I was born in '87), so I know how much fun it would be to see my Cubs follow suit.  But the idea of losing our (inter)national fan base and become a run of the mill losing team terrifies me.

I guess the best compromise would be to see the Bears win the Super Bowl and keep my Cubs as America's favorite underdogs.

Have a great Thursday and GO CUBS GO!!!
=)  Jules


Note: all images are just from a general Google search and are not my personal property, but that of the websites from which they originated.