Cubs are typical Cubs fan Dream...From a Sox Fan

[KeithFranklin]

And former fan of both teams....My family besides myself and my children root for both teams.

 

 

I have come to realize that this years Cubs team is what the typical Cubs fan has always dreamed of and it is not what you think. When I was a Cubs fan I dreamed of a team that was a dynasty a team that had a chance to win the whole thing several years in a row. Yet as I grew older I realized that the ownership cared about nothing more then the bottom line. After Greg Maddox left for Atlanta, not because he wanted to but because he wanted to be on a team that was striving for just what I wanted the Cubs to be, I said enough is enough and I vowed to not return to the Cubs until the ownership decided that an exciting year every 3-5 years was not enough.

 

Since that time the Cubs have yet to try to really invest in the team and have lucked into a number of players that guarantee that Wrigley Field will be filled. Only one of these players are truly great players (Mark Prior…Perhaps the stupidest skipped draft pick ever, but as a Sox fan I am glad he is not a Twin) that play for the team. Sammy Sosa is not and I will get back to this later. Now back to this year’s team and what Cubs fans dream of. First Cubs fans dream of the underdog team that wins it all. I guess this is because they have accepted the reality that they are not worthy of this. So you look at this team and you say this is it. Look at the starters in the playoffs. A bunch of mostly backup or 2nd tier starters with a couple of true starters (One of which cares nothing about his team and is all about marketing). Yes they have 1 great starting pitcher in Mark Prior (Who I predict will leave the Cubs when he becomes a free agent because the Cubs wont pay him what he is worth) and 1 good pitcher in Kerry Wood (Who except for these playoffs has always reminded me of Nolan Ryan and this is not a good thing. Like Nolan Ryan, Wood is basically a 500 pitcher who strikes out a lot of people). They have a couple of other OK starting pitchers and a bullpen of nobodies, old bodies. Yet the underdog story is true here as well just look at Joe Borrowski (SP?) he is the Cubs fan dream of dreams. A career Journeyman just a couple weeks away from calling it quits and through some fluke of nature his is a one year wonder. As for Sosa I have never seen a player so interested in the photo opportunity like I have said many times before they guy turns more doubles into singles and triples into doubles then anyone I have ever seen. He does his little hop every time he hits a fly ball and watches it then says whoops I guess I need to run. Even in this playoff run he has done nothing for the team of importance in any winning game. Not once has he put the team ahead with a big hit or simply hit the long fly ball to knock in a run. Yes he has had a couple of long home runs (One of which could have been dramatic had the Cubs not just turned around and lost anyway). Look at Pudge Rodriquez on Florida, I have seen him take the ball the other way to simply drive in a run but also known when it was OK to swing for the fences.

 

I guess it is just the kicked dog syndrome. Continue to kick a dog and the dog begins to believe that is what they deserve. This is the Cubs fan. From the Stadium to the team things that were simply not investments become endearments. From no lights to the crappy old scoreboard what a cheap ass owner after cheap ass owner refused to spend money on the team or the Stadium. Now they revel in the cheapness and call it tradition (Which by the way I believe that most traditions are called traditions to support activities that don’t really have any other reason for being). Now I am not some Johnny come lately to Wrigley field. I grew up on the North Side of Chicago right on the Howard L line and could ride the L to Cubs and Sox games all summer (and did) walk up to the box office and get tickets. Yet even in the 70’s I hated Wrigley Field (And old Comiskey for that matter) and to this day wish for a nice big explosion to take the dump out. Why is it a dump you say? Well let me count the reasons. Poor seats…And I don’t mean simply just directly behind the poles. If you are not in front of the poles then you have restricted views. If you are out in the outfield seats along the baselines you face the bleachers. If you are under the upper deck then you can’t see where fly balls are hit. Did I mention the lovely smell of Urine in the concourse, the food sucks and the you can’t walk around the park and watch the game. I still remember back when New Comiskey opened and the company I worked for got season tickets to both the Cubs and the Sox and since I lived in the city very close to Wrigley and easy access to the L to Comiskey I got to use the company tickets a lot. To bad that the Wrigley tickets were about 10 rows directly behind a pole on the 3rd base side and simply sucked. As for the Comiskey tickets they were upper deck about 12 rows up on the 1st base side and were simply wonderful. We could see everything and really keep track of the game. Maybe that’s why Wrigley has become such a party place, because you can’t pay attention to the game under there.

 

So the Cubs look like they could be this years Angels after all, but I also look to see that next year like the other years after a successful season they have probably a better chance to loose 100 games then win 90. And like this year the Cubs next year could be the 2003 Angels and be a sub 500 team.