The day of disappointment has finally arrived. That’s the cynic’s way to look at it, I suppose. But after tonight’s game seven, one team’s fans are going to be disappointed.If it were up to me, I’d choose Cleveland’s fans for this disappointment.First, there are fewer of them, apparently. Just under 1.6 million people attended an Indians home game this year. That’s less than half the 3.2 million people who attended a Cubs home game this year.Second, the Cavaliers just won the NBA championship a few months ago. I’m sure there’s a lot of crossover between Cav fans and Indians fans. Let’s spread the wealth a little. Call me a championship socialist if you must, but why let Cleveland win two championships while Chicago gets none?And third, the Indians just won a World Series in 1948.But in thirty years of watching baseball, I’ve come to one irrefutable conclusion: the baseball gods don’t give a damn what I want!So even though this season has been exciting, and it’s fairly clear that the Cubs are the best team in baseball this year, and a comeback after being down three games to one would be the cherry on top of a deliciously goaty sundae, I’m prepared for the Cubs to lose.Baseball is a game built for disappointment. Even the best hitters to ever play failed 65% of the time. But in 1985—the first year I paid attention to baseball—when the Royals, who I was rooting for (their two best players were George Brett and Bret Saberhagen, how could I not?) beat the Cardinals in the World Series, I didn’t understand that not every season would end in joyful triumph for me.It’s a lesson I learned the following year when the Cubs finished thirty-seven games behind the first-place Mets. And when the hated Mets beat the Astros in the NLCS, I cried. And when they won the World Series, I cried again.And those tears were just the beginning. In years that followed, I cried rivers of frustrated disappointment: in 1987 when Rick Sutcliffe didn’t win the Cy Young award (now I’m just pissed about it!), in 1989 when the Cubs lost to the Giants in the NLCS, in 1991 when the Twins beat the Braves in an extra-inning game seven.By then I was thirteen, and realized that maybe I should stop crying about it. And the next year Tom Hanks would reinforce my new stance by reminding us, “There’s no crying. There’s no crying in baseball.”But the frustration and disappointment continued through seasons when the Cubs weren’t good, and my baseball enemies were. After years of unfilled fandom, mixed with flirtations with success that ultimately led to nothing, I’ve developed a thick skin. I expect my team to lose.And because I’ve come to expect my team to lose, and maybe also because I’m thirty-eight-years-old now, I won’t cry if the Cubs lose tonight. I’ll be disappointed, but I won’t cry.However, if they win…. I mean, if they win the World Series…. If the Chicago Cubs win the World Series tonight, then I might cry.It’s unbelievable to me that we’re even talking about this. The World Series. The Cubs. Game Seven.This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. I’ve got thirty-one seasons of my personal baseball-watching history, thousands of hours spent watching with my dad and my kids, hundreds of hours spent talking about games and players and stats and trivia, and dozens of trips to Wrigley Field that all point to one thing: the Cubs don’t win the World Series.They just don’t.So what happens if they do?
Everything comes back. Harry Caray, and little league, and Topps baseball cards, and the Cubs Convention, and a rainy day in 2000, and debating whether the Cubs should have drafted Dwight Gooden instead of Shawon Dunston, and making the All-star team when I was fourteen and fifteen, and grounding into a double play to end the season, and coaching little league, and the 647 players who have played for the Cubs since 1985, and the poor people who have had to listen to me drone on about some fact or statistic, and watching my kids run the bases at Wrigley. All of it.Because a baseball fan, and a Cubs fan in particular, has a past, a history. And that history isn’t just with the team. The team is the personification of that history. When the team does well, we focus on the team. And by focusing on the team, we focus on our past. We remember it all.I’ll watch the game at home tonight with my kids. And if the Cubs win we’ll celebrate, and we’ll never forget it. But if they win, I won’t just be at home. I’ll be at all of those other baseball places as well.Cubs in seven.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: The Years I Played BaseballPREVIOUS POST: Thoughts on a Cubs World Series Weekend