As of today, February 8, we are two days away from the start of Chicago Cubs Spring Training. By Monday, we’ll be back to baseball. Within a few weeks, we’ll have our first televised Spring Training game. Pat yourself on the back, kids. We made it. Again.
More than any other sport, baseball seems to worm its way inside of you, grab hold of your heart, and hold on for dear life, like that one love you never quite get over. Maybe it has something to do with those long summer days and warm summer nights. Maybe it’s that baseball is tied up with our memories of summer vacation, the smell of fresh-cut grass, backyard barbecues, and the feeling of sunshine on our faces. Maybe it’s just that baseball is longer, more languid, than other sports. You don’t watch a baseball season. You live inside it for a languorous six months every year.
Whatever the reason, Chicago Cubs baseball is upon us again and, despite all the whining and moaning about typical Cubs woes (no real catcher, a plethora of injury-addled Asian pitchers on the wrong side of 35, the presence of Dave Sappelt, etc), I’ve begun to feel that familiar flip in my stomach when I think about what the next few weeks have in store. And, like a case of bronchitis that hits you around the same time each year, I’ve started to feel that little, niggling stirring in me that says, “I know they’re going to be terrible, but . . what if? Just . . what if?”
And therein lies the real beauty in baseball: that hope always spring eternal, even though we know that, by the fall, our hearts will broken again. Winter will come. And we’ll be left alone, in the cold, with nothing to keep us company but the endless strings of “what ifs?” Again.
And in the end, this s what separates Cubs fans from every other fan in baseball. We’re the young girl who has had her heart broken over and over and over again, but still holds out hope that, one day, Prince Charming will swoop in on his white horse and carry her off into the sunset. We’re the child who never stops believing in Santa Clause. Not really. We’re the fans who still believe in magic. And even when I see Luis Valbuena step up to the plate and swing at three horrible pitches to end the game in (yet another) loss, there will still be that small part of me that says, “It’s only August. They could still get hot.”
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
It breaks my heart because it was meant to, because it was meant to foster in me again the illusion that there was something abiding, some pattern and some impulse that could come together to make a reality that would resist the corrosion; and because, after it had fostered again that most hungered-for illusion, the game was meant to stop, and betray precisely what it promised.
Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times. They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date. I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun. — Bart Giamatti
Wrigley Talk Friday returns today at 3 pm CT on Blog Talk Radio. You can tune in right at your computer at work, or you can download the show later from iTunes.
Finally, today is the last day to enter our “Pick the Opening Day Lineup” contest. Make sure you pop down to this thread and enter for your chance to win!
I come back for you.
<3
xoxoxox
Great post, Julie!! I really enjoyed the worm analogy. GO CUBS GO!!
I remember sitting at an IIA training class explaining to an Canadian classmate that the reason I prefer baseball to any other sport is that is is played in real time; soccer,hockey, American football, basketball are all played within the conceit of 60 minutes or so,but can have time added. Baseball by and large is played in 9 innings;those 9 innings could take 90 minutes or 6 hours,depending on conditions. And in that nine innings you could see grown men acting like little kids, playing worse than little kids, or achieving greatness. Thus my fondness for perfect games/no hitters, no matter what team it is. I could hate that team/pitcher, but a perfecto or no hitter makes me smile, feel so good no matter what is going on in my life, and reminds me why I love baseball…..
Wow. Why do I keep coming back? On a certain level, it’s a spiritual journey. It’s a metaphor for the cycles of life. It start in the spring like a little fawn; “Awwwwwwww. Look how cute the kids are. Maybe this is our year.” Then we get to the realities of summer, “Douches on the Diamond” (looking at you Ian Stewart and Ian Stewart), and environmental degradation (aka Wrigley Field); “I swear, if one more person calls me that stupid nickname that ends in -y, I’m going to go postal in the Clubhouse for maximum collateral damage.” Then it ends in a mercy killing by the Dept of Wildlife management for suspected rabies; “We couldn’t tell if it was foaming at the mouth or Old Style foam drool, so we decided to get a brain tissue sample to the lab.” Then we get the winter where we get to do our Cubs fan version of Sitting Shiva where we remember all things we wished we could forget while getting ready to do it all over again.
There’s also the part where I keep clinging to this hope that by staying a Cubs fan I might show myself to be a loyal person who respects relational ties no matter how bad it gets, but this same phenomenon also have a script for all my dysfunctional interpersonal relationships too.
Who am I kidding? I do this for the sonorous warbling of Ronnie Wickers. It has the same effect on me that I imagine Bieber has on tween ears. Just. Can’t. Explain. Love. Of. Super. Annoying. Things. Like. Single. Word. Sentences.
“Then we get to the realities of summer, “Douches on the Diamond” (looking at you Ian Stewart and Ian Stewart)”
You’re basically becoming my favorite person here.
Because I am compelled. Like a turtle hatchling heads to the ocean. it is a force much greater than myself and will always be so.
Great post Julie. For me, I keep coming back to the Cubs because they’re *my* team, dammit. It’s easy to root for winning teams. It’s hard (some would say foolish) to root for teams that are consistently not-winning. But, as Tom Hanks said in A Leauge of Her Own, “If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”
Or maybe I’m just a dope.
Wow–haven’t heard from some of you guys for a long time! Welcome back!
They’ve been hibernating…:)
When I was a little girl out on the east coast (much love to my soon-to-be-snowbound relatives!) my Dad taught me about baseball. And he taught me about loving a loser (the Mets) and how much fun you can have at the ball field no matter if your team was winning or losing. When I moved to Chicago, his lessons came with me. And I fell in love with the Cubs. Thanks Dad.
Also, it makes me deliriously happy that Doc is coming home to 10 inches of snow.
A personal emergency has caused us to move the taping of Wrigley Talk Friday to 3 pm CT on Sunday. Hope you can all tune in!
Mark Prior is STILL at it:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130207&content_id=41477950&c_id=mlb&partnerId=aw-7418824376147404564-996
Good for him. I hope he makes it.
Dear Krishna,
I know I don’t usually ask a lot of you beyond the food, water, clean air, and fast internet that you so lovingly provide. But there is one thing I must ask of you. What did Mark Prior do for his karma to be playing out like this? I mean the kid has clearly done his duty in life, yet the gods have not smiled upon him with the favor of a thousand blossoming lotuses.
And while we’re here and we’re talking guys who haven’t really been relevant in a decade, why is it Mark Prior is still looking for a Spring Training invite and Dontrelle Willis isn’t?
Your Loyal Servant,
Arjuna
I dunno . . he was kind of a jerk about that whole “Just Ducky II” event.
I’m still following the Cubs because when we finally DO win, it will be the greatest world series party ever.
Need to send this one to all my kids.
Thanks.
AND on a different note.
Yeasterday I was going to mention,
(really),
how Illinois was going to whup up on Indiana
(not that I really thought they would, the way they’ve been playing lately.Really, when my friend mentioned the game a couple of days before, I txted back “Uh Oh”)
But sometimes good things drop into our laps.
I got to watch the last 5-6 minutes
(the best part of the game).
The best writing comes from the heart. Thank you for writing this.