| from a letter to the New Yorker: I am truly happy for the Giants and their fans. But I inhabit an unimaginably more torturous circle of baseball hell: I am a Cub fan. The scar tissue has scar tissue. We have not been IN a World Series in 65 years, 9 years longer than the Giants' World Series VICTORY drought. We have not WON a World Series since man first trod the North or South Poles. We have not won since the human voice first was carried by radio. We have not won since 90% of the world's population was ruled by one of seven emperors. We have not won since both Mark Twain and Leo Tolstoy were alive and writing books. We have not won since the first Model T was two weeks old. We have not won since the year the Sultan was deposed. Remember how, allegedly, in old folks' homes around New England, codgers clung to life so they could witness another Red Sox championship in 2004, causing a drop in mortality before the clincher and a spike right afterwards? That could not happen in Chicago. Because all those who witnessed the last Cubs championship first-hand, on October 14, 1908, are already dead. Put simply: We have not won in the lifetime of anyone who could possibly remember. If they ever do win now, it will be too late. The fandom of many of us has simply curdled. We have heard "We have the right organization" and "We're just a couple of players away" so often that all it draws from us is a dry rasping laugh of contempt. Ironically, the only Cub fans who will be cheering on the streets if they ever do win will be those who cannot possibly have been through what the real Cub fans have been through. We are the hollow fans We are the lost fans Leaning together Blue hats filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As a muffed grounder at third Scoring one more Redbird In our NL cellar. Posted 11/2/2010, 3:31:55pm by patrickmarren |
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