Cubs faithful endure century of suffering

Fans of 'cursed' team turn failure into an art

By Clay Latimer, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published April 23, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Jonathan Daniel / Getty Images

Manager Lou Piniella, center, does not believe the Cubs are cursed. "We're going to win here, and that's the end of the story," he said when he was hired in October 2006.

If there's one thing Dave McWilliams likes as much as the Cubs, it's beer.

So it wasn't unusual to see the burly construction worker in a sunny mood as he sat in his usual spot in the Wrigley Field bleachers on a recent afternoon, sipping thoughtfully on a cold one.

"Forget the curse," McWilliams, 49, said, referring to the 1945 World Series, when a local tavern owner was ejected for bringing a foul-smelling goat into the park, whereupon he supposedly cast a curse on the Cubs, guaranteeing they would never be world champions.

"I don't believe in curses. This is a good team. Our day is coming."

Not so fast.

The Chicago Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908, an extraordinary tradition of futility that's unrivaled in American sports, now that the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox own world championship rings.

Last time the Cubs were champs, Teddy Roosevelt lived in the White House, automobiles were just hitting the streets and Civil War veterans comprised a lively chunk of baseball's fan base.

Since Chicago's big day in the sun 10 decades ago, two world wars were waged, talking movies and passenger airplanes were invented, Halley's comet passed the Earth twice and disco came and went. In their enduring inability to win, only the Cubs remain the same.

"Everybody's entitled to a bad century," said former Cubs broadcaster Jack Brickhouse, shortly before his death in 1998.

Adding to the pain

Explaining the unbearable is a familiar ritual for Cubs fans, whose dogged fidelity is as famous as their endless suffering. But the misery index spiked in the 2000s as young franchises in Arizona, Florida and Colorado advanced to the Fall Classic. Arizona didn't become a state until 1912, four years after the Cubs' last world title, another wounding blow.

"Those teams are lucky," said Joe Rodriguez, 21, a Chicago resident who plans on watching tonight's telecast of the Cubs-Rockies game at Coors Field.

After a century of rebuilding, the stress finally might be surfacing for Cubs fans. On Opening Day in the Friendly Confines, a fan tumbled into the left-field basket that protects players from all kinds of projectiles.

On Friday, Nate McLouth was chasing a ball hit for a triple when a drink from the bleachers nearly wiped out the Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder. And April 16, fans threw 15 balls on the field after Cincinnati's Adam Dunn drove a home run onto Sheffield Avenue, prompting veteran Reds announcer Marty Brennaman to launch into a rant about the Cubs faithful.

"See, this is the kind of thing, quite honestly, that makes you want to see the Chicago Cubs team lose," said Brennaman, whose son, Thom, used to work for the Cubs as a radio broadcaster. "Far and away, the most obnoxious fans in baseball in this league are those who follow this team right here. Throwing 15 or 18 balls onto the field, there's absolutely no excuse for that. And that is so typical of Chicago Cub fans. It's unbelievable . . .

"All winter, they talked about this team winning the division, and my comment was, they won't because, at the end of the day, they are still the Chicago Cubs and they'll figure out a way to screw this whole thing up."

Bartman incident

According to some insiders, life at Wrigley probably started to change in 2003, on the night Steve Bartman deflected a foul ball during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series against Florida, which set in motion a series of mistakes that ruined the team's best chance to reach the World Series since 1945.

The horror of that moment never will go away for Rodriguez.

"I remember getting on my knees, praying: 'Please, make sure they win.' Then they threw it all away. . . . I was crushed. I was so sad. I was crying a little, in a slump for a couple days," he said.

"My friend Bobby is probably the nuttiest guy I've ever seen. He's got every piece of Cubs memorabilia. He'll go to Arizona - anywhere the Cubs are. He's a great guy - he just loves the Cubs. So after that night, we didn't hear from him for a couple days. His cell phone was off. We kept quiet about it when we were around him.

"If the Cubs ever won the Series, Bobby would just cry. Oh, my God, he'd be so full of joy. It'd be the best feeling in the world - total joy. But, you know, I kind of believe in the curse. And that's kind of scary."

A fourth-generation Cubs fan, Rodriguez has watched his parents and grandparents brood over the team, living out their despair on a daily basis. But even during the worst days, his suffering has been softened by sun and suds and the allure of a quirky ballpark.

Built in seven months in 1914, Wrigley is a brick cathedral of antiquity and supposed purity. Ivy-covered walls, clean lines, intimate seating, a manually operated scoreboard. There are no billboards or instant replay screens and most of the home games still are played during the day.

Always welcome are loyal critics, some of whom display T-shirts that say: "Federal Witness Protection Plan" or "Wait 'til Next Year."

On the other extreme is Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers, a 67-year-old Chicagoan who has seen more than 3,000 games, most of them in a Cubs uniform. Wickers wanders through Wrigley, screaming his trademark "Woo" after a cheer, a shtick that convinced a filmmaker to base a documentary on his unorthodox life.

"I have 45 different uniforms. I've got the white ones, I've got the blue ones, I've got the gray ones. People come and go, but I'm still here," he said.

"I believe in the Cubs. I don't believe in any curse, in the Goat. It's all in the timing. The Rockies may have been to the World Series, but they were all Cubs fans before they got their team. Deep inside, a Rockies fan is still a Cubs fan. So when the Cubs win the 2008 World Series, the whole world will rock."

No time for curse

Down on the field, Cubs players pay little attention to goats and curses and ancient history, preferring instead to focus on the here and now, according to second baseman Mike Fontenot.

"(Manager) Lou Piniella tells us to just come out and play every day. We're not going to put our hopes on some curse," he said.

Added Bob Brenly, a Cubs broadcast analyst and manager of the 2001 champion Diamondbacks: "They're worried about the next at-bat; they're worried about the next pitch. It's not like the bases are loaded, two out and Ted Lilly steps off the mound and says, 'Geez, we haven't won a World Series in 100 years.' "

During the 1950s and early 1960s, the Cubs largely were irrelevant, even in Chicago. In 1962, the team finished 59-103, its poorest record in history. The club's overall attendance plummeted to 609,802, lowest in the majors.

But a grim comedy gave way to sudden, unexpected success in the late 1960s. On the field, manager Leo Durocher transformed a group of young players into pennant contenders; in the left-field bleachers, a group of young hard hats helped transform Wrigley into the place to be in Chicago.

The Bleacher Bums threw back opponents' home runs, threw back beers and chanted for another double play from Ron Santo, Don Kessinger, Glenn Beckert and Ernie Banks: "14, 11, 18, 10: come on, infield, do it again."

The raucous spectacle peaked in 1969 as the Cubs built a 91/2-game lead over the New York Mets by August. But Cubs fans always are on the lookout for a bad omen, so when a black cat scurried onto the field at Shea Stadium in September, they knew the party was over.

"It sprinted to the batter's box, stopped and stared at the next batter (Santo), and headed for the visitor's dugout," the Chicago Tribune wrote. "Then it raised its furrowed tail, hissed at Durocher, and then scurried back into the stands."

The Mets went onto to win the World Series and the Cubs plummeted into another Dark Age, surfacing again in 1984 when first baseman Leon Durham fumbled a ball in the sixth inning of the deciding game of the NL Championship Series against the San Diego Padres, an error that set in motion another bitter loss.

But happy days were on the way with Harry Caray, whose renditions of Take Me Out to The Ballgame and clumsy charm on superstation WGN helped make the Cubs one of America's most profitable losers and Wrigley Field a virtual theme park.

"Nowadays, a lot of people in the bleachers don't even watch the game," McWilliams said. "They're on their cell phones, talking. They don't know score, don't even know the inning. They could look up at the board and see it, if they were sober enough to read it.

"But hey, win or lose, it's just great to be out at the ballpark."

Richard Savage knows the feeling. He gathered at ESPN Zone in Chicago recently with three other loyal Cubs fans, all of them 100 years or older. Having watched the Cubs lose six World Series starting in 1918, he told reporters: "The first 99 years are the hardest."

But humor only goes so far for Rodriguez, who seems too weary to be 21.

"It's going to happen," he said. "We've got to win it. We're due. But even if we don't, I'll still be a Cubs fan. I'll wait."

100 AND COUNTING

What was happening in 1908, when the Cubs last won a World Series.

* Henry Ford produces his first Model T automobile.

* Oklahoma celebrates its first year of statehood; Arizona and New Mexico still are four years from becoming states.

* Charles Furnas becomes the first passenger in an airplane in the United States. The plane is flown by Wilbur Wright.

* William Howard Taft defeats William Jennings Bryan in the U.S. presidential election.

* Buddy Ebsen, star of 1960s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies, is born. So are Bette Davis and Lyndon Johnson.

HE SAID IT

"I always believed that being a Cubs fan built strong character. It taught a person that if you try hard enough and long enough, you'll still lose. And that's the story of life."

Mike Royko, late Chicago columnist

IS '08 THE CUBS' YEAR?

* The Chicago Cubs will win another World Series when:

(A) Pigs fly.

(B) Hell freezes over.

(C) Steve Bartman leads the singing during the seventh-inning stretch at Wrigley Field.

Have a more clever answer? Write your answer in the comments section and hit "Post comment."

• April 23, 2008

  4:44 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  wildbillmp36 writes:

  Part of being a Cubs fan is keeping the faith. I think they are showing they can be competive every year. One of these years soon will be our year. When it happens it will be something I can share with my sons. It is coming and everyone who has laughed at our beloved Cubs is going to have to eat crow for one season at least

  Bill

• April 23, 2008

  10:49 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  arvada_mark writes:

  "...Halley's comet passed the Earth twice ..." Now that's good stuff. I'd bet there are less than 5 Cubs fans alive today (anywhere) that were around in 1908. And before I go any further, I'd like to clarify on what Woo Woo deliriously thinks, I have never been, & will never be a Cubs fan. I don't like 'em. They were ok when they gathered up a lot of former Rockies, but that quickly dwindled back to despise. Next to Red Sux fans, Cubs fans are the rudest. Several years ago at a Rox/Cubs game, I was making fun of Sammy Sosa for being 0-4 that day. I was razzing him pretty good from my seat. I hear a comotion from a few rows behind me, & it was a Cubs fan, his 10 year old boy sitting next to him the whole game, trying to climb over the seperating rows to fight me. What an idiot. Like making fun of Sammy is anything like making fun of his mother or wife...or sister...& he was with his kid. Purely classless. I had a good laugh though, as his Cub fan buddies were trying to hold him back. His face was red, vein popping out of his forhead, the whole deal. Funny, real funny.

• April 23, 2008

  1 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  royhinkleyjr writes:

  The Cubs will win the World Series when a Republican is elected Mayor of Chicago.

• April 24, 2008

  8:26 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  kathyM writes:

  arvada mark, I bet you're just the gentleman when someone sitting near you makes fun of Halladay for striking out: "Quite so, old chap." Riiiigggghhhhht.

  If the Cubs are so awful, then why is every game at Wrigley packed, losing season after losing season? It's because the Cubs still treat baseball like a game first, not a business first. Other clubs try to duplicate the fun atmosphere at Wrigley so their fans, too, will attend even when the team is losing.

  The Cubs may envy the winners, year after year. But the rest of the MLB envies the Cubs' winning the hearts (and the wallets) of baseball fans, year after year.

• April 24, 2008

  9:03 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  snorky9 writes:

  there is a great website on this:

  www.justonebadcentury.com

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