Unrequited Love

I have been a Cub fan for my entire life, a disorder I blame on my grandmother. When she first came to the US from Scotland in 1922, she stayed with relatives on the North Side of Chicago, 5 blocks from Wrigley Field. She didn’t really understand the game right away, but she listened on the radio and went to the park often enough to become a big fan. Living up to the stereotype of the tight-fisted Scot, she attended only on Fridays, which were known as “Ladies Days” back then, and admission was free for females. My dad inherited the Cubs as his team of choice from her and passed it on to his children. His ashes now rest in Wrigley, having been deposited there in two separate installments by my brothers, Dan and Mark.

My love affair with the team began when I was eight years old; 1962 is the first season I recall with any clarity. The Cubs had two-time MVP Ernie Banks, along with future Hall-of-Famers Billy Williams and Ron Santo. They still managed to lose 103 games in a 162-game season, finishing ahead of only one team: the worst team in history, the expansion New York Mets. That entire decade, they struggled to win games while the cross-town White Sox were often in the midst of the American League pennant race. I lived on the South Side, surrounded by Sox fans, but I didn’t care. The Sox had strong pitching and weak hitting, so they often won games 1-0 or 2-1. “Sure the Cubs lose a lot, I would explain to friends, but they lose 9-8 or 11-9—those games are fun.” My dad, who was used to disappointment while cheering for the Cubs, would tease me about my optimistic view of the team. I would come home after playing ball all day and ask, “What did the Cubs do?” He would answer, “Cubs won!” I would celebrate accordingly, then he would add, “Cardinals Eight.”

Then came 1969, the year it all came together for the Cubs—until it didn’t. They had a team full of All-Stars, and a great pitching staff led by another Hall of Famer, Fergie Jenkins. They dominated the league all summer and had a big lead in late August. It looked like the year they would finally win it all. Then they collapsed in September and finished eight games behind the Miracle Mets, who shocked the sports world by winning the pennant and the World Series. I always date the end of my childhood and the beginning of facing the realities of the world to that summer. They broke my heart many times after that year, which is why I chose “Unrequited Love” as the title for this entry.

In my 20s, I especially loved sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, I went to a couple of games a year, but the bleachers offered a different experience from the rest of the park. Tickets were still just $1.50, and you could walk up to the gate at game time and get a seat. Because it was so cheap to sit out there, you could see the entire spectrum of American society at the game. Lots of strange people and behavior. You might smell pot, hear arguments that turned physical, and see drunks stumbling around, but you could also see a father patiently explaining the game to his daughter at her first ballgame. The “bleacher bums,” as they were called, often had a pool going for the daily attendance total. Someone passed a baggie around that contained a little notebook and loose change. You would put a quarter in, list your name, seat number, and your guess for how many people were in the ball park that day. When the attendance was announced in the seventh inning, they would give the bag full of quarters to the person who was closest to the actual figure. It was all done on the honor system. Ronnie, the “Woo, woo!” guy was always out there. He was famous for yelling a high-pitched “Woo!” for no apparent reason, often in conjunction with a player’s name, such as “Sandberg, woo! Cey, woo! Bowa, woo!”

After the game, my brother Dan and I would often visit the Wrigleyville bars or another favorite haunt of ours, Ollie’s on Clark Street. One time, we were heading home when we were stopped by one of Chicago’s finest. He stared at Dan’s license and said, “You’re from Oak Lawn? You’re a long way from home, fellas.” Dan explained, “We were at the Cub game.” The cop looked confused and said, “Son, that game’s been over for twelve hours.”

If I had to pick a single game that best captured my unrequited love affair with the Cubs, it was one that occurred 43 years ago today, on May 17, 1979. This game has been on my mind because my dentist, David Page, recommended a book about that particular game during my last dental visit. It’s hard to argue with a man who has his hands and sharp objects in your mouth at the time, so I bought the book and read it. The book is called Ten Innings at Wrigley Field,  by Kevin Cook, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves baseball. It chronicles the entire incredible game, inning by inning, as well as discussing what happened to the teams and players before and after that momentous game.

It was one of those magical days at Wrigley, a warm spring day with temperatures in the high 70s and the wind blowing off of the lake, directly out over the left-field fence. The blustery wind was a steady 17 mph, with gusts up to 30. It was the kind of day that made hitters lick their chops, pitchers close their eyes and duck after every throw, and outfielders pray that they could corral flyballs in the swirling winds without getting hurt. I was working in a Chicago factory when the game started at about 1:30 that afternoon. I listened to the games on the radio each day, which helped break up the mindless monotony of my job.

I quickly grew disgusted about the game, as the Phillies exploded for 7 runs in the top half of the first inning. I wandered away from the radio to work in another area of the storeroom. My friend, Brian, was working with me. A short time later, he called me over and said, “Don’t give up yet, Jack; the Cubs just scored 6 in the bottom of the first.” That inning set the tone for the rest of the game. After a scoreless 2^nd, Philadelphia tacked on 8 more runs in the 3^rd, then 2 more in the top of the 4^th, making the score 17-6. An inning later, they had a 12-run lead, 21-9. The wind was howling off of Lake Michigan, blowing routine fly balls out of the park and turning every pop-up into an adventure. On a day like that, however, a team is never out of the game, and the Cubs started to claw their way back into it with a 7-run fifth. I’d venture to say that precious little work got done that afternoon in my factory, as a large crowd gathered around my radio listening to the non-stop action.

At 4:30, quitting time came, the game was already three hours long, and it was far from over. My dad worked at the same factory, and he invited us over to his house to watch the end of the game. A caravan of cars raced to his house, about five miles away, running stop signs along the way. My brother Dan was in the parade, along with Brian, and several other friends. By the time we reached my dad’s house, it was the 8^th inning, and we barely had time to pop open a beer before the Cubs had tied it, 22-22. In a tension-filled 9^th inning, both teams threatened, but failed to score. This game was too good to be contained in just 9 innings.

(Here comes the unrequited love affair part.) After making that spectacular comeback, the Cubs, as they always do, broke my heart. Hall-of-Famer Bruce Sutter, pitching for the Cubs, gave up a game-winning homerun to Hall-of-Famer Mike Schmidt in the 10^th inning and they lost 23-22. There were 11 home runs in the game, 2 by Schmidt, and fifty hits. Dave Kingman hit 3 homers for the Cubs, one of which left the ball park, cleared Waveland Avenue, and landed in the yard of the 4^th house down a perpendicular street. He also drove in 6 runs, which was the 2^nd highest total for the Cubs that day (Bill Buckner drove in 7). A Chicago reporter who was at the game wrote, “It was historical; it was hysterical.” During the winter in those days, WGN, the station that broadcast the Cubs games, always showed the best game of the previous season in its entirety. In January 1980, they showed this game. It always seemed fitting to me that the best game of 1979 was one which the Cubs lost.

Shortly after that extravaganza, I wrote a song that tried to capture the flavor of the bleachers as well as the craziness of that particular game. It’s called Bleacher Bum.

1. You call yourself a traveler; you say you’ve been around;

You’ve seen the mighty pyramids, and dined in London Town;

You thought Hong Kong was something, but the truth must be revealed:

My friend, you ain’t seen nothing ‘till you’ve been to Wrigley Field.

2. There’s fights and drinking all around, the language is obscene;

The violence and hatred is the worst I’ve ever seen.

It’s not a Friday night in Texas, at the Busted Head Saloon,

Just a picnic in the bleachers on a Sunday afternoon.

Chorus:

If you don’t like the way I look, don’t tell me what you see;

I’m just a burned out bleacher bum, and that’s all I’ll ever be.

So tell me I’m obnoxious—I’ll just say I’m having fun,

‘Cause when I’m in the bleachers, Lord, I’m proud to be a bum.

3. Someone’s sipping whiskey, someone else is smoking dope;

When cheering for Chicago, you should never lose all hope.

It’s seventeen to seven, but we’ll win without a doubt,

‘Cause it’s just the second inning, and the wind is blowing out.

(Chorus)

4. Left fielders from opposing teams have bad dreams every night;

The Surgeon General warns it may be hazardous in right.

The things we call George Foster would turn Cincinnati red;

When he goes back for fly balls, we throw beer down on his head.

(Chorus)

5. Last night I dreamed of Heaven, of Matthew, Mark, and Paul;

There weren’t no clouds or pearly gates, just ivy covered walls.

I didn’t see no angels, or no harp-playing band;

Just forty-thousand Cub fans with a beer in either hand.

(Chorus)

In 2016, of course, the Cubs ended their century of futility. My stepson, Ben Morgan, had season tickets for the Cubs that year—yes, that’s right; he lives in River Falls, not Chicago, but he had season tickets—and he invited me to join him for one of the games. Thanks to him, I was able to see the Cubs in the World Series. Fittingly, given my history with the team, they lost that game. But then, miraculously, they came back to win the last three games and the world championship. My world view was turned upside down for a while, but the Cubs have since returned to mediocrity. For one brief and shining moment, however, my love for the Cubs was reciprocated.