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i’ve never been a cubs fan, and their particular flavor of pathetic has always felt like home to me, comfortable like an old pair of converse. summers as a kid, i remember sitting in the house on westside drive with the windows open and the box fans blowing in combine dust, listening to harry broadcast the games. that brick backstop behind home plate on a sunny day was as much a part of my summers as my crippling hay fever. we weren’t cubs fans, but back then you only had 13 channels. wgn was all cubs all the time and it was easily the best thing going.

i don’t remember sitting down and watching nine full innings that often, but as you came and went, there were the cubbies. after riding bikes, you’d come in and have lunch in front of the game. sometimes you’d get lucky and harry would take a stab at pronouncing “big cat” andres gallarraga’s name (an even better occasion in late innings when harry was already pretty tuned up.)

the cubs always sucked. it was as predictable a formula as an episode of three’s company. mr. roper gets the notion jack’s not really queer and hilarity ensues. same thing with the cubbies. sure, they’d go on some winning streaks once in awhile, but you could always count on a key injury or a dugout meltdown to bring the season to its knees. when i was a kid, the cubs weren’t usually playing for a damn thing after july. there was no reason to watch, really, except for the comfort that something objective sat before you. jack tripper is still queer as a football bat in mr. furley’s eyes, and the cubs still stink.

once when i was a kid they made a run at it. that ’84 team was awesome (not unlike this year’s team), but they blew it with classic cubbie charm. that demise, however, was nothing compared to 2003′s historic debacle. no one will believe me when i say this, but darby, liz, and jessica can vouch for me. we were watching the game over at jessica’s place when bartman infamously interfered with that foul ball and moises alou lost his shit. they were five outs away from winning the world series at that moment, and as god as my witness, i knew right then that they were gonna blow it. a familiar, ancient calm washed over me. “they’re gonna blow it!” i said it, and i knew it. and, of course they did. they had to. the universe is an ordered system after all. bet on tomorrow’s sunrise. it’s all going to be alright.

since i’m rotting away in a phd program in a town with a cable television monopoly, i can’t afford decent channels on my box, so i didn’t see a second of the series. still, i have the sense that this year, the cubs really shit the bed. even for the cubs, getting swept out of the first round after having the best record in baseball is pretty fucking rank. hooch, todd, i love you both, but the cubs … the cubs are going to kill you before your time. it’s an unrequited love of the worst kind. you might work your way into a backseat hummer some drunken evening, but they’ll never close the deal. we may all be speaking chinese in my later years, los angeles could easily be underwater before too long, the stock market might resemble a new delhi flea market before 2010, but the cubs will, forever, be consistently bankable. a sure bet every time, to never, ever, ever win the world series again.

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