This is not a typical post for me but so glad that it has inspired me to write again. This is my ode to the Cubs and what they mean to me and for me.
It may seem odd to be so dialed in to a baseball team. But there is a personal and franchise history that transcends normal sports for me.
What is odder is that I really could have cared less during the regular season for any sports team since I was maybe 12 years old.
I think I officially "gave up" on the Cubs after the Bartman incident in 2003 when they made it to the playoffs. Frankly, I coined a new joke..You know Jesus is coming soon when the Cubs win the World Series. Given the world and political climate...maybe it is.:-)
Then the Giants started winning the world series every time they made it to the playoffs and so I dialed in during that time.The last time was 2014. I was in Burbank and would have lots of fun cheering them on. It was only during the playoffs and I would watch an occasional game at At&T park. That was the extent of what baseball meant to me as an adult. But I said I was glad to be living in a winning city and so glad I had outgrown the Cubs.:-)
The balance and normality of it was thrown off with a vengeance when the Cubs made it to the playoffs in 2015. They again were stopped short of the World Series. I had hope as the back to the future movie prediction that in 2015 the Cubs had won the World Series...so I thought maybe it was a sign. :-) But it was not meant to be...but what was meant to be is that something deep inside me was awakened.
It was a time when I was fully alive, anticipated the future, was content and secure in who I was and my foundation was rooted and stable. And somehow..the Cubs reminded me of that time. It also reminded me that they had struggled for years and thru generations and never quite achieved what all baseball teams frankly have achieved in the last century...a World Series win. 1908 was a vastly different era and baseball was a very different sport. So now my now decades long dormancy and the Cubs century long hibernation awoke.
Now I realized this team was actually very good and young and 2016 held great promise. So I knew I would be checking in come April 2016. And boy did I check in...I started by hearing the games..and the more they won...the more I was lured in. I literally regressed to 12 and it was a complete joy.
The season saw me finally cave in and order pay baseball so I could see the non nationally televised games. I saw the Cubs at AT&T park, the Oakland Coliseum and finally at Wrigley field...for the first time in decades with full joy. It reminded me that I would walk to games with my best friend when I was 17. It reminded me I had history that transcends time and that my love affair with the Cubs never really ended.
My Cubs had gone thru changes, grown up and yet still were the same. And now it was generations upon generations of fandom..that had awakened and dared to dream again.
And maybe that is what the symbolism is...that it is never too late to dare to dream again. That if you fail time and time again, and even if you get tantalizing close to your dream and then experience heart break... you take the down time and then dust yourself off make the changes that you can and slowly but surely when it is in your grasp you can pull out all the stops. You dare to act on your dream.
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/In-Plain-Language-The-coming-of-the-Cubs-and-the-Messiah-470012
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