Tag Archives: Cubs

Batter Up!

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Angel and Alex anticipate the start of a ball game.

We interrupt this series of serious messages for some old-fashioned American holiday fun.

Well, to be honest. I’m talking about yesterday, July 3. Following great American tradition, I took two grandsons, Angel, 14, and Alex, 9, to their first Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Observing Cubs tradition, it was a day game, beginning at 1:20 p.m. Observing Chicago tradition, we arrived via CTA, taking the Blue Line downtown and the Red Line from there to Addison, walking one block to one of the most iconic stadiums in America. One special aspect of Chicago, even with two teams, is that the Red Line will get you to either the White Sox or the Cubs, and as the train moves along, the ride becomes a communal experience as growing numbers of fans enter, easily identifiable by their team paraphernalia. It is quite different from many stadiums elsewhere with huge parking lots and fans pouring out of their individual cars and SUVs. It may be crowded, but you are part of a crowd on a mission. It is fun just getting there.

Apparently, we took too long or left too late because they were no longer passing out free Cubs t-shirts to the first 10,000 people through the turnstiles, even though we arrived almost an hour before game time. That misjudgment is on me. The least I could do inside was get the boys lunch and a drink. One had nachos, one had a chicken sandwich, and I opted for bratwurst because, well, this is Chicago. What I could not accept was the idea of paying $10 for a Budweiser, so I opted for lemonade. If the vendors at least had a respectable microbrew on tap, maybe, just perhaps, I could have splurged for that beer. But not for Bud. (Sorry to offend any Budweiser lovers, but please. I just bought a six-pack of Bohemia this morning for two dollars less.)

Anyway, we enjoyed our upper-deck seats to the right of home plate in part because they were shaded on a 90+-degree day, unlike those more enviable and expensive but sun-splashed seats below us. My new Arizona hat became largely unnecessary. We were comfortable, if a little more removed from the action. By the time the game started, I had used my new iPhone to text harassing messages to my long-time friend and colleague Rich Roths, who hails from Michigan and bears the burden of a Tigers fan, despite decades of life in the Chicago suburbs. The Cubs were playing Detroit, in case I need to put a finer point on the reason for my friendly needling.

Alex fell asleep in the second inning, a source of mild amusement to Angel and myself, but he missed little from a Cubs perspective as starter Kyle Hendricks gave up three runs in five innings before the Cubs finally revved their offensive engines for a nice, three-run rally in the bottom of the fifth. By then, Alex was awake, and while he does not yet understand all the nuances of the game, he began to catch on that the Cubs were coming back from a deficit. On the way home later, I suggested to him that some day he could sit and watch a game on television with me, and I would carefully explain many of the rules and intricacies of the game so that he had a better appreciation of what was happening. To my surprise, he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up signal. One thing about Alex: He likes to learn new things.

As for that fifth-inning rally—it was classic never-say-die Cubs-style baseball. Tommy La Stella pinch-hit for Hendricks, whose time was up, and smacked a double well into the left-field ivy. Albert Almora followed with a second double, driving him home. Jason Heyward must have decided that copycat was a fine form of baseball because he powered a third double and scored Almora. Now it was 3-2, with no outs until Ben Zobrist grounded out, but that allowed Heyward to move to third. That was all first-baseman Anthony Rizzo needed to score him with a single, tying the game.

Nothing more followed in that inning, but it was enough to reassure fans that the day was far from over. In fact, today the Cubs won their sixth in a row in a home stand after falling behind early in each game. Our Cubs are not to be easily written off. In the top of the seventh, Alex decided he needed a snow cone but, unwilling to take my eyes off the action, I indicated only that I would get him one if a vendor arrived, which never happened. But Alex soon found other ways to rivet his attention. Another run scored in the bottom of the seventh on a pair of singles and a fielder’s choice, and in the eighth slugger Kyle Schwarber nailed a home run in the right-field bleachers to provide some insurance for a 5-3 lead that held firmly in the top of the ninth.

The music started as the fans filed out:

Go Cubs go, go Cubs go!

Hey Chicago, what do you say?

Cubs are gonna win today!

When we once again emerged from the shadows into the sunlight of Clark and Addison, I had the boys pose in front of the statue of Ernie Banks. They obliged, as you can see, Alex engaging in some dancing shenanigans as he did so. God bless America. George Washington may not have invented baseball, but that’s only because he was too busy liberating his country from the British Empire, so left the job to Abner Doubleday. I’m glad I chose the Independence Day holiday week for our outing. Baseball and America are just a part of each other, the “Home of the Brave.”

Jim Schwab

 

A Tail of Two Cities

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Cell phone photos aren't always great, but they're quick. :)

Cell phone photos aren’t always great, but they’re quick. 🙂

No, that’s not a typo. It’s a dilemma. It’s what happens when you grow up in one city desperate for a championship, and you end up living in another, and the two face each other in the World Series. Like Cleveland and Chicago. I have lived in one or the other for 58 of my 66 years, only slightly longer in the latter.

As everyone knows by now, if you were listening to the broadcasts, Cleveland has not won the World Series since 1948, the Chicago Cubs since 1908. The Cubs have allegedly been trying to erase the curse of the billy goat since 1945, their last previous appearance in the World Series, ever since William Sianis was denied entry with his goateed pet in that series by none other than Philip Wrigley, who, it is said, claimed that the animal smelled bad. But then, it was a goat. Was he supposed to smell like perfume?

Meanwhile, the Indians made it to the Series in 1954, 1995, and 1997, each time unsuccessfully. In 1954, the winningest team in Major League history (111-43) dropped four straight to the New York Giants, whose Willy Mays made that famous catch of what might have been a Vick Wertz home run. Nothing went right for the team, which suffered four decades of mediocrity before moving to Jacobs Field. And no other team brought a championship to Cleveland until the Cavaliers and LeBron James did it in June.

I rooted for the Cavs earlier this year. I held no brief for the Golden State Warriors, and Cleveland needed a rallying point. I was happy for them.

But the Cubs-Indians matchup put me in a difficult spot. Sentiment for the Cubs finally breaking the curse drove me to the home team, while my relatives in Cleveland obviously felt differently. One suggested I was a traitor to my home town, though I noted that I was actually born in New York. My mother was from Cleveland, hated New York, and dragged my Queens-native father back to Cleveland before I was a year old. He was a New York Giants fan. I never heard the end of the story of 1954 and Willy Mays. But that conflict of loyalties was never my story, and the Giants in any event decamped for San Francisco before I was old enough to know about it.

My sister made a bet, savoring the idea of winning a home-delivered frozen deep-dish pizza from Lou Malnati’s, which I promised if Cleveland won. In return, I extracted the promise of a case of Great Lakes beer if the Cubs triumphed. I’ll pick up my brewskis over the holidays.

But then came this year and this World Series. And those long-suffering, hungry Cubs fans, who finally had a team as hungry as they were. For years, under Tribune Company ownership, the team had lagged under the influence of bean counters. Then came the Ricketts family, determined to win, and another story line emerged.

I am aware, of course, that the Chicago Black Hawks have brought this city three Stanley Cups in the last seven years. The city is not completely hard up for victory.

And yes, I was here for those two three-peat Chicago Bulls teams who so dominated the National Basketball Association under the stardom of Michael Jordan. The city has tasted major glory.

Even the White Sox won the World Series in 2005, and the Bears the Super Bowl way back in 1986. Until LeBron came back, Cleveland had not had any championship since the Cleveland Browns won the NFL trophy in 1964. That’s a long time.

Still. There was that issue of the Cubs. It had to be resolved somehow. And Cleveland did win something this year already.

But these were two damned good teams, and neither was going to make it easy. So I watched every game. I watched last night, thinking the Cubs were on their way, only to watch them give up a lead and go into extra innings. Just to add drama, these two teams in Game 7 had to add the suspense of a rain delay following the ninth inning. Seventeen minutes later, they resumed, and the Cubs’ bats went to work again, and by mid-tenth inning, they were up 8-6. Still, it could not be simple. Both teams were burning through their bullpens, Andrew Miller failing to stop the Cubs and leaving the game, and Aroldis Chapman literally burning out his arm and being replaced in the bottom of the tenth by Carl Edwards Jr., who had to put a runner on base and give up a run. Mike Montgomery came in with a one-run lead and two outs and finished the job, but only with a rapid-fire shot of an infield ground ball to first base by Kris Bryant, and the game was finally over. Nothing about this could be easy.

Somewhere in animal heaven, a billy goat is happy to be relieved of his historic burden. He is probably wagging his stubby tail. The curse was probably never his idea anyway. Just like our dog, a Springer spaniel named Roscoe, was less than thrilled listening to the fireworks in the neighborhood when the game was over. He was shaking like a leaf. He doesn’t like thunder, either. He’ll be very happy when the celebration is over.

 

Jim Schwab

Cubs Win! Holy Cow!

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Okay, all you 8,000 blog readers out there, listen up. I deal with a lot of serious subjects on this blog, but I also like to have fun. And I’m also a big baseball fan. In Chicago. Right now that combination adds up to something slightly dangerous, as Chicago fans are entering uncharted waters.

They may well have a winner in the Chicago Cubs, who last won the World Series in 1908. At the risk of my nonexistent reputation for sports prognostication, I say they are going all the way.

There are times in the affairs of men and women when all the stars line up, and the omens all point in one direction. Consider the following:

  • The Cubs, who had a mediocre first half of the season, came roaring out of their obscurity after the All-Star game to secure a wild card spot, just three games behind the St. Louis Cardinals, the team with the best record in Major League Baseball this year.
  • They did this in large part with the help of a pitcher who was not even in the All Star game, Jake Arrieta, who was 11-1 after the break with a 0.75 ERA. I mean, who does that?
  • They used Arrieta in the one-game wild card playoff against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh, where he iced the team that was just two games behind the Cardinals in the National League Central Division with a four-hit shutout. The Cubs then moved on to St. Louis.
  • The Cubs lost game one in St. Louis, roared back to take game two, then finished off the Cardinals in two games in Wrigley Field, the first time in a century they have clinched a playoff series in their own stadium.
  • Despite the fact that Jake Arrieta finally had an off night, his first since July, his teammates picked up the slack and hit six home runs to carry him to an 8-6 victory. Those home runs broke an MLB record for the most by any team in a playoff game. Ever. Granted, it was a windy night on the lakefront, but it was just as windy for St. Louis.
  • And then—and then . . . . this is the topper, the one clue that marks a team of destiny. Late in game four, with the Cubs already ahead but happy to take out some insurance, Kyle Schwarber swatted a four-bagger that appeared to top the towering Budweiser sign in right field. But what happened to the ball? No one saw it land on Sheffield Avenue behind the stadium. No one claimed to have caught it. But photos revealed a ball sitting on the platform supporting the sign, and a Cubs worker indeed found it there, with the distinctive markings of a postseason ball.

Indeed, the Schwarbomb, as it is now known, a 419-foot monster launch, managed to fall onto the platform and stay there. The Cubs have encased it in a glass box to protect it from the elements and plan to leave it there until the playoffs are over. Think of it as a potent of good luck. Our time has come.

Now, I am going to upset half of Chicago with my unorthodoxy. I can root for the White Sox or the Cubs, and as the White Sox are not in the playoffs—in fact, they had a very mediocre season—I am perfectly happy to cheer on the Cubs. They are the best thing happening in Chicago, at the very time when the former Chicago Public Schools CEO has pleaded guilty in a bribery case for steering a no-bid contract.

You see, I grew up in Cleveland, where we had to suffer with the long-suffering Cleveland Indians, stuck with a name and logo that still brings discomfort to many Native Americans, a team that took a 41-year break in World Series appearances after 1954, when the winningest team in Major League history lost four straight to the New York Giants, who included in their ranks one Willy Mays, who made what is perhaps the most famous catch in Major League history of a Vic Wertz would-be home run ball. Events sometimes foretell destiny. Mays produced one in 1954; Schwarber may well have produced one in 2015.

Coming to a city with two teams, I failed to do what native Chicagoans do between the Cubs and White Sox: pick sides. Instead, I thought, double the chances, double the fun, what a blessing to have two teams in contention. Until I found out that, most years, neither one was in contention. And then there was that foul ball caught by fan Steve Bartman in the 2003 playoffs. He was blamed for the Cubs’ collapse, but really, a team so easily rattled did not deserve to move on. The 2015 Cubs are poised, not rattled, confident, not jittery. They are going to win.

Besides, I am a fan who never had any dreams of being on that field myself. As a child in Little League, I had about a .100 batting average after getting glasses for myopia and astigmatism. I didn’t learn how to compensate for all that until I was an adult and occasionally played intramural softball. One night, laying into a pitch that was just too good to be true, I drove one deep into left field, so far that I was crossing home plate before the other team got the ball back into the infield.

Damn, it felt good. Ever since, I have understood what it feels like to really park one. Even if mine came from an amateur against other amateurs. And I know when a really big home run is an omen of things to come.

And if my sixth sense about the Cubs turns out to be in error? I can always go back to writing about urban planning and disaster recovery. Lord knows, the Cubs have provided some lessons on the latter topic over the years. But not this year. They’re taking the World Series.

 

Jim Schwab