Election and the Chicago Cubs
It is Sunday night, which means that we only have a week and a day of this election cycle to go. Can we hack it? What will be the next scandal or investigation, tape or audio recording? Whom will come forth to be famous or to be the instrument of one side or the other? Everyone would love not to care but have been forced to care by the media. There’s no place else to go.
Football. Hohum. The World Series. Yes! But then, there’s the Cubs.
I remember being the coach for a little league team so long ago. The champs came to town to play our little back country team. We were damned good. Until they got off their big silver and blue bus. Until they showed up in wonderful silver and blue uniforms with real cleats, instead of the “T” shirts, jeans and tennis shoes we had. I looked over at their dug out and then at ours and my kids faces. I knew we had lost before the game started because my kids were merely waiting to get the other kids autographs. My batters would not even swing. They said the pitcher on the other team was too good to hit. And there you have it.
The Cubs. Take a look at their faces when you watch the next game, probably the last game. And then they can go back to being the Cubs. The only losers in America that America loves and approves of being losers. At least watching them is better than listening to one more word of this awful acrid and stench-ridden election presentation.
Well, as everyone knows today November 3rd, the Chicago Cubs are the World Series Champions.
Watching the “fans” reacting brought thoughts about some real strengths in America.
The Cub fans, and I am one for all these years even though I left South Chicago in 1950, own a unique, belief system.
Everything does not have to be conflict or blame.
We can champion a ’cause’ regardless how futile it may seem.
Interesting way this post brings some reality to it all
Thank you Chuck. Defining what is winning and what is losing changes in amazing ways as we go through life. I never felt like I was supporting a loser team in secretly cheering the Cubs on. I always felt I was, like, banking on the come. We are always buying a ‘pig in a poke’ in this life, over and over again. We know almost nothing about the reality of the two candidates, one of whom will be president in a few days. It’s all second, third or fourth hand. The same is true about the Cubs, really. My grandson challenged me on the phone to name one Cub player and I couldn’t do it without cheating during the game and running over to the T.V. to see who was up at bat. The president is a position and an idea, like the Cubs, and it’s the reality of the people supporting the position and idea that mean everything….
Interesting assessment of the Cubs. Ya, they will probably lose. It’s just the way of probabilities. But Joe Maddon is not your typical manager. So I’ll hold out for the last game.
Just read the last couple installments of Thirty Days has September. Really captivating. Thanks for bringing this to us.
Thank you Bill. I think a lot of the vets reading this series are kinda like me.
The trouble with the kind of experiences that ‘burn in’ from real combat leave you in
a form of combat for the rest of your life. The searing is just too deep, the harsh introduction
to a cold reality too stunning to ever escape from. I will continue the writing and follow the Cubs
even if they lose, of course.
Semper fi,
Jim