"Suffering" - What's in a Name?

I stand before you a shamed man. I have taken on (albeit involuntarily) a moniker of which I have not earned. The moniker of “Long Suffering Cubs Fan”. The truth can attack you in the strangest of places. For me it was the checkout line at Dominick’s. There I was minding my own business, buying some Edy’s Mint Chocolate Chip and Edy’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream. My main man Mario was running the items through the scanner. He saw my Cubs hat (and having had previous Cubs conversations with me) asked if they were going to start on another winning streak. As the Cubs were beginning a series against Cincinnati, I said “I certainly hope so.”

Then all of a sudden a guy behind me says “Are you two old enough to remember ’69?” He proceeded to regale us with snippets of the season and pointed out that “that was my childhood team. They broke my heart.”

On the drive home I thought about the fact that, while I consider myself to be a life-long fan, I only have memories going back to 1974. Then I fast forwarded to that magic year of 1984 when Ryno and Sut led us to the Promised Land. Ten years I waited. Much of that as a child just learning the game. I can’t say that I suffered all that much. Oh sure, I was disappointed in 1977 when they took over first place mid-season and then free-fell to a .500 record. But all I had to wait was ten years to see my boys in the playoffs.

After that it was a quick five years when they returned in ’89. Then it was ’98, ’03 (sniff, tears starting to well) and ’07. So that’s five playoff appearances in 42 years for me and eight of those years haven’t stayed in my memory bank; an average of one playoff appearance every eight years. Not great, but not bad. Especially when you consider that from 1945 to 1984, Cub fans had to wait 39 years for one playoff appearance. Some poor soul born in 1939, that’s a long suffering fan.

I think my generation falls into the Medi-Frustrated Cub Fan. The Cub fan that was led to believe that Joe Strain, Ty Waller, Jerry Morales and Steve Renko were the pieces needed to get us to the title.

Now to totally put a jinx on the fun we’re having this season, all the suffering could come to an end for all of us in late October. (That sound you heard was The Professor opening up his office window and hurtling himself to the ground below. He almost blew a gasket back in the off-season before the 1991 campaign when I uttered the words “Cubs in the World Series” because they had signed George Bell, Danny Jackson and Dave Smith. Jinxed, surely because of me, that season brought us 4th place [six games under .500], got Popeye fired and ushered in the Jim Essian Era [all 122 games of it]).

Non-CFCL Notes: Cubs Magic Number is 23 games as of August 26, 2008

CFCL Notes: As of 8/26/08, the point spread between 1st and 11th place is 55 points. The spread between 5th and 12th place is 60 points.