Excerpt from "Bear Down and Get Some Runs"
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FEBRUARY 16, 2005
My phone rings.
“Hey man!” I say. I am greeted with a huff.
It’s Dan Lichtenstein, previous owner/wearer of my North Stars hat, and as soon as he huffs, I know what’s coming. Not the content, but the act: the Dan rant. Dan is one of the nicest, most thoughtful, most considerate people you’ll ever meet, and generally he’s pretty calm. But when something takes hold of him, it really takes hold, and that’s when you know a Dan rant is coming. The Cubs do it to him worst; Dan is one third of my Holy Trinity of Cubs fans, the other two being Ari and Jonny C. When Dan gets going on the Cubs, it’s chaos. “Let me tell you,” is his normal starter, and he says it in a stern and serious manner, and then he’s off, riding a Big Opinion to a seemingly overdone conclusion.
He’s silent for a beat after his huff, and then he begins.
“Let me tell you what…” And we’re off. I’m almost laughing already, giddy in anticipation. “If the Cubs get Barry Bonds, I’m done. I’m done. That’s it.”
I laugh. Dan’s awesome. “First off, why would the Cubs get Bonds? Is there talk? And second, what do you mean you’re ‘done?’”
“No, there’s no specific talk, but they were talking about him on the Score, and how would you feel if your team signed Bonds, and most people were cool with it, and it was just sickening. Have some class! The guy’s a cheater! If the Cubs signed him, that’d be it.”
“What would you do?”
“I’d become a Twins fan. I like the Twins.”
“You’d really give up the Cubs?”
“Oh absolutely. For Bonds? Absolutely.”
While finding a favorite player is like falling in love, finding a favorite team is different. There’s love with a team, but it’s a familial love rather than a romantic one. You’re born into your favorite team like you’re born into your family, which, of course, is exactly the case, because most people get their teams from their family. Your team is just like your family, in that you stay with each through good and bad…or, to be cynical: you’re stuck with it, so you’d better learn to like it.
Of course, there’s an element of romantic love as well, but that tends to be more on a year by year basis. I love the Cubs like family, but I fell in love with the 2001 Cubs in a more intimate way. They hooked me, and surprised me, and as that was the last summer I spent home before returning to camp, and as they made a serious run at the division title despite being a mish-mosh team that seemed to be held together by clothespins, and as I watched and listened to nearly every game that season…well, I fell in love. Plain and simple. I loved the 2001 Cubs. I love the Cubs. That’s as simple as I can put it.
Still, it always gets back to family, and because we are by nature a loyal breed, we stand by our family through all difficulties. When you’re a kid, your team protects you. You don’t know much about wins and losses and playoffs and championships. You just know these heroic players who live on television and in baseball cards and in yourself every time you pick up your glove or your ball. For a little while, at least, everything is great.
But then it happens. Something goes wrong. McMahon is sent to the Chargers, and the Cubs lose to San Fran, and for some reason the Bulls just can’t beat Detroit. That was the worst for me. When we lost Game 7 in 1990, I cried. It was May, I was eight and a half, and my team had just lost to Detroit in the playoffs for the third straight season. And I just started crying.
Why didn’t I pack it in right then and there, I wonder? Why didn’t I stalk out of Donny Burba’s TV room, head out the door, down the street, and never watch another Bulls game again? After all, when you’re eight and a half and something makes you cry, that’s it. You don’t ever want to deal with that thing ever again, be it a creepy carnival booth or a clown or the climactic scene of Lady and the Tramp or an orange Jolly Rancher. Crying as a kid is a tremendously lonely feeling, and when you’re eight and a half it’s even worse because you’re old enough to feel strongly that “crying is for babies.” And yet there I was, crying in clear view of my closest friends. I could have very easily decided to be done with it all, but looking back, I don’t even remember that as being anywhere near to a realistic possibility. I never even considered it. It wasn’t an “I’m-stuck-with-them” realization, as I was still far too young to be that bitter…I must have just had a sense somehow that this was my team for good or ill. I was given my teams by my family and by my region, and that was that.
Later, we recognize the feeling as responsibility. That’s what this is all really about. Being a fan of a team is a responsibility. If this were a movie, the sports fan would be Dustin Hoffman, and the sports team would be his son. All of a sudden Meryl Streep is gone, and now he’s got to raise this kid all on his own, obstacles be damned. I have to do this. That’s what it feels like to be a diehard. I have to root for this team. As a kid though, it’s different. It’s about the privilege. As a kid you get to root for your team. I started that way with the Bulls. But then things go bad as they eventually do, and you begin to feel responsible for them. That’s what happened with me; when we hit Detroit, I started aging like mad. In 1987, I was a kid and the Bulls were my team. They were big and fun and mine, a big red toy. Three years later, in 1990, I felt like a teenager forced into the burden of raising his younger brothers on his own because his father is dead and his mother is drunk. Everything had shifted. It was up to me. After all, if I don’t root for this team, who will? Sports teams only matter because people care about them. If nobody cares for the Bulls, then they don’t exist. I have to care for them. Somehow I felt like it was my responsibility to get them past Detroit, like it was up to me specifically…and yet, of course, I had no actual control over them, which makes responsibility rather difficult. How can you be responsible for something you do not control? Well, we don’t know. We just know that it’s what we have to do.
But maybe it’s less about responsibility and more about loyalty. Leaving the Bulls after Game 7 would have been like abandoning a friend upon hearing that he has cancer. It’s cruel. But then again, loyalty is about choice, and there was no choice. This was about a feeling of deep connection, as if the Team and I were physically connected, a feeling that I was tied to my Team in such a strong way that to purposefully break those bonds would be to destroy something that could not be rebuilt. Something within myself. If the Bulls are losing to Detroit, then I am losing to Detroit. There is no leaving, no escaping, becaue it’s you. You are that team, so even if you were to pack it in out of frustration, all you’d really be doing is hiding from yourself. The team still exists, and it’s still a part of you. You’re just ignoring it. You give yourself to your team for good or ill, and that’s that. It’s family. It’s like when your parents got really mad at you for doing something wrong, yet they tempered their anger by reassuring you that “even though I’m really mad at you now, I still love you very much. Even when we’re mad at each other, we’re still family, and we still love each other.” That’s what it was like after Game 7…like sensing that even though the Bulls had hurt me, they were still my team and I still love them.
It’s not that I didn’t have a choice. It’s that the feeling itself, the feeling of connection that draws me to the team, was and is stronger than the freedom to choose. I’m drawn to them, and I am connected to them. Even at eight and a half I realized this was true…
So to give up on your sports team, particularly after supporting them for 30 years, particularly when you’ve already found ways to get over Leon Durham, San Fran, Maddux going to Atlanta, giving up on Rafael Palmeiro and Luis Gonzalez, the Braves’ sweep in ’98, Woody not developing, Corey not developing, Grace going to Arizona, Stoney getting canned, Games 6 and 7 against Florida, Bartman, the ’04 collapse, and now this extended Sosa thing ending with him leaving on awful terms…well, to get through all that, and then be moved to abandon them, that’s meaningful. Will Dan do it? No, because the Cubs will never sign Bonds. I just can’t see how it would happen. But if it did happen, then would he? I think so. Most definitely. And we’d never get him back.
It’s a horrible thing to cut your sports team loose as an adult. To actually reach a point at which you can no longer stand the pain of your team, a point at which your team has betrayed you so many times that you feel it best to leave them completely…simply awful. The bonds have been broken, the team is guilty, and the fan is the helpless victim.
That’s the thing about the fan-team relationship: no matter what, the Team always holds the upper hand. Many fans give up on the specifics of their teams without much fight. There is no short term loyalty, and certainly no patience. Fans give up on and turn against players and coaches much too quickly and much too harshly. But they never give up on the Team, the actual franchise. For them, there is no shortage of loyalty or patience. That replenishes itself. But a little bit should go a long way, and when Teams begin abusing the never ending flow of loyalty and patience, that’s when fans turn. Maybe they internalize it, feeling that it is somehow their fault that things got so bad. Or maybe not: maybe it’s all betrayal and nothing more. But most things in life are judged based on performance. Your car stops working, you buy a new one. It’s raining with thunder and lightening and high winds, you cancel your golf game. Sports teams are no different: built on performance. Your quarterback can’t stop throwing interceptions, you cut him and find someone else. It’s not about loyalty. It’s about performance. That’s how you operate with your team.
But your Team, well, that’s different. Your Team is also judged by performance, but it’s not an athletic performance. It’s an emotional and ethical one.
After all, you stick by your Team through everything, riding all the highs and lows, and sometimes the highs are six titles in eight years, and sometimes the lows are no championships for almost 100. You roll with it all. You have no choice, and you don’t even want one, because the highs and lows are about the team, but the Team provides only Highs…that’s the idea, anyway. The payoff is the experience, the lifetime of rooting. That’s the gift. That’s the High. You judge your team based on performance, but you judge your Team based on love. So to actually cut ties with a Team…it’s awful. It’s giving up on someone you love in order to protect yourself, and it happens when the pain that comes with the responsibility of fandom is greater than the joys of living the Team. And that is something I hope to never experience.
In other news, Michael Barrett is one of the luckiest men in the history of fist fights. I am a Cubs fan, but let's get real. Barrett got off light with a ten game suspension. There is absolutely no
reason why he should have cold cocked Pierzynski. It was totally
inexcusable. AJ is a great irritant...Ok. But so is our boy Noce, and if James
Posey or somebody had decked him in the mouth, you know David Stern
would have put his #### on the pine for at least 20 games.
Obviously, it's unfair to compare the disciplinary tactics of the
NBA with MLB, but it was ridiculous by any criteria. AJ made a great play, and a legal play...and yes, he slapped the plate and waved his arms and played to the crowd, but again, it was all legal.
Barrett got frustrated and punched him in the jaw. I love Barrett, and
we definitely need him, but ten games is a joke.
I was flipping through ESPN.com when I saw a link to Tim Kurkjian's latest baseball story. This one? Future Cy Young winners. The best of the best of baseball's young, up and coming pitchers. In years past, this would have been the place where I would have gotten an immediate baseball-related confidence and ego boost, because no matter what else was happening on the North Side we could always count on analysts and enthusiasts fawning over our three young studs up front. Oh, they may not have been producing twenty win seasons yet, but at least we knew that Folks In The Knowwere celebrating their potential and youthful careers.
Not anymore.
Kurkjian lists five pitchers; not one of them was named Wood, Prior, or Zambrano. I then realized at the top of the page that Kurkjian was limiting his list to players who would be 25 years or younger throughout the entirety of the '06 season. That criteria eliminates Wood and Prior, who turns 26 on September 7th. Still, even without the age restriction, their exclusion felt proper, and thus, a bit sad.
The White Sox have won their World Series, and wouldn't you know it? They did it on the strength of their pitching. IT'S TIME FOR US CUBS FANS TO FACE FACTS: we are rapidly approaching a point at which we will have to look at this era as wasted...it's time to imagine yourself down the road, and older, wiser Cubs fan, one who tells stories about Our Three Power Hurlers and why nothing ever became of them. Now Woody is closing games in Kansas City, Prior has finally developed with the Braves, leaving only Zambrano to scratch himself and point to the Lord who, apparently, no longer sits above the Friendly Confines.
Let's all enjoy this season. I do believe that it could be a great one, and I want nothing more than to start the season with complete positivity. There's a voice gnawing inside me: "Red Sox in '04, White Sox in '05..." Indeed, it's the same voice that has kept many a Cub fan up nights ever since Paul Konerko gripped the final out of Game 4. We have a solid lineup, one that will produce consistently. And yet our entire season rests upon the arms of three humans who throw really fast. This could be our year, and when spring training begins my built in home grown Cubbie optimism will soar. Enjoy this season, Cubs fans. It could be the one we point to, smiling sadly, thinking to ourselves, "At least we got to watch them play."
TO MY FELLOW CUBS FANS: I need a pat on the back and maybe some apple juice to cheer me up. Please tell me that I am the only one feeling very nervous here on the cusp of this glorious 2006 baseball season. I am, right?
With the Bears bringing Rex in against the Falcons, I really wanted to write a bit about what this change means for the team. Then the Cubs signed Jacques Jones and the Bulls lost to Charlotte after blowing out Boston, and I decided that there was much to say about my home town teams. So, instead of just a look at the Bears, let's take a look at this week in Chicago sports in reverse alphabetical order. Shall we?
The White Sox
The White Sox rewarded the play of catcher AJ Pierzynski by giving him a three year contract extension, but the bigger news is that they bolstered their pitching staff by sending Orlando Hernandez and others to the Diamondbacks for Javier Vazquez. Vazquez was 11-15 last season with a 4.42 ERA, leaving him with astounding career numbers of 89-93 and a 4.28 ERA over eight seasons.
JACK SEZ:
Honestly, I'm being a little harsh here. Vazquez is a solid pitcher, and certainly a viable fifth starter. Actually, he's probably the best fifth starter in the Bigs, and with Brandon McCarthy waiting around, the Sox have definitely retained their most important unit. With the Vazquez acquisition, some people were asking if this was now the best rotation of all-time. These people are idiots. The 90's Braves, anyone? The three-peat Orioles? Buehrle, Contreras, Garland, Garcia, and Vazquez/McCarthy cannot yet touch these teams.
However, the Sox do have the best rotation in the majors, as I can't think of any other staff that A. is rock solid from 1 to 5 with a true ace, and B. threw four straight complete games in the ALCS. The only mistake that I think they made was shipping El Duque--quality starter, could become a terrific set up man, and a wonderful postseason performer--instead of Garland, who I'm betting will never again have a year like 2005. I'm not saying that he's going to tank, but I'm not expecting him to repeat what he did last season. Regardless, that's small potatoes assuming I'm right, which I may not be, and even if I am the Sox are still the favorite to win the AL Central. I am not rooting for them, but I am hoping that they stay competative and go back to the playoffs, because it's always good for any sport when its defending champion is just as hungry a year later. Every league needs a top-dog team to chase.
The Cubs
The Cubbies continued their outfield revamping project by signing Minnesota Twins right fielder Jacques Jones. Jones hit a career low .249 last season, thirty points below his career average, and while he has never been the standout that fellow Twins outfielder Torii Hunter is, I've always thought Jones was a solid player. This move gives the Cubs an outfield of Jones, Juan Pierre, and some combination of Jeromy Burnitz, Matt Murton, and the soon-to-be-gone (it seems) Corey Patterson.
Meanwhile, Nomar Garciaparra signed with the Dodgers to play first base, which means that Triple Crown wannabe Derrek Lee will probably keep his job. No, I'm kidding. What it means is that the Cubs are still loaded in the infield with Lee, Todd Walker, Neifi Perez, and Aramis Ramirez.
JACK SEZ:
One of the Cubs' biggest problems last season was not that they lost Sammy and Moises, but rather that they didn't seem to have a plan to replace them. Instead of challenging for the NL Central, the Cubs languished in mediocrity with their wonderful outfield grab bag of Patterson, Burnitz, Jerry Hairston, Todd Hollandsworth, Jason Dubois, Jody Gerut, Matt Lawton, and Matt Murton. Now the Cubs have Juan Pierre in center, Jacque Jones in right (presumably), and either Murton or Burnitz in left with the other coming off the bench.
But wait...what about Patterson?
Most people seem to think that Corey's career with the Cubs is done. Either they won't resign him, or he'll sit on the bench. A don't see either of those scenarios. I think they'll keep Corey, and with Pierre solidifying the leadoff spot and center field, all of the pressure is now off of Patterson to dominate in those two spots. Now they can move him over to left and leave him low in the order...bringing Pierre in might have the same effect on Corey that the Cedric Benson drafting had on Thomas Jones. Corey has pretty much bottomed out with the Cubs, and most Cubs fans have given up on him, which means that from here on in anything we get from him is bonus. I think he knows that, and with the pressure off I wouldn't be surprised to see Patterson have a solid year. Look for .280/20/80 with right around 100 strike outs.
BOTTOM LINE: The Cubs have a terrific infield and are solid defensively up the middle. Derrek Lee won't have another season like he did in '05, but he is a legit player who should easily put up .300/30/100 for the next five years. Aramis is a stud, Michael Barrett is terrific, Neifi/Todd Walker is solid, and Pierre is a great leadoff hitter and center fielder...
...but none of that will matter if Prior, Wood, and Zambrano cannot be the three aces that we think they can be. The Cubs' rotation has been the reason that they've been NL favorites since 2003; they've also been the reason why the team has missed the playoffs the last two years.
The Bulls
The Bulls put a hurt on Boston on Saturday, and then followed that up by losing big at home to the Charlotte Bobcats. They've bounced around .500 this whole season, and currently sit at 12-12, last place in the Central but eighth in the conference.
JACK SEZ:
As far as the Bulls' place in the Central and East right now, I predicted something close to that in my Eastern Conference preview, and everything I said then about the Bulls is still true...kind of. I still expect Tyson to put up 10 and 10 every night, but he's been hampered by a breathing problem. Sweetney has been solid but inconsistent. He's scored ten points or more in fifteen of the team's 24 games this season, including four games in the 20's, leaving him in single digits for the other nine. Six players are averaging double figures--Luol, Ben, Kirk, Sweets, Noce, and Du--but the highest of those six is Deng with 14.5. The Bulls have the offensive tools; now they need to utilize them fully.
The Bears
The Bears beat Mike Vick and the Falcons Sunday night by a score of 16-3 to improve to 10-4, and with the Vikings losing to Pittsburgh the Bears now have a two game lead on Minnesota with two to play. The season is far from over, though, as the Bears still have to travel to Green Bay and then to Minnesota for the season finale.
Our defense looked terrific on Sunday, with Brian Urlacher, Alex Brown, Michael Green, and Nathan Vasher playing particularly well. It was a hell o####ame for Green, who started at safety with Brandon McGowen in place of Mike Brown and Chris Harris. Green played great and helped the Bears force two turnovers, first by picking off Vick, and second by knocking the hell out of Atlanta receiver Michael Jenkins to pop the ball out of Jenkins' hands and right into Vasher's lap.
But the big story of the day was Rex Grossman, who made his season debut when he replaced a struggling Kyle Orton in the third quarter with the Bears leading 6-3. Soldier Field near took off when Rex came in; if it really was a space craft sitting atop the columns, we nearly made it fly. Rex got high fives all around the huddle when he came in, and then started things nicely by hitting Moose Muhammad with a 22 yard pass. Rex drove the Bears to the Atlanta 8 before throwing an interception to Keion Carpenter at the goal line. Fortunately for us, Carpenter fumbled, Justin Gage recovered, and on 1st and goal from the 1 Thomas Jones punched it in.
JACK SEZ:
I have been an ardent Kyle Orton supporter all season. The man did not have the greatest statistics, but the stat that I'm most concerned with when looking at a QB is wins and losses. When people were calling for Orton's head and hollaring for Rex to get his job back, I stood firm...
So they made the switch Sunday night, and to my surprise I felt OK with it at the time. In fact, I have to admit that it gave me some "pep," as my grandmother would say. Rex has now been named the starter for next week's game, and it's safe to assume that he's won his job back for the rest of the year, including the playoffs. I can't see them going back to Orton now, barring another injury. Rex did some nice things against Atlanta, though let's not forget that he did throw the pick near the endzone. That we got the ball right back on the same play is beside the point. Still, the man hasn't played since August; he was bound to make a bad throw. No biggie.
BOTTOM LINE: Rex is healthy. He has his teammates' confidence. He has his coaches' confidence. That's enough for me. If he can get the offense going and get some points on the board, that would be wonderful. I still think that Kyle Orton will be a good pro QB; we'll have to just wait and see with whom. But that's down the road. Our D is great, and Rex does bring a spark to this offense. I think he'll play well and give us a lot of positives from the quarterback position. We'll see how he plays next week. It'll be his first start since 2004, and it's in Green Bay a week after Favre and the Packers were embarrassed by the Ravens 48-3 on Monday Night Football. The Packers will be ready...this isn't a gimme. Reasonable offensive goals: 14-20 points, 100+ yards rushing, 225 yards passing.
HOPE YOU'VE ENJOYED MY CHI-TOWN RECAP. Keep it tuned here.
I was reading HeavyT's most recent entry--"Owner's Aren't Innocent (Angry Fan Part 3)"--and I began writing such a long response comment that I decided to just write it here as a seperate story. So check out HeavyT's post, because he brings up a lot of interesting points...
The entry was about team owners, and how they should take more heat for driving prices up and making it extraordinarily difficult for families to attend games.
Yes, owners put the squeeze on, but really, we do it to ourselves. Money talks. If we didn't pay the money, the prices would come down. For all of you out there who are no longer living off of their parents, I want you to think back with me.
Do you remember when you used to go food shopping as a kid with your parents? It was like a play-land. You'd run and find cookies and sugar cereals...you weren't paying, so who cares? Compare that to the first time you went food shopping with your own money. Different story, right? All of a sudden, you're in control...you can buy anything you want...and yet that responsibility forces you to make choices. Suddenly, with rent and utilities and gas and, in some cases, school, a big bag of Cheetos and a box of Twinkies don't seem so vital.
WE ARE THE CONSUMER. WE CONTROL THE PRODUCT. If sports fans were more cost-conscious and less willing to continue paying "whatever it costs," the prices would come down. I guarantee it.
I am as big a sports fan as you'll find. I am the first person that people call after a game to hear a reaction. But there is a line. WE'VE BECOME A SPORTS NATION OF DRUG ADDICTS, willing to do whatever it takes to go to games.
There is nothing like going to a park or an arena to see your team play. Watching a game on TV will never be able to replicate the feeling of going live. But we have to make choices. The Bears are my favorite team, my life blood. I pay for one game a year, and I soak that up. I love the Cubbies, and baseball tickets are cheaper than football tickets, so I go to three or four Cubs games a year. I love the Bulls more than the Cubs, but I've only been to five Bulls games in my life; it's just too expensive.
Real fans should be able to see their teams play live at least once a season. NBA arenas should not be filled with business execs while the real fans stay home. Families should not have to mortgage their homes in order to go to a game. But this is the bottom line: WHILE MONEY IN SPORTS IS OUT OF CONTROL, THERE'S ONLY ONE REASON WHY: THE FANS.
