The Problem with Chicago Cubs Fans

Hope springs eternal. Alas.

Chicago Cubs fans are resiliently optimistic. They’re also habitually disappointed. More than a century after the Cubs’ last World Series win, the locals are still praying for a miracle in the Windy City—which would be better news if earthly prayers weren’t so apt to blow away in a stiff breeze.

Faith means believing that anything can happen.

Fatalism, on the other hand, means knowing that it usually doesn’t.

I’m not suggesting that Chicago’s title drought is permanent. Rain falls on even the driest fields, and sooner or later Wrigley is bound to be the site of a championship shower. But “sooner or later” is a rather meager basis for breaking out the umbrellas. In a world where long-term weather patterns remain unchanged for millennia at a time, only the most starry-eyed forecaster would bet against 10 decades of consistent yearly data.

A rising fastball is a trick of the eye.

A rising spirit is a trick of the heart.

If there’s a moral to the plight of Chicagoans, it’s simply that gravity works in equal measures on bodies and minds.

Rebirth is a prevalent theme on Opening Day. The warmer temperatures, the longer days, the gleam of crisp green grass under clear blue skies—they’re signs of natural renewal, proof that winter’s wrath is on the wane. The catch, of course, is that you can’t renew what never existed in the first place. Zealous Cubs diehards will argue that they ennoble their souls by waiting for the improbable. I’d counter that they’d be wiser to insulate their psyches by bracing for the inevitable.

Negativity is bad.

Naiveté is worse.

Naysayers may not make many friends in April, but at least they save themselves from heartache in September.

Pity a primate with the potential for wishful thought. The ability to plan ahead is Homo sapiens ’ most precious blessing; the ability to picture happiness is its most onerous curse. The problem with Chicago Cubs fans is ultimately the problem with you and me and all of us, which perhaps explains why Chicago Cubs fans are so exceptionally easy to mock. Every mammalian species is subject to an annual bout of spring fever. The one with an overgrown prefrontal cortex seems doomed by evolution to suffer a follow-up case of autumn chills.

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T.S. Eliot never met Steve Bartman, but he did know a thing or two about seasonal frustration:

April is the cruellest month, breeding     
Pennant dreams out of the dead land, mixing     
Memory and desire, stirring     
Dull roots with spring rain.

Which is a lament as old as lamenters themselves.

Because man's imagination condemns him to an infinite loop of aspiration and defeat, and anyone who claims to envision an end to the cycle is either expecting way too much from Marlon Byrd or only just saying, is all...

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