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Hey! Hey! Go, Cubs, Go! Am I right?
Man, what a ride this season has been. After 106 seasons of heartbreak, it’s actually in sight! The Promised Land, The Light At The End Of the Tunnel, The World Series.
You? You’ve been a Cubs fan for as long as you can remember. After you graduated from college and got a project manager job at a local ad agency, you found your niche in Chicago and have felt at home ever since. Never mind that you’re from Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, or Ohio — you’re a Cubs fan now. You’ve turned in your hometown Tigers, Indians, and Reds hats for the red, white, and blue of the Cubbies.
You remember it like it was yesterday. No, no, not the first time your father took you to the park, taught you how to keep a box score, and bought you a box of Cracker Jacks. I’m talking about your first game at Wrigley where you slugged down Old Styles on a sweltering mid-summer Friday afternoon where you skipped out of work early to hit the bleachers in your freshly purchased player shirt. What a time that was. Whether it was singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” while staring at the ivy or Snapchatting all your friends Ronnie Woo Woo and captioning it “#standard,” you knew the Cubs were officially your team.
And now look where you are. The National League Championship Series! Only eight more wins and you’ll be hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy (or “The World Series” as you call it)! You don’t want this championship — you need it. You’ve been in Chicago for a long four years now, and you’ve never seen it this crazy! (Well, except for those Blackhawks Stanley Cup victories that you hopped on board with too. Patrick Kane!)
But it just warms your heart to see Wrigleyville this electric. Sluggers, Cubbie Bear, Murphys, and Harry’s Tavern. You’re pretty much a regular there at this point, right?
What a ride. Gone are the dark days of 100-loss seasons and whisperings of Sammy Sosa’s corked bat or steroids. We’re no longer talking about Zambrano, Soriano, and Kerry Wood (I know, I know, you’re not totally sure who they are or what they did but people toss those names around). We’ve got a new era: Rizzo! Bryant! Baez! Schwarber! Soler! Arrieta! You can finally say it — These guys are good!
Sure, you were going to high school in a different state when Bartman snagged that ball and continued the curse (after all, it had everything to do with him and not Prior’s wild pitch, Alex Gonzalez booting that grounder, or all seven runs they gave up after Bartman’s exit). You hate him, right? His actions just altered your path to glory in such a huge way, so you can’t even stand when someone so much as mentions that name. But all of this winning! It’s sure helping to ease the pain.
You bleed that Cubbie blue. October baseball is redefining you. Fly the “W”! Yabo! Praise hand emojis! Long live Theo Epstein (he’s the Cubs President, if you didn’t know)!
So, to all the greenhorn Cubs fans out there, I crack open a tall-boy of Old Style and salute your struggle. Yeah, you’ve abandoned your hometown team, couldn’t name any players on the team going into spring training, and own a pink hat. But you deserve this championship run.
Well, that is until they lose and you have to hop on the Blackhawks bandwagon again. .
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Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
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Little upset about the Tigers season, Will?
Yeah, you could say that.
Thanks for sharing Cespedes with the rest of us Will. And by rest of us, I specifically mean the Mets, because we’d better never let him go.
As a lifelong Cubs fan and a longtime season ticket holder, you have to embrace the bandwagoners and let them join the party. There are rules though. Two things piss me off about bandwagoners:
1: When they talk shit to rival fans over social media.
2: When they refuse to accept that they are, in fact, not real fans.
Baseball is a funny game. A broken bat flair here, a seeing-eye grounder there, or even a catchable line drive that you drifted on and Allegator-armed(Nelson Cruz) can make the difference in winning and losing. Anything can happen. But no matter what happens to the Cubs this year, one thing is for certain, they don’t suck anymore and they won’t suck for while, and that makes me really happy.
I can’t argue with Back to the Future 2. Chicago is taking this one home. It is destiny.
Girl Blackhawk fans are the most annoying sports fans in Chicago. Go cubbies though.
I live in KC, 3 years ago there were no Royals fans, its incredible how many people changed their red and white shirts for blue and white ones. You want to talk about bandwagons, talk about Royals fans
Royals fans are the worst (except Brian)
It’s always tough for those of us who grew up here and been a fan for our whole life. #TakeTheCrown
Royals are trash. The whole lot of ’em.
Been a Mets fan since 97 when I became old enough to start to have my own opinions on sports (father is a Red Sox fan from Mass). I’ve always been the outcast when it comes to baseball. Now, all of the sudden, all my fellow Mets fans are out of the woodwork. I can’t even remember it being like this in 2006.
Marty McFly saw first hand that this year is THE year, and that’s enough for me.
We should never not be talking about the legend that was Carlos Zambrano.
even sean rodriguez couldn’t take out a water cooler quite like zambrano.
Bandwagon Blackhawk fans are the worst. People that had never watched hockey in their lives now have Blackhawk bumper stickers.
I was at a bar in wrigleyville for the wild card game vs the Bucs and 4 Blackhawks fans dressed head to toe in jerseys, hats, and shit walked in and sat at the table they reserved. They demanded the bar turn one of the TV’s to the Hawks opener. The bar obviously refused their demand seeing as this was the most important Cubs game in over a decade and they were in fucking wrigleyville in a bar. They threw an absolute fit and made a scene in front of the entire bar before getting kicked out. If you don’t regularly deal with Blackhawks fans, that’s who they are. I’m a bandwagon Hawks fan and I love following them through they playoffs. I don’t hide the fact that I’m not a real fan, but holy shit 80% of Blackhawks fans I’ve encountered are absolutely unbearable. They 100% believe they are the epicenter of Chicago sports and that is comically false.
Same goes out in suburbia. One of the people actually had to call the bar to ensure they’d be playing sound for WC game.
But just as bad as “epicenter of Chicago sports” ones are the ones who STILL don’t know what’s going on. Heard some drunk girl calling for a shootout in the playoffs last year.
I may have jumped on the Hawks bandwagon (insert long winded Bill Wirtz excuse here), but I thank all the Wings fans I knew for making me learn the game of hockey lest I be “that bandwagon hawks fan.”
Ask them who the captain was before Toews.
Big AA. hahah that guy sucked but Zhammy was sick, even though the team around him sucked.
We used to have bandwagon phillies fans…didn’t last though.
Stayin’ at the bottom and we here.
Stayin’ at the bottom, now my whole fucking team here.
I done kept it real in the slump.
Basement of the NL East, we’d argue every month.
08′ Tryin getting it on my own.
At the bank all night, traffic on the way home.
Charlie Manuel calling Sandburg like,”Where ya at
Gave you the keys, told ya bring it right back.”
Phans, its just funny how it goes.
World Fuckin’ Champions now we runnin’ through the woes.
Stayin’ at the bottom and we here
Stayin at the bottom, now the whole fucking Phils here.
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Speaking of bandwagon fans, if the Jays win tonight, we can probably expect to see about a dozen cutaways to Drake during each game of the ALCS
I have no problem with bandwagoners so long as they don’t try to claim they’re not…it’s a part of life. However, the major exception to this is any team in Los Angeles. LA “fans” (Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, whatever) are insufferable.
It’s impossible to argue with latinos.