Defeatist Cubs fans, media need not apply
Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster (Image via Wikipedia)
I’m just nuts about Les Grobstein, my Diamond Gems radio-show co-host, wee-hours gabber on The Score sportsradio in Chicago and proprietor of Grobber.com.
But I also go nuts when the Grobber — who grew up a perceptive, never-forgets Cubs fan and has me beat in the number of consecutive Wrigley Field home openers attended (43 to 39) — keeps falling into the sub-culture of defeat, cynicism and curses-worship which permeates countless Cubs rooters and media pundits. Les-s-s-s (this time he really deserves hisses) is rock-firm in his belief the Cubs will never win a World Series in his lifetime or his grandson’s.
The simplistic explanation is that the Cubs haven’t won in 101 years, thus they’re never going to win. Don’t acknowledge the fact mathematical odds should now be stacked in the team’s favor, or that recent and future ownership is committed to winning, unlike the Wrigley family and 1990’s vintage Tribune Co. stewardship.
Since Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster predicted a World Series win in the spring of 2008 that, well, did not happen, I thought I’d broach the subject of the defeatist attitudes to him at the tail end of an extensive interview about how he’s balanced baseball with the care of his seriously-ill newborn daughter Riley this season. As usual, the plain-spoken Canadian did not disappoint when I asked him what he’d say to those fans and media who proclaim the Cubs are doomed never to win it all.
“I think people buy into that,” Dempster said. “People always say, ‘Oh, man, I don’t want to pour my heart and soul into it again just to get burned again like last year.’ I said, that’s fine, become a Kansas City Royals fan or Pittsburgh Pirates fan, where you can lose every year. Your heart will never be broken. You don’t have to worry about it. Just become a fan of those teams, or pull for the Cubs over and over in the belief that year it’s going to happen.”
Everything seemed to align itself perfectly in 2008, when the Cubs won 97 games, 17 of which were credited to a revived Dempster. But it all fell apart in the division series against the Dodgers, in which a walks-afflicted Dempster had his worst start of the season.
So, what would it take (other than Dempster throwing a couple of postseason shutouts with, say, 75 strikes in 100 pitches each) for the Cubs to finally win a World Series, which Dempster assures will happen in our lifetimes?
“Twenty-five guys, a coaching staff, a front office, 40,000 fans every day, truly, honestly believing that nothing wrong is going to happen,” he said. “And if it does, we’ll overcome it. No matter what it is, our one goal is go out there and win a World Series, and nothing else.
“Just that game matters that day. No curses, no jinxes, no black cats, no goats. It’s just about this team, that year, going out and playing as hard as they can to go out there to achieve the ultimate goal. That’s to win a championship. When you can get all that combination together, something like that can truly happen.”
Dempster does have a point. Rewind almost a year. An eerie, almost funereal atmosphere pervaded Wrigley Field as the division series against the Dodgers began. There was almost a counter-buzz in the stands. Of course, it spread to the players, whose jittery, nervous nature stuck out like a sore thumb.
There’s something to be said about negativity permeating all of Wrigley Field. It works 180 degrees the opposite, too. When he first came to the Yankees as a catcher more than a decade ago, Joe Girardi recalled how the winning atmosphere just oozed from every corner of old Yankee Stadium. It’s perceptible, both ways.
Of course, neither Dempster’s stream of consciousness nor the prospect of adding to the discord of defeat is going to change the Grobber’s mind. He feels he’s been burned too many times to be fooled again. Even though he’s Cubbie Blue through and through, he’d rather pick the Brewers any year.
“Fans have the attitude they’re going to win, that’s fine,” said Les. “But even when they’ve put the thing together properly, everything happens to blow it up. I don’t believe in jinxes or hoaxes. There is destiny, and they’re not doing. I don’t know what destiny is. It just isn’t happening.”
The likes of Dempster won’t change the minds of folks like Mike Imrem, 30-year columnist for the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, Ill. Like Grobber, Imrem’s a long-burned fan. He works references to Cubs curses into his columns a lot. His latest effort, in the headline grab accompanying this blog, is the ultimate “buyer beware” admonition for incoming owner Tom Ricketts. Imrem is one of a score of pundits with the power of pen or mic who have popularized the curses-causes-Cubs-calamities theme.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Mark Potash, in another headline grab next to this blog, also projected a dark future, but this time due to crushing expectations instead of supernatural prompts. Negativity feeds on itself, Potash suggests.
Grobber and I will discuss this issue further, along with Dempster’s recorded interview, on Diamond Gems the weekend of October 2-4. First airing of the weekly syndicated baseball show will be noon Eastern time on Oct. 2 on the SLRNRadioSports.com network. Broadcasts on 38 terrestrial radio outlets will follow the next two days. If you’re in and around the Midwest, check your local news-talk or baseball radio-network outlet. In addition, a blog on Dempster handling his daughter’s illness will be published here soon.
I see where Grobber, Imrem, et. al are coming from. But I also suggest the old cliche that if something is repeated often enough, it’s seen as fact, applies here. The mantra of the Cubs never winning a World Series through eternity echoes so loud that any contrary opinion is drowned out, and thus never is heard by those who really count — the Cubs players.
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“Twenty-five guys, a coaching staff, a front office, 40,000 fans every day, truly, honestly believing that nothing wrong is going to happen,” he said. “And if it does, we’ll overcome it. No matter what it is, our one goal is go out there and win a World Series, and nothing else.”
Ha ha, good luck with that!
Actually, I think the more recent problem is Bartman. After the Cubs fell apart after that, the atmosphere at Wrigley changed from Friendly Confines to Spoiled Impatience, courtesy of the scads of young douchebags populating Wrigley and booing the moment something goes wrong. When I covered the 2007 playoffs, I was stunned how fast the fans started booing their own players. Like, someone would strike out, and the boos would start coming. That pretty much takes away home-field advantage. And it doesn’t help when they bring in oversensitive souls like Milton Bradley, or have Lou Piniella pretending the previous 100 years didn’t exist. The Cubs need to look at signing players who are mental rocks, and a manager who knows how to acknowledge the frustration without wallowing in it (or like Crane Kenney, bring a priest in to exorcise the dugout).
I think it’s also gotten worse since the Red Sox and White Sox won. At least Cubs fans could console themselves that other teams had ancient curses, too. Now they’re alone, populating message boards with lame retorts about leading the league in attendance.
It would help, Bob, if the Cubs fielded the best baseball organization in the game. That has been the primary reason for their consistent failures. They were grossly understaffed under Andy MacPhail and still lack the right head-count with holes apparent in scouting, especially scouting character (hello, Milton Bradley). And I don’t think the Lou Piniella they hired was the same Fiery Lou that everyone loved for decades. So where’s the distinction over other managers if he’s Mellow Lou now?
In response to another comment. See in context »George, a couple of things. First, what we learned on the South Side in 2005 is that when it does happen, it’s so powerful, or magical, that nothing can stop it. Not fan attitudes, not the media, not destiny, not curses. When winning truly takes over it realigns all those secondary forces in baseball.
Secondly, it seems to me that Cubbie culture, in spite of all its proclaimed pain, loves losing. That what permeates the stands isn’t so much negativity as it is the loving expectation of the sweet fulfillment of a secret wish that what’s special about them and their team will again be preserved. As soon as you do win, you will lose everything that’s familiar: a century of deliciously masochistic tradition.
I hate to disagree with you, Jeff, but that’s another stereotype about the Cubs that goes along with goats and curses. The vast majority of fans want to win down to their souls, but a crazy-quilt history of bad management and second-half collapses has left them shell-shocked. They don’t revel in losing and want more in a masochistic style. I don’t think any fan (or management regime for that matter) WANTS to lose. They just don’t know the formula right now for that cherished winning atmosphere, which I guess can only be created when they actually do win.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m not suggesting that they want to lose *consciously* George, but that losing is integral to their collective culture, that it’s familiar in the sense that family is familiar. Families don’t *want* to be dysfunctional consciously, but something keeps them *comfortably* in dysfunction. Maybe this is a case for Dr. Essig.
We get distracted by all this “lovable losers” stuff, Jeff. Again, the more it’s repeated, the more people feel it’s fact. That’s a nice misdirection play for baseball management and ownership, which never has had its feet held to the fire long enough to make the Cubs the first-class organization they should be year after year. Look at the people making the decisions, same as you’d do at Congress and the White House on something like health care.
In response to another comment. See in context »We agree there, George. I searched the Cubs-owning Tribune’s archive in 2006 for the phrase “lovable losers” and turned up 289 stories that use it. The fact that the marketing works suggests to me a corollary in the fan psychology.
This article reminds me of the old poem — “It [baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.” And if you’ve been a Cubs fan for any length of time, and know the history, yes, your heart has been broken. Many times. Every year. But we come back, over and over — why?? Because that’s what we do!! We love a team, embrace them, and wish them the best, year after year. Was I disappointed last seasib? OF COURSE! Do I think they’re cursed because of goats, black cats, etc.? Absolutely not. I think their “curse” has been short-sighted management, bad trades (from Lou Brock to Mark DeRosa among dozens), owners who don’t have a clue, and media who like to perpetuate the folk lore of livestock somehow preventing a World Series on the North Side. I love this team and, yes, I look forward to next year. And WHEN they win the Series, it will be an event unlike anything seen in sports history anywhere. Remember those blue bracelets a few years back? I BELIEVE. And so does Ryan Dempster. Maybe destiny’s name is Tom Ricketts? We’ll see.
Your loyalty is derided by too many pundits, Jan. They feel you should abandon the Cubs. Or they think you wallow in losing. Amazing, they never asked you one on one! Keep writing the truth about what it’s really like to be a Cubs fan.
In response to another comment. See in context »I know I’m not alone, George, that’s the key. True fans commit, and we’re in it for the long haul. Life’s too short to wallow in anything, let alone in losing. They pundits you speak of, unfortunately, have no interest in what fans like me feel, that’s the rub. Even after this very disappointing season, I’ll be counting the days until opening day 2010, just like I do every year. And there are thousands of fans out there who will do the same. Abandon the Cubs?? Sorry, can’t comprehend…
In response to another comment. See in context »The pundits don’t care what you think, Jan. Most were not fans anyway before they were pundits. Those that were are either too cynical or think they’re too clever. If you have a winning attitude as a fan, want the Cub to win, that’s all that should count.
In response to another comment. See in context »