Why This World Series Was Special to Me

Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016.

Buffalo Wild Wings, Moore, Okla.

Game 6, World Series

Except for one guy with a neck tattoo, the entire bar is filled with Chicago Cubs fans. Except for one guy with a neck tattoo, the entire bar erupts when Anthony Rizzo belts a two-run homer to cap a 9-3 Cubs victory, tying the World Series at three games apiece and forcing a decisive Game 7.

When the furor dies down, my buddy James Hawkins leans over, gestures at the dozens of Cub fans in the room and says, “You know, you’re kind of at the cutoff age for people like us who grew up Cubs fans because of WGN.”

He’s right. I’m 36 years old and one of the younger people in the bar. Harry Caray died when I was 18 and television changed forever soon afterward. Now you can watch any team you want every day of the season. But if you’re over 30, you grew up with exactly two options: the Cubs on WGN or the Braves on TBS.

Day baseball, Ryne Sandberg and Harry Caray are the reasons I picked the Cubs. Ironically, one generation earlier my father became a Cardinals fan because they were the only team you could pick up on radio. Harry Caray called the Cardinals games back then.

Thursday, July 23, 1998

Wrigley Field, Chicago, Ill.

High school graduation present

Most Cubs home games start at 1:20 p.m. In junior high, I could run the quarter-mile home from school and get there by 2:40. In high school the 10 minute drive got me home at about the same time. So I watched the last 6 innings of more baseball games than I can count.

My favorite after-school WGN game was played May 6, 1998, when Kerry Wood tied a Major League record with 20 strikeouts. I got home in the top of the fourth and couldn’t believe how nasty Wood’s breaking pitches were and how pinpoint his control of a 98-mph fastball was. In the 7^th inning I picked up our landline and called my best friend Chad Anderson, who wasn’t a Cubs fan but was a huge baseball fan nonetheless.

“Dude, you gotta flip over to WGN and watch Kerry Wood.”

Two months later, for the first time in my life, I would get to experience Wrigley Field. Mom, dad and I arrived very early and got front-row bleacher seats in right field so Sammy Sosa would sprint right at us to start the game, his right hand cupped over his ear to get the crowd roaring. Sosa didn’t hit one of his 66 home runs that day, but a journeyman catcher named Scott Servais did hit one, and the Cubs beat the Montreal Expos 2-1. I wore a Mark Grace jersey, got scolded by an usher for leaning over the wall and stealing a single leaf of Wrigley’s famous ivy, and someone (perhaps the very same usher) was nice enough to take our picture. It will always be my favorite picture with mom and dad.

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003

Lawton Constitution newsroom, Lawton, Okla.

Game 6, National League Championship Series

I was too young to remember Leon Durham’s error in the 1984 NLCS that kept the Cubs out of the World Series, so my earliest memory of playoff heartbreak came in 1989, as a 9-year-old. I saw my favorite pitcher, Greg Maddux, give up a home run to Will Clark as San Francisco won the series in five games.

Those 1998 Cubs I saw in person wound up making the playoffs but were swept by the dominant team of the decade, Atlanta. Now, in 2003, it’s a new decade, a new millennium, and the Cubs have already vanquished the Braves in the first round of the playoffs. Up 3-2 in the NLCS against Florida, the Cubs needed just one win in two tries at Wrigley Field. With twin aces Mark Prior and Kerry Wood slated to start those games, the World Series seemed a foregone conclusion.

I was in my second year at the Constitution. I finished my writing early in the day, which left me with one task – watch the Cubs go to their first World Series in 58 years, come up with a snazzy headline and slap the story onto the page before deadline. When I was there, the only television in the entire newsroom was a tiny 18-incher that hung from the ceiling about eight paces from my desk. It was perpetually covered in dust. I made that short walk about a million times from 2002 to 2009, but never as many times or at as brisk a pace as I did that night.

I never blamed Steve Bartman for interfering with MoisesAlou’s catch. Having watched thousands of Cubs games before and since, I think that’s the only ball ever hit to that spot where the left fielder had a legit play on the ball. Any Cub fan would have done the same thing without thinking about it. Moments later though, when sure-handed shortstop Alex Gonzalez booted a routine ground ball, I knew the Cubs were sunk. I made the desk-to-TV walk about 25 more times that inning, going from mad to madder to despondent as the Marlins scored eight runs and won the game.

I knew the Cubs were destined to lose Game 7 before it started, not because they’re cursed but because teams who lose in devastating fashion in Game 6 never bounce back to win Game 7. Look it up, it’s history. I took the night off from work, unplugged my phone and watched Game 7 by myself in my apartment. They lost and I was sad, but at least I didn’t have to have annoying consolation conversations about it. Curses and “Next year” are for losers.

Saturday, Oct. 22, 2016

Best Western Hotel, Branson, Mo.

Game 6, National League Championship Series

A lot changed in the 13 years since the Bartman game. Somehow, I now have an amazing wife and four kids. I still watch every Cubs game of the season, but usually it’s on a fast-forward DVR so it only takes 45 minutes to watch a nine-inning game.

We spent the entire day at Silver Dollar City, getting back to our hotel just as Game 6 of the NLCS was about to begin. Behind a dominating pitching performance from Kyle Hendricks, the Cubs beat the Dodgers 5-0 to make the World Series for the first time in 71 years.

I celebrate quietly with cheap beer purchased at the Dollar General across the street. All of my kids are asleep in the crowded hotel room. On the right is Addison, my seven-year-old daughter named after the street on which Wrigley Field resides. On the left are my boys – two-year-old Maddux and one-year-old Hawk, named after another Cubs Hall of Famer, Andre “Hawk” Dawson. Adoption is the only thing saving 4-year-old Myra from a Cub-centric name as she sleeps curled up in the bed right next to me.

Watching the Cubs dogpile near the mound after their historic accomplishment, I understand intellectually that I am supposed to cry in this moment. But I don’t.

Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2016

Buffalo Wild Wings, Moore, Okla.

Game 7, World Series

After the Cubs won Game 6, we had no choice but to return to BWW for Game 7. I’d been wearing the same Dawson jersey (unwashed, obviously) since the Cubs won Game 5 and hadn’t shaved since then either. This time we got a babysitter so my wife Missy could join in the fun.

If you’re still reading this, you probably don’t need to be told how the game went. I could have done without the Indians’ 8^th-inning rally, but it did make for a more epic finish.

I don’t worry about the bandwagon Cubs fans that seem to be popping up everywhere this week. It won’t be the same for them. I’m very happy for this 2016 team and the championship, but what really makes it special are the years of memories the true Cub fans have invested.

For me, that’s running to the bathroom every half-inning as a 12-year-old so I wouldn’t miss an inning of a Cubs team that went 77-83.

It’s mom and I almost getting run over by Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel as he sped out of the players’ parking lot at Wrigley Field after a game.

It’s driving to St. Louis with dad for a Cubs-Cardinals series and seeing Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hit three homers apiece in three games.

It’s catching two batting practice home runs in the bleachers on the same day while on a college-graduation road trip with my two best friends. I was sick for the entire trip and didn’t know why -- turns out I had mono.

It’s taking Missy to Chicago before we had kids, splurging on good seats and converting her into a Cubs fan for life. The deep dish pizza may have helped.

When I get emotional about the Cubs winning the World Series, it’s because of these memories, not anything specific to this 2016 team (as awesome as they were). I know there are countless other Cubs fans here in Oklahoma and around the world who have their own memories and experiences that are as deeply embedded in their persona as mine are to me. To all of you, I raise a can of Old Style beer to the sky and give you two words: Eamus Catuli!