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| "Moonshots can be heard and seen over the Chicago night sky..." (photo courtesy of Ed Mancia) |
Donny R
As a kid,
it's much easier to get into the lumber power of Frank Thomas and Bo
Jackson and Co., fireworks at
a brand new ball field and, gulp, winning, than it is to get behind
the on-base percentage of the aging, early 90's Chicago Cubs’ teams. Growing up in Chicago
proper, your fandom is usually handed down from your DNA donor and incubators: my parents,
however, liked both teams though my mom leaned towards the Cubs. I'm not
a parent but if I lived in the city with two “same-sport” team choices and had
two young boys, I'd take them to as many Chicago
White Sox games as my parents
took me, because sports’ integrity is an impossible concept to teach your
kids. I strongly believe that my parents did the right thing nudging me
to the winning side. Why would you even subject your kids to the
heartbreak that is the Cubs anyway? As day baseball was being labored
close to my Rogers Park home, the moonshots could be heard and
seen over the Chicago night sky in the Summer of the early '90's, but that did
not change my allegiance. A couple of Big-Hurt chocolate bars, Robin Ventura t-shirts, and trips up and down the
concourse ramps at the new Comiskey
Park, I was obsessed with the White Sox.
Enter
1994.
The
strike ends the Sox World
Series hopes and ultimately
ends my love affair for the team. I started playing organized sports at
this time. I, like most Hispanic boys (excluding Pathological Hate’s editor, Felipe), was really
fast (For the record, I was
my 8th grade football
team's fastest runner and one of the few players that never complained during
sprints—Ed). I thought I was Benny
"The Jet" Rodriguez from
the film The Sandlot (No
relation?—Ed). And I was probably as fast as the character who
shared the same last name as me, except, unlike Benny, I had no coordination
whatsoever. During the pee-wee player assessment try-outs, I didn't field
one pop-up or grounder. I swung and missed on every batting attempt.
So I was put in right field, a safe haven for kids with fielding
deficiencies. You know who else played right field around that time? Sammy Sosa. Right around
1995, with Michael Jordan attempting a comeback and my loyalty
to the Sox just inexplicably wearing off just like things do for most eleven year-olds,
I decided I was a Sosa/Cubs’ fan. Chicks (baby chickens) dig the long
ball. Ok that joke was cheap, cheap. Crap that was worse; my gags
have flown over the coo--
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| Why did the rooster cross the road, Donny? (photo courtesy of Ricardo Ponce) |
You know where this
story goes: 1998 was the most exciting year of my sports-loving life! The Chicago
Bulls had just three-peated, again, WWF (now the
WWE-Ed) was embarking in its Attitude era, and
Sosa could hit a football with one swing (perhaps even throw it) farther than Erik
Kramer and Steve Stenstrom could do all
that year, combined. Jordan was now gone, leaving the face of the
city in the hands of Toni Kukoc, Curtis Conway, Tony
Amonte, Albert Belle, and Sosa.
As a teen, just as a
pre-teen, I was a front-runner. Not proud of it, but as an adult now, I'm
a fan of honesty. In High School, tucked away in the suburb of Elk Grove Village,
I always looked forward to the Cubs’ games back in the city I lived in the
first 12 years of my life. That's when you cement your allegiance.
Taking that Metra to the Blue Line is where
some of my favorite memories are bedrocked.
The rest is a sad an
unfortunate history, with a blip of nice times spaced out on my Cubs’ sonar
map:
- 2003 NLCS, I could have done without (The
year my soul gave up on life and committed suicide—Ed). I
was in college at Columbia in Chicago, and remember taking the Red Line after
class to Wrigley Field to stand
outside on Sheffield Ave, for Games 6 and 7,
and experienced the realest kind of dejection a sports' fan can ever
experience.
- Sosa "accidentally" grabbing a corked bat
that same year (Among many stupid things he has done throughout
his life. Not even talking about the PEDs—Ed).
- In 2005, from the bleachers, I saw Greg Maddux’s 3,000th strikeout on my
brother's 21st birthday. The Maddux game, aside from the random 2000
Sox game I attended where Mike Cameron hit four home
runs, is the best time I've ever had at a game.
- Throw in a couple two-three Cubs vs
Sox games, which now happen to be my least favorite sporting event
because of everyone
in the stands insisting on being drunk dicks to each other.
- The recent playoff runs were also memorable.
And now, here we are.
I'm too old to jump ship
to the South Side. I'm a Cubs' fan from now until death does
me part. Or at least until I have a kid, I'll take "it" to both
ball parks around age 7 and let "the child" decide who he roots for.
Hopefully, I can nudge the tyke to bleed “Cubbie Blue,” because after
all, misery loves company. Like father, like son. Go, Cubs, Go.
