DISCLAIMER: The author is a die hard fan of the Chicago White Sox, and still smiles at the thought of their 2005 World Series victory even after a year where they played bad baseball.
With the greatest time of year upon us, that being the month of October and the
Major League Baseball postseason, it is a time of nothing but outstanding baseball night after glorious night, with a champion crowned at the end of it all. With the exception of
spoiled Yankee fans, the supporters of the team that wins experience a joy unlike any other, the product of a daily grind met with penultimate success for the year.
Some teams, however, have managed to have this joy elude them and their paying customers for multiple generations. While some have sated their fans thirst (Boston in 2004, the aforementioned, beloved, and
properly colored Sox in 2005), others have yet to achieve this. Remarkably, this year's edition of the playoffs features the longest drought in both the American and National League. The Cleveland Indians, champions of the American League Central division, fought tooth and nail with the Detroit Tigers for 5 months before galloping away like
Barbaro's final quarter in the Derby in the final month, have gone since the 1950s without this taste of glory, coming tantalizingly close in 1997. The other is what many believe to be the most accursed team in professional sports, the crosstown brethren of my beloved team, the Chicago Cubs.
For 99 years, Cubs faithful have routinely attended the world's largest beer garden to drink Old Style and watch a team that for many years was middling to poor, with the occasional year or two of success, but none ending with a World Series victory to end the season. Naturally, many Cub faithful desire this to occur, and, since 1945, when the
Curse of the Billy Goat has reared its horned skull, their despair has mutilated a number of individual lives (see Durham, Leon or Bartman, Steven). Yet, in this humble author's opinion, a World Series could be the worst thing to ever happen to that organization.
First, and foremost, Cub fans would lose their identity. The author has been lectured by his friends who belong to said group of Cub fans on how being a Cub fan is a microcosmic teacher about life. Not coincidentally, this is the same tune that Red Sawx fans were singing prior to 2004 as well, and now they have become like those spoiled Yankee fans, thinking its their birthright to be atop the AL East and challenging for a championship each and every year. So too, I fear, would this be the fate of Cubdom. A fan base that was raised up on things other than winning won't know how to act after the culminating joy, and it will act in a despicable manner after the euphoria fades.
Second, too much success will make the Cubs have to market like every other team. I mean, what other team can go 64-99, and yet sell 90% of its tickets? It's because the Cubs have done an impeccable job of marketing Wrigley Field as the historic baseball shrine that it is, creating a culture in and around the ballpark that goes for a party more than for a winner. However, winning will decrease the number of party goers who attend the beer garden as the victory bandwagoners climb aboard and buy out their seats. This in turns makes Wrigleyville less desirable for John Q. Partyman, and he goes to other areas instead. When the Cubs return to the mismanaged state that they are accustomed too, the ballpark will look like Comiskey during its lean years.
Finally, and perhaps most important in the author's opinion, the nasally dialect of the Wrigley denizen would become excruciatingly unbearable, particularly for my Pale Hose brethren. I would not wish this fate on anyone; some may argue it'd be hellish.
The prosecution rests its case. The Cubs should never win the World Series. Ever.
P.S. Note to those who are Cub fans: The Curse will die when you let it. And I'm not sure that's possible.
