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Maybe This Year

If you look up the phrase "long-suffering" in a dictionary, you would find the Chicago Cubs logo next to it. It's been 108 years since the Cubs won the World Series and 71 years since they even played in a World Series.

The Cubs streak is different from the 86 year streak that the Red Sox broke in 2004. The Red Sox drought was full of blown chances where they had come so close and then just missed winning it all. The Cubs don't really have that other than the Bartman game from the 2003 NLCS.

Cubs fans have suffered through decades of losing. They had a 39 year stretch between 1945 and 1984 where they didn't make the playoffs at all. They had great players and some great teams but they could never put it all together at the same time.

My dad has been a Cubs fan for nearly 50 years. He grew up four blocks from Wrigley Field. He watched from the stands as guys like Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Billy Williams, and Fergie Jenkins took the field. He still has a look of sadness about what could have been when he talks about the 1969 season.

I didn't live in Chicago until high school, but thanks to WGN I knew the Cubs and their players like family. Mark Grace, Ryne Sandberg, Greg Maddox, Andre Dawson. These were my heroes. I would try to imitate The Hawk's unique batting stance every time I was up to bat. I would argue with my teacher who claimed that Joe Morgan was a better second baseman than Sandberg.

Then came the 90s and a strike that ruined baseball for me in 1994. I loved baseball so much that my friend Dale and I ran a successful write-in campaign in 1992 where Nolan Ryan won the mock Presidential election at our middle school. Baseball was my sport and to have a season lost because millionaire players weren’t getting what they wanted from billionaire owners hurt me deeply. I would have paid money to be a big league ballplayer. I gave up on baseball.

Sammy Sosa brought me back to baseball. His energy and massive home runs brought some life to the Cubs and renewed my love of the game. Then came 1998 when McGwire and Sosa challenged and beat the single season home run record. I remember rushing to the Ticketmaster counter at Dominick's with my dad after the Cubs won to force a one game playoff to be the Wild Card that year. I remember celebrating on Addison Street with tens of thousands of other Cubs fans when they won to make it into the playoffs. I remember the disappointment when the Cubs were swept in the Division Series.

I remember the Cubs being one win away from the World Series in 2003 going home with two chances to win at Wrigley. I remember Dusty Baker leaving Mark Pryor out there for one inning too many and everything falling apart. I remember the shock and heartbreak of finally getting that close only to have it all slip away.

I have lived 35 years on this earth and 23 of those years have been during seasons where the Cubs lost more games than they won. They have made the playoffs 8 times in my dad’s lifetime and he turns 60 next April. We have toiled. We have suffered. We have cheered when there was every reason for us to give up hope.

But we have hope. We have Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant. We have Javy Baez and Wilson Contreras. We have Addison Russell and Dexter Fowler. We have Ben Zobrist and Grandpa Rossy. We have a killer rotation of Lester, Hendricks, Arrieta, and Lackey. We have a fearsome bullpen and a closer in Aroldis Chapman that no one wants to face. We have youth. We have great pitching, great defense, and great offense. We have everything that’s needed to put an end to more than a century of futility.

The Cubs are one win from the World Series once again. This one feels different. Curses, losing streaks, and championship droughts are all meant to be broken. There are millions of Cubs fans that have been waiting for decades, cheering on the Cubs year after year. Guys like my dad who have pleaded for just one championship before they die.

We don’t have to wait for next year.

We don’t have to be afraid of a billy goat.

Maybe this is the year...finally.

#chicago cubs #cubs #playoffs 2016 #nlcs #billy goat #cursed #bryzzo #world series #FlyTheW

Now that’s a dip! Entertainingly, The Whip only scores 3 points from this pass (including a ghost point from a blocker in the box) because she didn’t pass White #3 while upright/in bounds. It’s the little things that make me smile! See the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Tim3mOD1g

#roller derby #WFTDA #team united #no coast #playoffs 2016