I think I speak for most of us when I say it’s been a long week, capped by the heartbreaking loss Wednesday night.
Here at Northwestern we — students who are characteristically apathetic and complacently ignorant of all things “Chicago” — took a few minutes out of our schedules and maybe, for the first time, we cared. Not just about anything, either.
About our Cubs.
It’s true. Tribunes in hand, Cubs shirts donned, we pranced around Wrigleyville with the “natives,” fervently hoping with the rest of the city, that the unthinkable could happen. For a team to which we could claim allegiance to have — for once! — a chance in hell. But even a 3-1 series lead couldn’t stave off the inevitable.
For a while, though, it seemed possible. During Game 6, even I sat on the edge of my seat, fingernails freshly chewed and emotional state beyond precarious, watching the Cubs’ seemingly guaranteed 3-0 victory take a turn for the tragic: An overzealous fan snatched the game-winning ball out of Moises Alou’s poised mitt. Suddenly the Marlins were turning Mark Prior’s breaking balls into not three, not four, but eight runs in just one inning.
As the Marlins celebrated their victory an inning later it struck me: I had just watched a whole baseball game. And I don’t even really like sports. But there I was, incredulous, distraught and about to go out and buy a television for Game 7.
We all know how that ended, but that’s not the point. Even if the Cubs have never been particularly fabulous at winning (barring 1907 and ’08, of course), they have always been pretty damn good at making us care. And for a student body so typically detached from Chicago, such a claim is no easy feat.
After all, when else do we know what it feels like to be a part of the city’s larger community? Rarely, I would guess. But as I sat among a group of tense, heartbroken fans, a broader sense of — dare I say it? — “community” permeated the stale Norris air.
And at this point we have become far too entrenched to just forget it and move on. As English Prof. Bill Savage, born and bred in Chicago and a Cubs season-ticket holder, points out, life does, in fact, exist beyond Wrigley Field. Or the preferred bars from where you watch what happens in Wrigley when you can’t get tickets to the actual game.
“Chicago has everything you could want, but you have to want it,” he said. “The only thing keeping NU kids in the suburbs is apathy and laziness.”
But thanks to the Cubs, we have absolutely no reason to be either apathetic or lazy. Despite the loss, the Cubs got us totally obsessed. And now that we’re invested and involved in a community in which we should have immersed ourselves long ago, there’s really no excuse for turning back. So don’t wait around for another miracle.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have 95 years to waste waiting for another successful postseason series.
