The Cubs Win, at last

It was the darkest moment of the Cubs’ 2016 championship run. The Cubs had lost to Korey Kluber for the second time in Game 4, and found themselves in a three games to one hole. Elimination seemed to be staring them in the face in Sunday’s early hours, and I wanted to do my part to help.

A Chicago radio station was taking calls from its listeners, and I had a long drive ahead of me so I called in to add some words of encouragement. I have done this many times over the years, as recently as the Dodgers series when the Cubs also seemed to be on the verge of losing. My message then was “keep the faith, it’s not over yet, remember what the Red Sox did in 2004.” It felt good to say that, and know that everything was going to work out in the end. And it did, because the Cubs came back to beat the Dodgers to move on to the World Series for the first time in my lifetime.

But the Sunday morning talk show wasn’t having it. I told the call screener I wanted to talk about the Cubs on air, and he asked me what I wanted to say. I told him that the series wasn’t over, and that past experience shows that a series isn’t over until the last out is recorded. He asked me if there was anything to add to that, and I told him that 2004 was evidence that comebacks can happen.

He sounded put upon for some reason, and told me that saying that sounded “dumb.” He then asked for my name, because perhaps he realized it was 1:30 AM and people aren’t lining up to call radio stations at that hour anyway. I think he was going to put me on the air, but I decided that he and the station he worked for didn’t deserve hearing such crazy thoughts as mine. I hung up, and asked myself what was dumb about trying to exhort Cubs fans to not give up on their team. The answer was there was nothing “dumb” about it at all.

The Cubs did indeed come back, and the station’s call screener probably celebrated like the rest of us last night. But he should realize that hope is sometimes all that a person has, and suggestions that such hope is dumb is, well, beyond dumb. It’s cruel. Hope must always be encouraged, wherever it exists.

I feel great today, as I knew I would after an event I’ve waited for over most of my life. And I realize that the hopes and dreams of Cubs fans–which sustained us over a terribly bad period of losing and despair–make the victory that much sweeter. In 1776, in the first volume of The American Crisis, Thomas Paine wrote “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” And today sure feels glorious to me.