My Cubs by Scott Simon

Author:Scott Simon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-03-14T13:15:16+00:00

• • •

The Cubs played the Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series, and I wish it had been almost any other team. During a year of my childhood, my father was the field announcer for the Cleveland Indians. “Batting in the fourth position, number seven, the right fielder . . .”

It was the last year that my parents were married, and I went to the ballpark with my father for most game days. Lunch was a hot dog, and peanuts were the vegetable course. It was the finest summer of my childhood. I’d tag along with my father to receive the official lineup cards from each manager, and I got to look around for a few cherished moments to see boyhood idols in jockstraps and sweaty T-shirts.

Our family feels a connection to Cleveland. It has much of the character we love about Chicago, a city of hardworking people who have a wink in their eye. Major League (the original, not its sequels), in which fictional Cleveland Indians win the World Series, may not be as good a film as Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. But which one do you want to watch again with a pizza on Saturday night?

Just about everything that can be said about the prolonged drought for the Cubs winning the World Series can be said about the Indians, just for forty years less. We know what a World Series championship would mean to the city, and want nothing but the best for Cleveland. Just not against the Cubs.

My wife and I watched over dinner in a Chicago bar the night the series opened in Cleveland and the Cubs got Klubered. Corey Kluber, the Indians’ superb right-handed pitcher, struck out eight batters in the first three innings, and by the fourth we didn’t have much of a taste for anything. My wife turned to ask, “He can’t pitch every game, can he?” No, just two or three. The Indians won that first game, 6–0. When I told her on the walk back for the night, “Well, darling, it’s just one game,” my wife reminded me, “That’s what you always say. Game after game.”

We watched the second game behind the stage at a literary awards dinner for the Chicago Public Library. All these years we’ve been going to these awards, and never a worry that there would be a postseason schedule conflict. Thankfully the award winners, Erik Larson and Scott Turow, weren’t interested in coming onstage for acclaim until the Cubs were ahead, 5–1, which is how the game ended, the series tied.

We had to return to Washington, D.C., the next night to see our friend and companion at Cubs games Rick Bayless, the triple-threat Chicago chef, restaurant owner, and cookbook author accept another award. It was an off night for the clubs to travel, or I’m not sure Rick himself would have made the trip. I caught his eye when one of the officials bestowing his award said, “This year, everyone is a Chicago Cubs fan,” and I think we both winced.

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