Generation after generation of traditions.
A tradition of losing. A tradition of being relentlessly teased by your South-sider friends. A tradition of singing "Go Cubs Go", only to never go quite far enough.
Thousands of fans. 108 years. Seven games. One rain delay.
Today Cubs fans woke up no longer as the lovable losers. No longer praying that next year is the year. They can say goodbye to most of those age old traditions, but they will not say goodbye to all of them.
Being a Cubs fan is not just about a tradition of loosing. Even if the young team didn’t put an end to the curse, it would never have been about a tradition of loosing. Of course that was a part of it, yeah the lovable losers. But the things that made Cubs fans lovable when they were losing, are the same things that will continue to make them lovable as World Champs.
This is Chicago. While those of you far out on the East or West may picture the Gold Coast shopping stores and beautiful sky scrapers, people who call the Midwest home know that it is about so much more than that. Cubs fans are loyal. Who could root for a team that lost year after year, after year? It’s not about how much they love baseball. There are countless passionate fans all across the country, for all different teams, who love baseball just as much as Cubs fans.
It is less about baseball and more about who these people are, how they approach life. They are loyal to their team in the same way they have always been loyal to their honest Midwestern values, to their families, to their church, to their country. They aren’t always the first to embrace change, just look at Wrigley Field. But since when was sticking with what works ever a bad thing?
Last night's win wasn’t easy. No real Cubs fan would have wanted it to be though. They know that nothing good ever comes easy, and you don’t wait through two world wars and a trip to the moon just to clench a World Series title in some effortless lead.
No, this is Chicago. This is the Midwest, where you fight for it no matter how long it takes, how many people tell you it will never happen and how hopeless it may seem at times.
There is no victory as good as one that is long waited and earned through loyalty and commitment.
Congratulations to the Cubs, and to their fans past and present.
Fly The W
