Ripped from my old blog:
(Photo: cobo.org)
So, baseball season is well under way, and it’s been 99 years since my team – the Chicago Cubs – won the World Series. Dan Pashman states it best:
The last time the Cubs won the World Series was nine years before the Bolshevik Revolution. Communism rose and fell, and the Cubs didn’t win a World Series.
99 years… and 99 years of tears…
Steve Goodman wrote the the rousing “Go Cubs Go” – the optimistic anthem which all Cub fans are required to sing prior to the start of a new season, and the famous, hopeless lament, “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” which must be sung at each season’s end. You can listen to both songs here.
Goodman died of leukemia at the age of 36 (he used to refer to himself as “Cool Hand Leuk”). This was in 1984 – the same year that the Cubs finally made it to the the playoffs for the first time since… well, since “we dropped the bomb on Japan.” In case you don’t remember, the Cubs were up 2 games (in a best of five) and then… oh, never mind.
Here he is performing “A Dying Cub Fan’s…,” looking frail and yet serene. Note also the view from the bleachers, the roominess of the field down the lines (I have a hard time believing that this is Wrigley…).
Remember when they use to compare the Red Sox to the Cubs – as if they were AL and NL doppelgangers? But, even before the current run of successes, the Red Sox were never like the Cubs. Boston’s failures were epic and glorious, operatic in their tragedy. There is something about being a Cub fan that makes you small and despairing. It’s that despair… I’m sorry but there’s nothing else like it in sports. I think it was Mike Royko – the late Chicago columnist, a local icon and a die-hard Cub fan – who said that the Cubs, like life itself, were a losing cause. That’s why they had cemeteries and Wrigley Field. Royko, in his inimitable way, also said that any parent willing to let their children become Cub fans should be convicted of child abuse.
So, I (proudly) include a picture of my daughter.
And, of course, the last thing I want to say is… GO CUBS GO!!!!!
Update: In the comments on my old blog, I got a note from Clay Eals:
Good to see your posted video of “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” by Steve Goodman. He often doesn’t get his due. You might be interested in my 800-page biography, “Steve Goodman: Facing the Music.” The book delves deeply into the genesis of “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” and its semi-sequel, “Go, Cubs, Go.”
You can find out more at my Internet site (below). Amazingly, the book’s first printing sold out in just eight months, all 5,000 copies, and a second printing of 5,000 is available now. The second printing includes hundreds of little updates and additions, including 30 more photos for a total of 575. To order a second-printing copy, see the “online store” page of my site. Just trying to spread word about the book. Feel free to do the same!
Clay Eals
1728 California Ave. S.W. #301
Seattle, WA 98116-1958(206) 935-7515
(206) 484-8008
ceals@comcast.net
http://www.clayeals.com
Okay, so it’s a bit of a shameless plug. But I figure a biographer of Stevie Goodman can’t be all bad… The book is now officially on my wish list.
Tags: Stevie Goodman
