The perception problem of being a Cubs fan

Five year's after the Wright Brothers first took flight, the Cubs won their last World Series title. For those who don't like word problems, that was 1908, though to be fair, the Cubbies did win the title in 1907 and were considered by many to have the best team in baseball in 1906.

In 1945, the Cubs last visited the World Series. That was two years before Jackie Robinson integrated baseball (and became one of the most important figures in the 20th century). The world was recovering from World War 2 and television had only debuted a few years earlier. In other words, it's been a long time.

And over the past 97 years, the Cubs have been dubbed the "lovable losers" by the media and have portrayed their fans as somehow accepting of this label.

It's an easy mistake to make. For the better part of the past five decades, the Cubs postseason hopes have essentially ended by the time The Masters is finishing Day Two.

With so little hope, what did Cubs fans do? The only thing there was to do when your team played all its home games during the day. They drank. They drank a lot. They continued drinking and when they finished, they started again. What else are you going to do? The games were essentially meaningless by May, but there's no point in wasting a good day of baseball hooky from work, especially if you're going to enjoy the game from the bleachers in the sun.

Sure, the Cubs were losing early and often, but they gave thousands of people a reason to skip school and work. Who wouldn't have a good time under those circumstances? It's always more fun to goof off when you're supposed to be doing something.

Well, the media picks up on this and lo and behold, the Cubs are the lovable losers and their fans don't care because they're just looking for an excuse to drink.

Instead, losing was the excuse to drink. It was an escape from the fact that you were likely to live your entire life without seeing the Cubs in a World Series, much less win one.

So now, with expectations high, the media comes back and starts writing the "Cubs fans' won't accept losing" stories. I've never accpeted the Cubs (I want to say mediocrity, but that wouldn't do service to the levels of losing the Cubs have experienced . . . so let's go with failure) failure to win. It was just an unfortunate part of who they were. There was nothing lovable about it.

So spare me the "shedding the lovable losers" crap. I want to win. The team wants to win, and for the first time in a long time, the ownership actually wants to win. But even if (make that "when") the Cubs' expectations are like that of Screech landing a date with Pamela Anderson, I'll still be disappointed with every loss.