Still waiting for Cubs to win it all
By Scott Derenger scott.derenger@gmail.com April 16, 2012 8:16PM
Scott Derenger
Updated: May 18, 2012 9:46AM
My brother and I would race out of the car and downstairs after school, our feet barely touching the ground. We’d both ignore — at least a few times — our mom’s or dad’s wishes to take off our uniforms before turning on the TV.
“OK,” I’d yell reassuringly, “just as soon as this inning’s over. Cubs got the bases loaded.”
When we grew a little older, Brian and I each had routes delivering this very newspaper. We’d fold and wrap each paper with a green rubber band, and then head out on foot or on bike to deliver them. Just as soon as the Cubs game ended, of course.
“Well what happened?” Mom would ask as I washed the newspaper ink off my hands.
“A double play. Bases loaded, nobody out and they got no runs. I thought Harry was gonna jump out of the booth.”
It’s baseball. The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, the roar of the crowd, the tip of the cap. Those are sights and sounds of which dreams are made.
We’re Cubs fans because we ... well, because we are. I don’t think Brian and I really had a choice.
Some casual fans claim baseball is boring, that the game moves too slow. I have little time for those people, mainly because they’re wrong; 162 times a year they’re wrong.
About a week or so ago, Brian and I played catch in the front yard. The leather gloves popped once again, just like 25 years ago at St. Joe’s Park. However, my sore right arm made the toss down memory lane a short one. Still, it was the baseball bond between brothers.
The start of baseball season also marks the start of spring. Sure the flowers bloom, but what about the ivy at Wrigley Field? It’s usually a wall of grass-colored green by Memorial Day. And this year, the unseasonably warm weather has afforded an early ivy return, if only partially along Wrigley’s brick outfield walls.
This is my 10th season waiting at Wrigley — waiting for the Cubs to win it all while also waiting on fans in the mezzanine suites.
The only other thing I’ve done nearly as long was wear the powder-blue shirts at St. Mary Nativity. Nine years there, 10 years at Wrigley Field. But with most of the nuns kicking me outta class, grade school was anything but the “friendly confines.”
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