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Why Bill Littlefield Is Pulling For The Cubs

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"But can you blame believers who could only humbly wait? / The Cubs have not been champions since nineteen bleeping eight!" Bill says. (Tim Bradbudy / Getty Images)
"But can you blame believers who could only humbly wait? /The Cubs have not been champions since nineteen bleeping eight!" Bill writes. (Tim Bradbudy/Getty Images)

In a World Series between two teams known for failing to win, Bill Littlefield is cheering for the one with the lengthier pedigree.

The fans who fill the ancient park wherein the Cubs all dwell

Have long been known for feeling that the losing there was swell.

They came for baseball, not for wins. There was no thought of rings…

No more than mermaids, leprechauns, or other magic things:

They came for beer, companionship, and bleachers bathed in sun…

And it was icing on the cake on days when their team won.

That is, of course, a half-truth, just a myth, a mere canard…

Forever there have been some Cubs fans scattered in that yard

Who hoped for glory long-delayed and dreamed of some bright time

When their team, known for losing, would ascend to heights sublime,

And banish evermore the rumor that the Cubs were cursed…

A silly notion in which you are doubtless now well-versed.

But can you blame believers who could only humbly wait?

The Cubs have not been champions since nineteen bleeping eight!

Can science, luck, or natural law explain that monstrous drought?

We can, I think, forgive the superstitious…those who doubt

That any team could spend so many years below the top

Without some dire, dreadful explanation for the flop.

We might now cast as spoilers those who’d foil the hungry Cubs.

Except that of the many, striving, most-deserving clubs

That might have risen up to test Chicago’s latest lot

The Indians of Cleveland are the folks the Cubs have got

To deal with. And the Indians, not often known as great,

Have not come home a winner once since nineteen forty-eight.

So idle stand the Giants, and the Card’nals and the Dodgers

And likewise Boston’s Red Sox, and the rookies and the codgers

Associated with the other winning teams of late…

The Indians or Cubs this time will soon emerge as great,

And I suppose that either would make up for lots of flubs…

But I root for the greater story. So I’m for the Cubs.

Related:

Headshot of Bill Littlefield

Bill Littlefield Host, Only A Game
Bill Littlefield was the host of Only A Game from 1993 until 2018.

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