Cubs Fans Wait Patiently for a Winner

Every so often, Boston Red Sox fans start wailing about the suffering of the Fenway faithful. And despite the current good times, the Sox have certainly endured plenty of grief, payback some people insist, for cavalierly dumping Babe Ruth so long ago.

No World Series since 1986. No world championship since 1918. A sad story, indeed.

It is, however, a light load to carry compared with the woes on the north side of Chicago, where the Cubs annually push the patience of their fans to the very edge of endurance.

No World Series since 1986? Try 1945, which is the last time the Cubs got there.

No world championship since 1918? Try 1908, the last time the Cubs won it.

1908!

They invented radio after that. Television, too.

1908!

Harry Caray was born after that. And died, too.

1908!

Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alaska and Hawaii were added to the union after that. Prohibition came and went after that. Its repeal might have had something to do with the Wrigley riot near the Dodgers bullpen last month.

1908!

Eleven amendments were added to the Constitution after that and America elected 16 presidents after that with No. 17 on deck.

1908!

The NBA, NHL and NFL were all formed after that and Chicago teams won championships in each of those leagues. None of the success rubbed off on the Cubs, though.

Again this season, the cute little Cubbies, poster boys for hard times, are buried near the bottom of the National League’s Central Division, a place to which they’ve become accustomed.

Last year, the Cubs lost 95 games, two years after they lost 94. They did make the playoffs in 1998, getting swept by the Atlanta Braves, but they’ve been over .500 just five times since 1972.

Ron Santo has been around for much of the misery, first as a Gold Glove third baseman with the Cubs from 1960-73 and now as the team’s radio analyst.

“When you think about it, when you go back to 1908, 91, 92 years, it’s hard to believe the Cubs haven’t won a World Series,” he said. “It’s hard for me to understand when so many good players have come out of Chicago.”

Ernie Banks never got to a World Series. Neither did Billy Williams. Or Ferguson Jenkins.

All Hall of Famers. All pennant-race also-rans.

Banks thinks Cubs fans shouldn’t be in any hurry.

“You’ve got to be patient,” he said. “It takes time. These things don’t happen overnight. The best is yet to come.”

But Ernie, it’s 92 years.

“We were good enough to win maybe two or three times,” Santo said. “But we never did. If I had the answer why, I’d be a rich man.”

This litany of losing is entirely unimportant, however, to the congregation that worships on a daily basis at the corner of Clark and Addison and then waits on Waveland for home runs to sail over the left field wall. The pedestrian issue of wins and losses has little to do with the panache of the Cubbies, beloved perhaps as much for their troubles as other teams are for their successes.

The Cubs have been down so long, it’s beginning to look like up to them. They change managers. They change general managers. Nothing seems to help.

They make a brilliant trade, importing slugger Sammy Sosa, swiping him, really, from the crosstown White Sox, and they still can’t make progress, his home runs notwithstanding. Now it looks as if they’re about to trade Sosa and start over.

First baseman Mark Grace is in his 13th year with the Cubs, which adds up to a lot of losing. He’s been to the playoffs just twice and thinks about how nice it would be to win a World Series.

“I’ll be leading the ticker-tape parade,” he said.

Joe Girardi, who grew up in Peoria, Ill., and went to Northwestern, was drafted by the Cubs in 1986 and played for them from 1989-92. He won three World Series in four years with the New York Yankees and then returned to Chicago as a free agent. He wants to be there when the good times arrive.

“It would be unbelievable,” he said. “You’d own the city the rest of your life as players. This city is dying for a team to get to the World Series, whether it’s the Cubs or the White Sox.

“Chicago just loves a winner. You look at the way they supported the Bears and the Bulls. That’s what they’re thirsty for.”

For the time being, though, lemonade will have to do.

Things could be worse. They could be beating up each other like the Houston Astros.