Cubs May Be Lovable, but They’re Still Losers

My mother and father had yet to meet the last time the Cubs played in a World Series. They went on to date, got married, had four children and died without ever seeing the Cubs make it to the World Series.

Now it’s 3-0 Marlins in the first inning, and I don’t know how many years I have left. The wife says, “not many.”

The father-in-law made a collage of newspaper headlines every year about his beloved Cubs -- each one having some mention of “Wait Until Next Year.” The wife grew up with those framed collages hanging on every wall in the house. It explains where she got her interior decorating training.

The father-in-law wore a gaudy blue and red “Cubs” jacket everywhere he went. Underneath was a fluorescent lime golf shirt, so the jacket wasn’t so bad.

When they buried him, I’m sure he was irritated they didn’t have him in his jacket but instead had him wearing his Die-Hard Cubs Fan Club pin. Bubba I, Bubba II and Bubba III were all too fat to wear his jacket, so the wife got it.

The wife planned to honor her father and wear his jacket to school today to celebrate, but the Marlins lead, so she’s hung the jacket next to the TV. My concern is she’ll leave it hanging there like the newspaper collages until the Cubs win it all.

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IT’S SO hard to explain to someone who has not suffered through it. Dodger fans think they’ve had a long wait. Youngsters growing up in the Miami area watched their team win a World Series five years after their inception. Boston fans? They won a World Series in 1918, so I don’t know what they’re complaining about.

The Cubs are losing, 3-0, and if these were the Dodgers, the game’s over. But Kerry Wood ties the score with a home run, and this is one time when I wish the Fox cameras bounced from face to face -- Kessinger to Beckert to Banks.

The Cubs were pure entertainment. There were summer days when you could sit in the left-field bleachers in Wrigley Field surrounded by empty seats. It explains why I caught a home run off the bat of Curt Flood. Now it’s Moises Alou, who has just homered, and although it’s not Billy Williams, the Cubs are ahead, 5-3. “Hey, Hey.”

Curses. They’re going to play nine innings. Now it’s 5-5. The Marlins go up, 6-5, and why not, this is exactly what it was like growing up and watching these Cubs lose. Every game was on afternoon TV, and on a good school day, well, a great day, the game was still on when school was over. It might be 9-7, or 10-6, and then George Altman would homer, and they’d lose, 9-8 or 10-7. Then I’d have to wash the dishes. It wasn’t a completely happy childhood.

It’s 7-5, the ball bouncing off Kyle Farnsworth’s glove, and I can hear my dad: “That’s what happens when a guy wears a necklace around his neck and tries to pitch.” Make it 9-5, and finally, 9-6. Wait until next year, because that’s the first chance I’m going to get to get rid of this jacket hanging by the TV.

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I WANT to make it clear I hold nothing against the fan down the left-field line who cost the Cubs the chance to play in the World Series. There were reports the fan who cost the Cubs a chance to play in the Series went to Notre Dame, and I know Sports Editor Bill Dwyre contributes money to Notre Dame, which probably was used toward that young man’s development. I sure hope the big bosses at Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs, don’t hold that against Dwyre. But the way I look at it, if it weren’t for Dwyre, that fan, who cost the Cubs a chance to go to the Series, might not have been at that game.

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THEY MIGHT not be Cub fans, but they’re losers too:

* Frank Lyons. He wasn’t on the air Wednesday, but apparently TVG’s horse racing analyst, “Lyons the Loser,” took time to pick numbers out of a hat so he could give the Fox Sports Net audience his daily double in races seven and eight. If you bet it, you now have a piece of paper to wrap up your chewed gum.

* Al Davis. Davis has been sued by the family of one of the Raiders’ co-founders who hired him years ago to run the team. Family heirs claim Davis has plundered -- and I like that word plundered as it relates to the Raiders -- millions of dollars in perks and mismanaged funds, including front-row seats to NBA games. I’m not sure sitting next to Donald Sterling is considered a perk.

* Spanos Goofs. The San Diego Union-Tribune reported, “San Diego City Atty. Casey Gwinn accused the Chargers and their spokesman, Mark Fabiani, of trying to renegotiate the Qualcomm Stadium lease in public by spinning the facts and misleading the community.” Just business as usual.

* Bob Daly. In July 2000, sports columnist Bill Plaschke wrote this about “The Movie Guy,” who says he’ll be leaving the Dodgers. “Watching and listening to Bob Daly since Fox made him the Dodger front man and you realize all this rearranging isn’t just about Kevin Malone and Davey Johnson. It’s about George Steinbrenner. That’s who Daly wants to be.” Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

* Female jockeys. No female jockey has ever won a Breeders’ Cup race, and Julie Krone will now be riding Funny Cide in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Oct. 25th. Her best chance of winning is if “Lyons the Loser” doesn’t pick her.

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TODAY’S LAST word comes from the audience at the George Lopez show:

I caught the comedian’s act at the Universal Amphitheatre with 6,500 others and haven’t laughed that hard since my last interview with Mike Garrett. Lopez introduced Tim Allen, who was sitting in the audience, and the crowd gave Santa Claus a standing ovation.

Then Lopez introduced The Times’ Page 2 columnist. And everyone booed.

T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com