As the Cubs Start, More on Why 108 Years Was 108 Years – Even If You Weren't 108

[I was going to post this in the middle of March, but then, when Covid-19 caused MLB to delay the season, I decided to wait until baseball was ready to start again. I didn’t realize it would be this long.  In any case, here it is.]

Before I left for our trip to Egypt in February, which seems forever ago, I wrote a post I titled “Congratulations, Chiefs Fans. But 50 Still Isn’t 108.”  In it, I tried to explain why, even for Cubs fans who weren’t around for 108 years (or who weren’t even around for 30 years), the Cubs’ 108 years was different than the Chiefs’ 50 years.  In doing so, I mentioned that the media was always talking about how it had been 108 years and that’s what everybody read about.

But while I was gone,¹ I realized that wasn’t it.  Yes, the media constantly harped about the 108 years,² but that was only part, and not the main part, of why fans, even those in their 30s, felt they had been there for 108 years.  It was, instead, that special tie between sports fans of different generations, a tie that I think is especially deep for Cubs fans.  Maybe this is because things have not always gone well for the Cubs.  When Ryan Dempster gave up that two-out, two-strike grand slam to James Loney in game 1 of the 2008 NLDS, people remembered the Marlins’ eight runs in the eighth inning of the game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, the 9th inning home run by Javy Lopez off Kevin Tapani in game 2 of the 1998 NLDS, the grand slam home run off Greg Maddux in the 1989 NLCS (when Giants batter supposedly read Greg’s lips), the ball that went under Leon Durham’s Gatorade-soaked glove in the 1984 NLCS, and so much about 1969.^3,4  All of them were part of being a Cubs fan.

But there have been good times, too, and we also remember them from generation to generation.  When Ernie and Billy and Ron came to the Cubs Convention (and still come, in Billy’s case), kids got to see their parents’ heroes and make them their heroes too.  When they heard about their grandfather going to the first All-Star Game (as they were going to the 2009 All-Star Game) or their great grandmother going to Ladies’ Days at Wrigley Field in the 1930s, they were experiencing those times, too.  These stories were part of being a Cubs fan, being part of the Cubs family of fans.  And it was good.  Because memories passed down from generation to generation are the best memories there are.

That is why, when the Cubs “finally won it all” that night in Cleveland in 2016, all Cubs fans were rejoicing after 108 years – for themselves and for the generations of Cubs fans they are part of.
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¹ Seeing, among other things, where the Cubs (then called the White Stockings) played by the Sphinx 131 years ago. (Here and here.)
² Interestingly, my recollection is that, until the White Sox won the World Series in 2005 and/or the number of years since 1908 got close to 100 (or both), the media talked more about how long it had been since the Cubs won the National League pennant than how long it had been since they won the World Series.  See, for example, Steve Goodman’s “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request” (from 1983):
          “He told his friends, ‘You know, the law of averages says
          Anything will happen that can’ that's what it says
          But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
          Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan”
³ And for fans who were old enough, the Tigers getting five runs in the top of the first inning of game 7 of the 1945 World Series, effectively winning the World Series before the Cubs even got to bat.
⁴ I could also mention 1973, when the Cubs were actually closer to first place at the end of the season than they were in 1969.  On the second-to-the-last day of the 1973 season, the Cubs still could have tied for first.  It would have meant a five-way tie for first the NL East, but it was still possible