When we were in Portland, Oregon, in 2017, to see family, we did what people visiting Portland normally do. We drove 100 miles south to Eugene to see the Eugene Emeralds, then a Cubs farm team. While there, I bought this tee shirt:
When I was getting ready to go to the game on Wednesday (fortunately, I went to the afternoon game [or game-ette, which I think is a fair name for a seven-inning game you have to buy a full-price ticket for]), I thought of wearing the Emeralds tee shirt. But I didn’t because it felt so old and out of date.
It is absolutely fantastic when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016. I had sort of given up on the Cubs ever winning a World Series, though that didn’t affect me being a Cubs fan. I was a Cubs fan, regardless. But winning was fantastic. Still, with all the trades on July 29-30 and all the people who left before that, winning the World Series seems like a long time ago. (But it’s still fantastic.) 2016 was certainly a different team from the one I saw on Wednesday. In fact, the team on Wednesday was different from the one on Opening Day. The lineup for the “New Look” Cubs had just two players from this year’s Opening Day roster. One was Zach Davies, a pitcher the Cubs apparently couldn’t unload in the July 29-30 fire sale. The other was David Bote.
I still go to Cubs games. I’m a Cubs fan, and I’ve watched lousy teams before, though this one is right up there, or down there (whichever it is). But it’s the Cubs, and it’s baseball, and it’s the best place in the world to watch baseball. It’s just that Bryant fielding that ground ball and throwing it to Rizzo seems like a long time ago.2
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1 The Emeralds’ color is, obviously, green, which explains the color of the shirt.
3 Only Kyle Hendricks, Jason Heyward (who doesn’t play every day anymore), and Willson Contreras (who is on the IL) are still here.
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