#3: "Know Your History"

I'm not going to write anything here today that you haven't already read elsewhere. People have been talking about this for years. 108 to be exact.

They've talked about how many people aren't here to see it. Fathers, brothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, aunts & uncles, cousins that have cheered and passed with no relief. They mention black cats, goats, foul balls, and the epicness of multiple meltdowns. They'll tell you that it's been 71 years since we were here. That a place that first opened its doors in 1914 is just for the second time in its history open for business in the last of October.

Normally I have to do research to quote numbers and things like that. I don't have to even pause for a second to think about this. I've been following this idea, developing what I would say and how I would say it, for the better part of thirty years. 

It started for me because of afternoons. I didn't yet truly understand time zones or distances. I didn't know why they grew ivy on the wall, or why they never turned the lights on. I knew that every day I'd race home from school to listen to the most loveable drunkard tell me what was happening, and he'd even sing to me each day. I didn't yet know my history.

I barely remember 1984. I really started to understand it all around '86 or '87. I remember 8/8/88. I also remember that it rained and technically the lights didn't come on until 8/9/88. I remember years of mediocre (or worse) years through the 90's. I remember Sosa going shot for shot with McGwire and those damned Cardinals. 

And I will never forget the first time I walked through the main gates on West Addison Street, walked up a few stairs, and stared straight into a place I'd seen on television hundreds of times, but up until then didn't believe was real. It smelled perfect; a combination of freshly mowed grass, hot dogs, popcorn, and Old Style. The hand operated scoreboard, looming over the center field bleachers like a giant green sail trying desperately to move the ship toward the promised land, toward October. It was 3 September 1999.  I still have the ticket stub. I'd gone to heaven, and it didn't even matter that we lost to the Dodgers that day.

I told my then boss in 2003 that there was a chance I was going to have to make an impromptu trip to the north side of Chicago. That if things worked out I was going to pay whatever the fare to be there, and if my leaving meant that she had to fire me than that's just what she had to do. I had to go see history. You just can't let that pass you by.

Last year I sat my division chair down and told him that I might have to make that same trip. I can't miss this, I said. The Mets couldn't miss it either, and I stayed home. He's a Mets fan.

A few weeks ago I sat my division chair down for the same conversation. There's this thing that happens in late October, I told him, and your team was there last year. I said that if my team plays like it can, that there was going to be this weekend at the end of the month that I was going to have to be gone, and that I'd already planned to cancel my class and to take care of work. I had to go see history, and even if I couldn't be in the room where it happens, being in the neighborhood would have to do.

By the time you all read this I'll be in Chicago. I fully expect to be in Wrigleyville by mid-afternoon. I hope I'll have my friends with me, but if we get separated I'll have a few thousand of the best fans in baseball around me, so I'll be OK. We will all have things in common, and not just Old Style. 

We're Cubs fans. We've been waiting 108 years to win the World Series again. 

And we'll all be watching history.