Harry, the Chicago Cubs and I

Until Cox Cable rolled into town in 1981, I didn’t really have a baseball team. Sure, I went to a handful of Omaha Royals games over the years, and watched the Kansas City Royals battle the Yankees for the pennant in the 70’s, but it was really just a casual follow.  But when my parents finally were able to get cable television, all that changed.  Along with Nickelodeon, USA and ESPN, we now had Superstations WGN, WOR and WTBS. Between WOR’s partial schedule and Ralph Kiner, I didn’t watch much of the Mets.  WTBS coverage of the Atlanta Braves was my initial interest; Braves catcher Bruce Benedict grew up four houses up the street from me.

But as time went on, it was the Chicago Cubs games that caught my fancy. Any summer afternoon, you had a 50-50 chance of finding a Cub game on at 1:20 pm in the afternoon…a dead zone of television unless you liked soap operas. 1984 really solidified it for myself; the Cubs were winning, and since I started classes at UNO, I could still follow the games after my classes got out in the early afternoon. And with the games on the radio locally, I could even listen to them on the drive home.  But 1984 brought me my first heartbreak in the playoffs against the San Diego Padres. The Cubs looked to be heading to the World Series until Lee Smith failed in the deciding game five.  I was working that day, so I sadly had to listen to Harry Caray describe the meltdown on the radio.

Harry Caray and Steve Stone became the voices of my baseball fandom. The Cubs faded for the next few years, but stormed back in 1989, only to get shut down again, this time by Will Clark and the San Francisco Giants.  In the 1990’s with college out of the way, I was able to make a couple of pilgrimages to Wrigley, and even though I was now working during those afternoon games, I still was a fan.  Harry passed on, and WGN started to cut back on the number of games they carried, but I still watched when I could.

2003 found the Cubs back in the playoffs, and game six looked like the Cubs were finally going to break through. In the seventh inning, with the game seemingly under control, I took the dog for a walk, figuring that I needed to get that done to enjoy the ninth inning and the post game.

Well, we all know what happened while I was out.  I’d later learn about Alex Gonzalez and Steve Bartman, but I came home to find that the Marlins had somehow put up an eight-spot in the eighth inning…and all that preparation was for naught. Perhaps it was better that I didn’t endure that.