Fly the W
There are 108 stitches on a baseball. I love baseball. You must know up front that I am a White Sox fan. However, there is no denying that the Cubs have the biggest fan base in the United States. I would even venture to say that it is due to two factors: a national television audience via WGN for decades and Chicago transplants escaping the frigid winters of the Windy City.
Baseball is my life. America's pastime. A game I learned to love on my island of Puerto Rico. At the age of seven, I joined my first team, Las Villas. All the teams were named after sponsors and our team was named after a bakery. The year was 1976 and as our nation was celebrating its bicentennial, I was leading my team to the championship on that diamond behind my elementary school in the barrio of Villa Prades in the city of Río Piedras. The same field in which Roberto Clemente's eldest two sons, Roberto Jr. wore #21 and Enrique wore #12, were playing little league for a team called the Pirates, like their father; and the youngest, Luis, was my age and the batboy. Luis wore #3000 commemorating the number of career hits his dad had at the time of his untimely death on a humanitarian mission.
My father decided that we should move to Chicago, the city where I was born, so that he may have an opportunity at earning more money. I protested because all my family and friends were in Puerto Rico. I did not speak English. I was unsuccessful in persuading my father and he sent my mother, my sister and myself to Chicago first. We stayed at his cousin's apartment in the Humboldt Park neighborhood. My father was going to join us in a couple of weeks since he had to give notice at his place of employment. It was here that I saw my first Major League baseball game on television. The Cubs did not have lights in their stadium, so all of their home games were day games that began at 1:15 in the afternoon.
Baseball is a universal language that I spoke well. I did not need to know English to understand. I became familiar with that Cub roster of 1976. My favorite player was José Cardenal. I also liked Manny Trillo, Ramón Hernández and Jerry Morales, obviously because they were Latino. Not that I did not like the other players, it was basically due to a sense of familiarity.
On August 8, 1976, my world as I knew it was destroyed. We had been in Chicago roughly three weeks and my father called to wish me a happy birthday. It was during this phone call that he informed me he was not coming to Chicago. He was staying in Puerto Rico. We were on our own. I was devastated. Our family was broken. All because of my father's infidelity. He chose the other woman and like a coward had his family shipped to the United States; without any means, without knowing the language, without a plan. In one phone call, my family was shattered.
I shut the world out. Unfairly, I was upset at my mother for bringing us to Chicago. My sister was too young to understand what was going on and my father's cousin with his family who had graciously opened their home to us were strangers to me. With no one to turn to, the Cubs became my family. I embraced the entire team; Rick Monday, Bill Madlock, Larry Biittner, the Reuschel brothers (Rick and Paul), Mike Krukow, Steve Stone, Bruce Sutter and the rest. I made paper caricatures of them with their names and numbers, cut them out and would play with them all day. I loved listening to Jack Brickhouse's home run calls, "back back back...hey , hey, a home run!"
Two seasons later, I set foot inside Wrigley Field. I went with other friends my age. I fell in love. I was in awe. The ivy on the brick wall in the outfield. The basket that would catch home runs that barely made it out. The old wooden scoreboard that had a guy in there updating the information manually. The view of the tenement buildings across the street and its residents watching the game from windows and rooftops. This was before they installed bleachers on top of those rooftops. The accessibility of the Friendly Confines. We lived on the north side in Ukrainian Village. We would catch the Damen Avenue bus to Addison, and walk to Clark. As we got closer, we would see and hear more and more fans. It was exciting.
My Cubs family had expanded. While some players left, others came. Ivan DeJesus became my favorite quickly. Short stop was my position and he was also Puerto Rican. Instant connection. There was also Bill Buckner, Steve Ontiveros, Bobby Murcer, and a Puerto Rican pitcher with the biggest afro, Willie Hernández. The biggest addition to my family was Dave Kingman. I know he struck out a lot. However, when he got a hold of a ball, it was gone. No doubt about it. He was putting balls on Waveland Avenue frequently. He did not disappoint the first time I saw him play live, hitting a monster shot that bounced off one of the buildings across the street. That season, when I was 10 years old, I caught the only baseball I have ever caught in a Major League stadium. It was hit by Jody Davis.
As the years went by, my family continued to grow. I grew to like some more than others, as with any family. Barry Foote was a favorite simply because he wore my number, 8. Lee Smith was a young phenom, Bobby Bonds, Leon Durham, Hector Cruz, Larry Bowa, Ryne Sandburg, Keith Moreland, Ron Cey, Joe Carter, Fergie Jenkins, Carmelo Martínez, and others. Harry Caray took over for Jack Brickhouse. I looked forward to hearing Harry say, "Holy cow" and sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch.
Then there was that magical season of 1984. My friends and I would line up at the bleacher entrance in the outfield at 7am. We were usually the first in line because we got there so early. The gates would open at 9am. Back then, the bleachers were the cheapest seats and you could sit anywhere. The seats were not assigned in the bleachers. We always sat in left field, front row, right above the home run basket. We brought our gloves in hopes to catch a batting practice homer. We loved to heckle the opposing players. I remember getting under the skin of outfielder, Omar Moreno of the Pirates, one time to the point where he turned around to look at me and shook his head. During games the bleacher sections would also yelled at each other, chanting, "right field sucks," and vice versa.
Poetically, as if scripted by Hollywood, on August 8, 1988, on my twentieth birthday, the lights were turned on at Wrigley Field for its first night game ever. I remember the excitement in Chicago. I watched the beginning of the game on television, until it was called because of rain. Fitting that the skies would cry because day baseball at the Friendly Confines would be limited.
The last season I paid attention to the Cubs was 1989 when they finished in first place. My family now included Shawon Dunston, Andre Dawson, Mark Grace, Greg Maddux, Rick Sutcliffe, Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, Joe Girardi, with Don Zimmer at the helm. Another year met with playoff disappointment. This magnified talks of curses. From the billy goat in 1945, to the black cat in 1969, and finally the Bartman incident of 2003. It just seemed that the Cubs would never win a World Series, let alone even get to one. Until this year.
2016. A baseball season that saw the Cubs win more games than any other team in the Major Leagues. A team of youngsters who were foolish enough to believe they could win it all, curses be damned. Led by a baseball zen master in Joe Maddon, who had worked miracles before. This new batch of kids; Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, Javier Baez, Ben Zobrist, Dexter Fowler, Kyle Schwarber, Jake Arrieta, Aroldis Chapman and some veteran help sprinkled in, made the impossible, possible. The Cubs are the 2016 World Series Champions!
History had convinced me that this day would never come. Curses had secured that fate. 108 years of waiting. 108 years of hopes dashed. 108 years of disappointments. 108 years of hearts broken and tears shed. All due to a ball kept together by 108 stitches. A ball that Kris Bryant would field and toss to Anthony Rizzo for the 108th out of this World Series. 108 outs that erased the pain felt by so many these last 108 years.
This is special. This is historic. This is euphoric. As a White Sox fan, I tip my hat to you, Chicago Cubs. So fly the W. Fly the W for Ron Santo. Fly the W for Ernie Banks. Fly the W for Jack Brickhouse. Fly the W for Harry Caray. Fly the W for all the Cubs fans that are no longer here physically, but are celebrating spiritually with those loved ones left behind. Fly the W for Chicago. All of Chicago. The north side and the south side. Fly the W for the City of Broad Shoulders that has carried so much weight for far too long. For I too, will fly the W for that little eight-year-old boy inside of me that was abandoned, in honor of that Cubs family that helped me cope with my loss.
