Here is a great article by a Cub fan. One of these days I'll tell you about my own pre-adolescent affair with the Cubs.

If you ever watched WGN in the eighties, you'll be able to relate to this:


IN 1983, I LEARNED THAT IVY WAS ADDICTIVE
2/23/03 by Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus
Unlike that episode when I was 5 and eating paste in the classroom, this new addiction seemed a lot more positive. Each day I would ride my bike home, the west Texas sun beating down on me. Even before showering, I would run into the den, rewind the tape in the top-loading, oven-sized, Betamax and I would watch baseball. We were one of the first homes with cable in our area just outside of town and what grabbed me wasn’t MTV or HBO, it was WGN.

Outside Odessa, Texas, we had many things – it wasn't a poor existence I lived. Still, there was something I saw on the screen that I seldom saw, at least in this wonderous state. Grass. Ivy. I craved green.

The green may have got me watching, but on May 3, 1983 – yes, I remember the date – it was a home run over the left field stands and onto Waveland that really sucked me in. It's the first time I can remember hearing "It could be! It might be! It is! Home Run for Ryne Sandberg!" I literally jumped out of my seat. Something in the quiet way he trotted around the bases, shyly shook hands with Bill Buckner – Buckner! – and walked into the dugout.

I learned to program that Betamax so I would never miss a day game. I saved my money to buy more tapes so that I wouldn't have to record over them each day. I signed up for a subscription to the Chicago Tribune -- delivered three days late -- so that I could read more. I believed that everything good in the world must be in Des Plaines because every commercial seemed to end with the advertiser being located there. I tried in vain to figure out what Torco was.

In 1984, I learned both the joys of winning and the brutal disappointment of watching Sixto Lezcano break every boyhood dream with one swing. By 1988, I was in Wrigley Field, sitting in the bleachers behind two guys in Sombreros. I sat in the rain, refusing to believe that my first game could be rained out. Two hours later, I learned that Wrigley drains well and the team came out. For a time I was the only guy in the bleachers and supposedly they put me on TV. The Old Style vendor didn't card me and Andre Dawson waved and the Cubs lost to the Expos. It was a good day.

My life changes and changes. I've been all over the world, but one thing that's always helped me is wearing a Cubs hat. Like some sort of odd fraternity, people smile when they see it. People know that the Cubs are America. Often beaten, never giving up, traditional, corporate, and beloved, that's our Cubs. I've gone from player to fan to writer in a journey I would have never imagined and last year, I found myself standing near second base.

It's an amazing journey that's led me from sitting in front of a Betamax to writing for the top baseball publication, Baseball Prospectus. Sometime this season, if I can get the damned Web site to work, I'll be back in Wrigley, back in the bleachers, and for an afternoon in the sun, I'll be just a fan, looking for the Old Style vendor, wishing the clouds away, and somewhere deep inside me, that child that became addicted to ivy will live again.