between you & me (vol. III)

Confession #3: Just between you and me, I’m a Cubs fan.

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Any Cubs fan and they will tell you that this is the year. Every year. It’s easy enough to dismiss us as crazy, and go back to cheering for a team that actually wins. But who says that you need actual wins to love a team? Not me. A true fan is with a team through thick and thin. So what if the Cubs haven't gone to the World Series since 1945 (and haven’t won since 1908)? In some weird, twisted, kinda backwards way, this just makes me love 'em even more.

I'm a card-carrying member of the Cubs Fans Since Birth Club. (Ok, not really. But if there was such a club, I'd be all over it.) I was raised to love the Cubs, hate the Sox, and that Wrigley Field is the greatest place on earth.

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My dad started telling me that I was a Cubs fan before I could crawl. While he always taught me to think for myself and make my own choices, baseball was the one area of my life that was nonnegotiable. I didn't know that the words to Take Me Out to the Ballgame were "root, root, root for the home team" until I went to kindergarten. (I always thought the lyrics were "root for the Cubbies." Who knew?) In pretty much every picture of me taken between the ages of 8 and 13, I was wearing a Cubs hat. (Consequently, I am still recovering from hat hair.)

There really is nothing like sitting in the stands at Wrigley, sun beating down on your head and a cool breeze from the Lake on your face; hot dog in one hand and an Old Style in the other. Pure, simple contentment.

Dad & me @ Wrigley circa 2009
(Yes, those seats are 9 rows up from the dugout on the 3rd baseline.)

I will be spending this Opening Day in my office in Grand Rapids, surrounded by cranky Tigers fans; but my heart will be in Chicago with the Cubs. 

C'mon, Cubbies. Win this one for Ronnie.

This is our year. I can feel it.