In a perfect world for a Chicago Cubs fan, the Cubs would have played their game one last night in the World Series.
But it’s not a perfect world, and it hasn’t been perfect for the Cubs since 1908, the last time they won the World Series.
For Eric Bain-Selbo, Head of the Philosophy Department, he knows this well. In fact, he’ll go to Chicago on Nov. 1 to preside over a panel entitled, “Chicago Cubs – The Faith and the Faithful” at the American Academy of Religion conference in Chicago.
“Having a team with 100 years of failure, yet being a person still devoted to that team and believes one day that they will win – that is an intricate part of being a Cubs fan,” Bain-Selbo said.
Bain-Selbo has been a Cubs fan since 1984. He was living in Nashville at the time when the Cubs came on TV on WGN for the first time. He thought it was great, to be able to come home every afternoon and watch the Cubs and baseball.
The discussion that Bain-Selbo will lead will discuss the ways that Cubs fans continue to believe in the fact that the Cubs are going to win the World Series despite the fact that it seems the Universe is against the “lovable losers” year after year.
Like religious people, Bain-Selbo said Cubs fans have their own heroes that they hold in high praise. People like Ryne Sandberg, Ron Santo and Ernie Banks.
Then there’s Wrigley Field.
“I think Cubs fans really do think of that place as different,” Bain-Selbo said. “It’s not just a ballpark. It’s where a professional baseball team plays.”
Bain-Selbo said people feel differently when they are in Wrigley than they do when they’re just out on the street.
Bain-Selbo also talked about the importance of the area around Wrigley being an important part to the Cubs’ culture.
“The team becomes that which unites people in a community,” Bain-Selbo said. “And it’s more than just everyone coming to the ballpark, and for three hours, you’re part of a 40,000 person community. The community is all around you, it’s in all the bars in Wrigleyville. It’s all those apartment buildings. It’s where people live. And the team has become something that has helped people feel part of a greater whole, and that’s a classic way in which religion functions.”
As for this year’s World Series, if the Tampa Bay Rays win the World Series, Bain-Selbo said it will be like the Rays kicking dirt in the Cubs’ fans’ faces. The Rays have only been a franchise for 10 years.
“I don’t wanna hear Rays fans tell me how much they deserve to win,” Bain-Selbo said.
Because ask any Cubs fan, and they’ve deserved to win for about 100 years.
Except there was a billy goat that came into Wrigley Field in 1945, a collapse against the Padres in 1984, and Steve Bartman, a Cubs fan of all things, interfering in 2003, among other things.
So grab an Old Style and wait until next year, right?
Reach Andrew Robinson at sports@chherald.com
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