Why the fuck am I a Cubs fan?

Addendum: As of 6-7-07, the videos are no longer available. Curse you, YouTube Gestapo!

An age old question. One that I seemingly ponder every season. I hate this team, and they clearly hate me back. So why, then, do I keep coming back? I have tried. Honestly, I have. I have tried to boycott and change my loyalties, yet I keep coming back to the Keystone Cubs.

Why?

Today was a a reaffirmation of why I love this completely backasswards franchise and their inability to construct a decent ballclub. While I am sick of the losing and I am sick of the jerkoffs who run and play for the team, I absolutely adore the dramadey, an attribute rifely distributed from the top down.

To try and catch everyone up, the Cubs are awful yet again. The Tribune and Jim Hendry went ahead and blew a ton of money in the off season on players with limited skillsets and frighteningly low baseball I.Q.s. Consequently, the team has been quite bad. At this moment, the Cubs are 8 games under .500 and 7.5 games out of first place in the worst division in all of baseball…possibly the worst division in all of professional sports. Lots of errors, few runs scored a poorly constructed roster of carbon-copy players and a really bad bullpen have left the team in tatters and tempers short…all this 2 days into the month of June.

Today was another Cubs classic, though, and whoever had game 52 in the Lou Piniella Postgame Meltdown Pool takes home the pot, because the 8-5 debacle against the Braves caused Sweet Lou to fall off the happy-go-fucking-lucky-Wrigleyville-retirement-job wagon and we briefly saw, for the first time as Cubs manager, the cranky, angry, no-nonsense base-thrower so many people thought was coming to Chicago to spray his special brand of baseball Febreeze over the apathetic stench that Dusty Baker left behind.

What was the catalyst for Lou’s little outburst you ask? Well, howsabout the starting pitcher and catcher getting into a fist fight in the dugout…and then, after being separated by coaches and teammates, having round 2 of the bout down in the clubhouse.

Known hot-head and red-ass Carlos Zambrano was on the mound and up to what he has been up to most of the season…low velocity stuff over the heart of the plate. Last week, Lou had announced that backup receiver Henry Blanco would be Big Z’s personal catcher the rest of the year but, alas, before their next start together, Blanco was put on the DL with neck problems. So known hot-head and red-ass Michael Barrett was behind the plate for Zambrano today. Barrett is wretched in every aspect of defense, and in the 5th inning today Barrett had a 2 error play where he allowed a pass ball and then made a poor throw to third which allowed the first of 5 runs to score that inning.

When the two made it back to the dugout…well…just take a look for yourself.

It didn’t end there, though. Apparently, Barrett followed Zambrano into the clubhouse where the confrontation continued. The only detail about the fight I have heard so far is that Barrett’s lip was bloodied.

After this news broke (I must admit I was not tuned into the game…a guy can only take so much Ron Santo), the overwhelming consensus was…”Let’s end this game and get to Lou’s press conference!” Apparently during the telecast in the 9th inning, the camera cut to the press box which was empty, as everyone had vacated to the bowels of Wrigley, anxious to hear what kind of encouraging words Uncle Lou would have for his adoring fans in the media.

He managed to tiptoe around what he wanted to say for almost the entire media session. He has put up a front all season. You could tell that his baseball sensibilities have been offended by this defensively challenged roster he has been handed, but he has kept on his happy face and tried not to rankle any feathers…until the last 20 seconds of his press conference today, when he finally came out of his shell.

So there you have it, friends. That is why I am Cubs fan. Because even though they are terrible and will never win a championship in my lifetime…they at least keep me entertained, which is nice now that Gilmore Girls is gone forever. The Chicago Cubs are by and far the champions of ridiculous side stories and baseball stupidity and for that, I thank them.

ADDENDUM

Today, another melt-down. Lou lost it when Angel Pagan (who?) got thrown out at 3rd.

He should have lost it when Rich Hill tried to stretch a double into a triple and was the 3rd out at 3rd base, but I digress.

Furthermore, after Lou got ejected, the classless assclowns in the bleachers littered the field with their beer cups and hot dog wrappers. While, yes, I am a Cubs fan, I would like to say that I truly despise the Wrigley field assholes and their abhorrent behavior. Not only are these retards unable to determine the difference between home runs and pop ups to the second baseman, but they have no idea how the game is played or how it is supposed to be played. I will always have fond memories of the first time I stepped up the concourse at Wrigley and saw the ivy and the outfield grass for the first time. I still get goosebumps thinking about it, and while I would love to bring my daughter there some sunny afternoon to share that experience, I do not think I could bring myself to exposing her to the trashy scumbags who sellout the park everyday, and if I might quote myself from a comment I posted on Deadspin a long while back:

Oh bollocks to this whole advertising at Wrigley thing. The best thing in the world that the Tribune could do would be to bulldoze that dump of a ballpark and drive the drunken, urinal-cake-eating-frat-boys out like rats from a sinking ship.

Build one of those nice new stadiums in the suburbs where they can have the 82 night games they want, full of all sorts of advertising the these decrepit old Cubs cretins can despise.

The biggest problem with Cubs culture is that everyone clings to the stadium. Everyone clings to drooling dingbat Ron Santo and the 1969 team. Ronnie Woo Woo. Ivy. Rooftops. Day games.

Much like “The Superfans,” the “Lovable Losers” is a stereotype that Chicagoans should be anxious to shed, not embrace.

More ads. Less tradition. Cubs tradition sucks. It is a tradition of losing and I am sick of it.