Finally, Cub fans are standing up for themselves
For nearly a century, we stood by our team through thick and think. We put up with ineptitude beyond belief, not only on the field but (more fundamentally) in the front office. We've been teased, to be sure- not only by White Sox and Cardinal fans, but by our own team. From time to time there have been 1969s and 1984s and 2003s and 2007s and 2008s. We have come tantalizingly close- or, failing that, sometimes demonstrated such mastery over our every opponent right up to the moment when it counted that we felt that we were already there. But somehow, the inevitable happened. Somehow, we managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
But some time around the point where Steve Bartman was unjustly made a scapegoat for our 2003 collapse at the last possible moment in the game that would have brought us our first pennant since 1945, we Cub fans started getting surly. To some extent, this was due to the salutary example set us by our brethren in despair, the fans of the Boston Red Sox- who, after having repeatedly seen their team come even closer without grabbing the brass ring for almost as long as we had, stopped being satisfied with displaying character and loyalty and started demanding victory. The result was world championships in 2004 and 2007.
Cub fans will not be put off anymore. We, too, are sick and tired of being a national joke. As a group, we are heeding the wisdom of a St. Louis Cardinal fan of my acquaintance who once pointed out to me that a fan base willing to accept mediocrity will get precisely that. Baseball is a business, and capitalism is based upon the premise that companies that put defective merchandise on the shelves go out of business.On the other hand, human nature and the laws of economics being what they are, if the consumer is willing to buy a defective product in sufficient volume to give the company in question a huge profit, why should they go to the effort and expense required to give them quality instead?
Yes, Cub fans are getting surly. For me, it began with the failure of the Cubs to recognize that a team that dominates during the regular season two years in a row, and yet on each occasion allows itself to be swept out of the post-season in the first round while scoring only six runs in the process, needs to replace players with a pattern of choking when the chips were down with players who have shown that they can handle the pressure.
I am simply not thrilled anymore with division championships. 1984 was fun, while it lasted. But mere divisional championships are not fun anymore. Getting there and then losing is simply not acceptable.
And then, there was the DeRosa trade- General Manager Jim Hendry's stroke of brilliance in which he traded one of the most valuable members of the team, who could adequately play six positions, for essentially nothing- because he hit from the wrong side of the plate. There were other issues involved, but the Cubs went from 97 in 2008 wins to 83 in 2009, finishing second.
It's worth noting that hard-hitting third baseman Aramis Ramirez, for whom DeRosa had filled in admirably in previous years, was injured for a goodly part of the season. The Cubs foundered in these games, in no small measure because they had no adequate replacement at third base. It's hard to escape the question of whether they might not have won their third division championship in a row (for whatever that would have been worth) if they still had been able to send DeRosa out to fill in.
Last year the Cubs plummeted to 75-87 and finished next to last. And frustratingly, Hendry's signing of super-expensive Alfonso Soriano and Koske Fukedome, neither of whom have produced sufficiently to justify the crippling expense of signing them, prevents the Cubs from making any particularly significant free agent signings. Hendry did sign Milton Bradley to play center field during the 2009 season. He was an even worse disaster, and was traded last year for pitcher Carlos Silva- whom the Cubs cut at the conclusion of spring training this season.
I haven't stopped being a Cub fan. But when the Cubs' new owner, Tom Ricketts- who has thus far been underwhelming in his stewardship of the Cubs- decided to retain Hendry as GM, I decided that if Ricketts didn't care, I saw no reason why I should, either. I didn't really follow the Cubs last year, and I don't plan to really follow them this year, either.
And I have company.
When I was a kid, you could get a decent seat at Wrigley for under ten bucks- and there were always seats available. Good seats. In the grandstands. Seats that have since been upgraded to be faux-box seats, with prices appropriate to that exalted though undeserved status. They didn't even open the upper deck. The team sucked, of course. But at least there was no trouble getting in.
Beginning with the unexpected division title in 1984, that changed. Suddenly it became both difficult and prohibitively expensive to go to a Cubs gane- any Cubs game.
But not any more. This season, Cub fans have beens staying away in droves. Good.
A study done by University of Chicago economist Tobias Moskowicz and Sports Illustrated writer L. John Wertheim shows that attendance at Cubs' games is less effected by team performance than the games of any other team in professional baseball.
Yes, Cub fans are getting surly. About time, too.. And maybe for a change the ownership will have to live in a world in which the law of supply and demand applies to winning baseball, and not just the beer sold in the stands.
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