My nephew was born on the eleventh of January, a time when baseball diamonds across Wisconsin were dormant and buried in snow, hibernating and hardly expectant of fresh grass and prolonged daylight anytime soon. In addition to my sister-in-law and nephew, my mom had a room at the same hospital. She was recovering from a stroke, dutifully reviving her speech and half her body. My family took it as a quirky boon that she required only an elevator and a husbandly chauffeur to wheel her down one floor to see her first grandchild.
Kaden made his grand entrance in fine health, caterwauling hello-greetings loud enough to rouse three inpatients from their comas, and as my mom convalesced, my family rebuffed the daunts and dolors of winter with months of gratitude and relief—not to mention Mickey Mouse-falsetto coos addressed to the newest member of the clan.
Eventually, conflicts resumed, as they always do, but at least the conflict in question was merely a competitive farce. Rather than focus on their mutual love of baseball—their shared awareness of the timelessness, mystique, and gut-wrenching drama of the game—my brother and his wife have instead opted to concentrate on the bothersome fact that they cheer for different teams. (Such a folly is not unique to my brother and his wife, of course.) While she favors our home-state's Milwaukee Brewers, he is a Cubs fan.
A friendly struggle commenced for the boy's baseball team allegiance. Owing to his mother's superior knack for fashion and the 2011 Brewers' dominance in the standings, Kaden was fitted with Crew apparel more regularly than Cubs clothing. (In a gesture of diplomacy, he was, at least, dressed in a Cubs shirt for the Christmas card I received.)
With the Cubs hunkered down in rebuilding mode for at least a season and the Brewers—notwithstanding the likely departure of Prince Fielder and the sore subject of Ryan Braun's suspension—poised to make another playoff run, mom's team looks poised to take a two-to-nothing lead in the series.
That is strictly where wins are concerned, however, and my humble plea to my nephew to support the league's best team in 1908 runs deeper than that.
For starters, there is something petty and feckless about those who, as Bob Dylan put it, “Just want to be on the side that's winning.” True sports fans back their teams in sickness and in health—or in the case of the Cubs, in sickness and in worse sickness. Furthermore, in my estimation, those who strictly root for teams in their home state display both a dire lack of creativity as well as a cowardly instinct to never stray from the herd. Staunch homers are but feeble conformists, and I'd prefer that my nephew feel undaunted by the prospect of being different.
Besides, it's always a mischievous thrill to bear the brunt of criticism from home-state purists too daft to realize how silly it is bicker about free will as it pertains to something as (awesome yet) relatively unimportant as baseball.
Someday I'd love to see my nephew applaud game-winning RBIs in the bottom of the ninth at Wrigley. After all, Cubs-devotion teaches us that a sense of humor and hope are our two most vital attributes when life has us mired in a slump.
I want to tell Kaden about the seventh-inning stretches emceed by a half-tipsy Harry Caray, in the midst of all the late-game deficits, his hearty cries to “score some runs” that, more often than not, went unfulfilled. I want to tell him that one of the funniest men alive, the droll goof-ball from Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, roots for the Cubs, too. I want to tell him about silly superstitions, the curse of the billy-goat and the poor fan who was scorned for trying to catch a foul-ball, the tragicomedies that ensued and the lessons we can learn from them. And when he's old enough, I want to show him the comedy of errors that is Curb Your Enthusiasm and ask him to consider the parallels between Larry David's life of follies and the plight of the Cubs.
I want him to know that neither life nor the Cubs ever get so dismal that we can't laugh for some reprieve.
In addition to the appeal of laughter, I'd encourage him to extol the Cubs because they coax us to hope against all odds. Skeptics cackle when we assure each other to wait until next year, and with good reason, probably, but they don't understand that hope is a sacred thing to us—as it should be for everyone, regardless of which baseball team, if any, one chooses to endorse. They can call us fools if they wish, but we will force them to acknowledge that we are, at least, fools who never give up.
In my plea, I will relay to Kaden that his grandmother laid weakened on a hospital bed in the E.R. before she was flown on Flight for Life to Milwaukee, that he was still in his mom's tummy when grandma Ruth promised her daughter-in-law and the rest of us that she'd be here for the boy's birth, and that the family had to leave the room a moment later when the EMTs arrived and secured her to a gurney.
She kept her promise and revels adoringly in babysitting duties and holiday visits as I type this. But my nephew should keep in mind that, in the time between stops at hospitals 66 miles apart, our family had no proof that she'd live to see her first grandchild. One of life's misfortunes had made us uncertain and powerless.
I will inform him of these happenings and then conclude my plea to him concerning the Cubs by telling him about the only thing working in his family's favor during that difficult time.
“All we had was hope, kid, but somehow, that was enough.”
