Mea Culpa, Chicago Cubs Pepsi Man, by Tom Fredrickson

Last Friday, I watched a bit of the Cubs victory celebration in Chicago. I’m not really a parade person, but seeing it I wished I was there. City says 5 MILLION turned out. I admit I got a little misty seeing the throngs in my various old haunts: Wrigley, LSD, the Boul Mich, Grant Park. It was alike a travelogue through my past—with more Cubs gear than I knew existed.

The day before, a Facebook photo of a long-deceased friend (whom I’ll call Ernie) in a Cubs hat reminded me of one of my favorite Wrigley stories:

One summer Sunday afternoon in the late 70s, Ernie, along with my cool older cousin (whom I’ll call) Bert and I, headed down to Wrigley for a game against the Astros, in all their dayglo glory. That last word did not apply to the Cubs of that era in any way, shape, or form, just as Steve “Pigface” Ontiveros and Larry Biittner do not occupy the same baseball universe as Kris Bryant and Javier Baez. So the Cubs sucked, the Astros probably sucked, and we were in the bleaches on a muggy Sunday afternoon.

After debating the correct pronunciation of Enos Cabell for a while—and whether it would be worse if it were EE-nis or AY-nus—our attention was drawn to a Pepsi vendor of notable obnoxiousness. I can’t recall what he did, but he attracted our passive-agressive wrath and that of the crowd around us. We soon all began surruptitiously pelting him with peanuts, a process that lasted over several innings until, finally realizing he was a target and disoriented, he lost his footing and fell between the plank seats, dumping his tray on top of himself. I know it sounds cruel now, but it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen, and somehow at the time seemed morally justified. Still, mea culpa, Pepsi man.

Why I think of that this week ahead of seeing Prior beat Maddux in the 2003 LDS or seeing Andre Dawson homer in his final at bat of his 1987 MVP season or meeting Ron Santo or hundreds of other Cubs memories I cannot explain except to say that Cub fandom, even at its apotheosis, does a number on you.

– Tom Fredrickson is the proprietor of the unparalleled music blog, Lost Wax Method.

Wrigley Field Wall Is Now A Memorial For Cub Fans Who Didn’t Live Long Enough To See It: http://dunk360.com/chicago-cubs-wrigley-field-memorial-wall/

Legendary Chicago Folksinger, Steve Goodman, was an ardent Cub fan who, sadly, passed away in 1984 before he could see the Cubs win the series:

Bleacher Bums, is a classic play about Cub fandom, written by amongst others, Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz. This is part 1, the rest of it can be viewed on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siVUq-NGNzk