The One Hundred Year Weight

The One Hundred Year Weight
How much does one hundred years weigh? You probably think that it can’t weigh any more or any less than one year, or five years or even fifty years. You would be very wrong to think that. One hundred years weighs a lot. Just ask the city of Chicago – at least the North Side. Ask Boston how heavy eighty-six years is. Ask the South Side of Chicago how heavy eighty-eight years can be.
Surely, I spelled it wrong; I mixed up my homophones, right? I mean one hundred year wait, right? Wrong on both counts. Definition of wait? To look forward to. Simple enough. Look forward long enough and what happens? You get what you want. Or you die. Weight, on the other hand? Heaviness. A mental burden. Importance. That’s what weight is. That’s what we have here. And we have one hundred years of it.
Could you feel it last night? Even the three stooges from TBS (somebody explain to me why TBS is carrying these games?) could feel it. They mentioned the unmentionable – it wasn’t noisy at Wrigley. It was kind of subdued. Why? How can that be? The Weight, I tell you, it’s The Weight.
We have one hundred years resting on more than just our shoulders – it’s planted firmly on our souls. It’s on the essence of Cubnation: the management, the players, the fans. They can say it doesn’t matter. They can say that they can’t feel yesteryear sitting beside them on the bench…but they don’t mean it. It just isn’t true. Yesterday is there. Yesteryear is there. Right next to every one of us, whispering in our ears every moment of the season and the off season. It’s there, bemoaning every bad call and unlucky break. Oh, that weight. It’s especially heavy now, during the postseason.
This is a team that loves its losers. Why? Because they’re all we’ve got. So we hang onto them for dear life. “If only, if only, if only,” we say, because we need to. Because of the weight.
Let me confess something. Confession is supposed to be good for the soul. I feel the weight. It’s on me like, well, you know what it’s like or you wouldn’t have read this far. I wear the weight. I am the weight. I am guilty of it as I can be. I throw up my arms in disgust and say things like “That’s it! I’m done. I’ll never care about them again. In fact, I’m not even WATCHING tomorrow’s game.”
Of course I do. Watch the game, that is. I’ll die again tomorrow if I have to. Today I will rant, as is my God given right. Tomorrow, I will be resurrected as Cub fans are – year after year after year…as the song goes – and I will root with all my heart and all my soul and all my being.
Enough. I am going to tell you how to beat the weight. Syndicate. That’s right. Here’s the secret. Don’t bear it alone. Go to a support group for Cub fans (there are also called “bars.”) Never give up. Think good thoughts. Do you have lucky underwear? Put them on! If you are picking your nose and Soriano gets a hit – Cubnation expects you to pick your nose every time he comes up. Do not hold back. If we all do the right things at the right time, then maybe, just maybe, we can get out from under the weight that is one hundred years. Dear God, I hope so. But if not, I’ll be there next year with a new pair of lucky underwear.
Sherm