all my life it’s been like this.
walked down the hall in school back in the day. cubs hat on or cubs shirt on. i owned a variety of cubs shirts since my lovely mother would pick out only the finest at kmart or zayre.
walk down the hall and all the kids would pass by and theyd say it
cubs suck
tall kid popping his bubble gum
cubs suck
little kid with freckles and a fucked up hairdo
cubs blow
teacher looking over his glasses
tony, the cubs suck.
and back then the cubs did suck.
those people were just training me to remember that there is no wait till next year for some teams. only thing next year is bringing is a different heartbreak so may as well remind you right now the fat guy with a trapper keeper said in so many words when he too passed by and coughed
cubs suck
but even then i didnt listen to no one but acdc so fuck them i thought and went to french class and thought about video games, as they were new.
i told my work today that i needed tuesday through friday of next week off to go to chicago and pay thousands of dollars for two tickets to the fourth game of the world series at wrigley field on my birthday and my boss mumbled something about world series i dont care cubs world what and i didnt say nothing i just went about my business cuz if i have to be fired then fire my ass, but all of you saw the chicago cubs today and if you think theyre going to make it this far again any time soon, as in, in my lifetime, then you just havent been paying attention.
outside of prior and wood and sammy nobody is going to remember any of these dudes ever again. as great as kenny lofton was for the tribe back in the day, speedy black leadoff hitting centerfielders are a dime a dozen. the cubs are a better than average baseball team, solely because of their home run hitting champ, their two incredible starters, and their manager who has to be given the benefit of the doubt for keeping tonights starter in the game for so long, because before dusty, cubs hadnt been this deep into the playoffs since the last time i cried over them.
hot chick was over watching the game with basart, tsar, and i, and afterwards everyone said they were sorry and i told them that it was i who was sorry because i was going to have to kick them out so i could write something.
and the hot chick was sorta upset because she was feeling sick and she thought i was going to go to her wilshire blvd condo on the wesssside after the game and i told her that things had changed, that if she hadnt noticed some ass hole wearing a cubs hat and a marlins jersey had stuck his big fat hand over the railing and prevented moises alou from catching what would have been the second out of the inning, and instead the inning turned into an 8 run disaster.
and while the christmas lights twinkled in my bedroom she stood there, hot, too stunned to sniffle, and obviously unaware of who she’d been making out with all these weeks, i was a man who was about to put his head in a pillow and cry over a baseball game
and then write about it on his fucking blog.
she said but why do you have to spend all night writing about it and i said do you think the tribune is going to write about it properly or the times or the st petersberg whatever or the santa barbara news press those people arent going to…
and she took her cute little things and she collected the keys to her two seater and walked one of the finest asses you’ll ever see out of the door
which might not have been so bad if there wasnt a bus strike and she being my ride to work in the morning.
and in a perfect world, this would have been my work for the day.
writing.
or i’d have a job where i could talk to somebody reasonable who would say take the day off tony pierce, tomorrow the cubs have to get into the world series
which, tonight should have shown you, isnt all that easy.
and today just like when they won
im somber, unsurprised, and stunned