Not, mind you, that anyone wants to lose.
Nor even that victory should not be followed by joy and rapture unconfined, as well as by beer and loud noises unconfined, as well as by parades, dancing in the streets, songs and poems and the feeling that there is a point to living, after all.
And yet . . . and yet . . . amidst all the high hopes and nervous optimism, here and there around town can be heard the suspicion that with joy comes . . . well, not regret, but complications.
Because if it really happens, if the Cubs win it all, not just the National League playoffs but the World Series, too, something would change. Part of what has sustained Chicago for decades-the sense of itself as tough, gritty, persistent but ultimately disappointed-would crumble.
”Chicago wouldn`t understand its place in the world any longer,” said Ron Berler, the Evanston teacher and writer who for years has followed the team`s misfortunes and their effect on the city. ”This would go to the very core of Chicago`s self-conception.”
No, Berler was not being entirely serious and, yes, it`s just a few ballgames. Win or lose, a few days after the Series ends, people will go about their business, whether they are bemoaning another lost opportunity or savoring the success they feared might never come. And needless to say, there is a contrary opinion.
”I think there would be an improvement in the city`s self-image,” said William Erbe, a sociology professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. ”It could lead to all sorts of reminiscences about 1945,” when, Erbe said, the city was more vigorous than it is now.
But if the Cubs become champions of the entire baseball world, still possible despite Wednesday`s debacle, a piece of Chicago mythology would be destroyed. As evidence, consider this: Since June 11, Chicagoans have been filling most of the seats at the Organic Theatre to see a play called
”Bleacher Bums,” and one reason the play is a hit is that its audience identifies with what its villain says near the end.
”These guys are foldup artists,” says Marvin after another Cub loss.
”These guys are springtime wonders. They`re heartbreakers.” But it isn`t just the team which Marvin is talking about. It`s the city. ”It`s a town of masochists,” he says. ”They like to see themselves get beat. A bunch of losers.” When he finishes, there is a palpable sense of self-recognition in the audience.
Winning the World Series could change that perception, as the folks behind ”Bleacher Bums” are well aware. ”We`re discussing that right now,” said producer Bob Perkins, when asked if there would have to be major changes in the scripts. ”It`s the subject of some debate.”
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It isn`t that the Cubs and Chicagoans are ”lovable losers.” No, it`s more complicated than that. The New York Mets, years before they became hateable winners, were lovable losers.
The Cubs represent something else, as illustrated in ”Bleacher Bums” by the reply to Marvin from Greg, the loyal Cub fan. ”Tomorrow, they`re gonna win,” he says, ever hopeful. And then he spins a fantasy of the Cubs winning the division, the pennant and the the seventh game of the World Series on a ninth-inning home run by Ernie Banks, brought out of retirement for the occasion.
Chicago`s sense of itself as symbolized by the last 80 frustrating years of its most revered institution-for that is what the Cubs are-is not a city of lovable losers but a city of dreamers in the face of impending doom, of people who hope for much even if they expect little, and who keep trying no matter how often they fail and no matter how ridiculous they may seem. Witness the chants of ”Let`s go Cubs,” at the start of the bottom of the ninth inning Wednesday night despite the Giants` 11-3 lead.
There is a certain amount of reality behind that image. Because it kept trying, Chicago revived after the great fire, after the depression and after the tumult of 1968, which so badly tarnished its reputation. It is reviving now after the loss of its industrial economic base and its recent governmental zaniness.
Not that this tenacity makes Chicago unique. Other locales tell similar tales. Even the current enemy, San Francisco, battled back from the earthquake that nearly destroyed it in 1906. But San Francisco`s sense of itself is haughty, not gritty. Besides, the Giants never have waited so long, or so often come so close, only to fail at the end.
Nobody has, which is why there is no way to measure what success would do to Chicago. The Brooklyn Dodgers finally won their World Series in 1955. Two years later, they were gone. Anyway, Brooklyn was not a city, only part of one.
The second longest wait is also Chicago`s. The White Sox have not won a World Series since 1917. The Boston Red Sox won for the last time a year later, and just three years ago, they came within a pitch of the world championship. Red Sox fan Luke Salisbury, in his book ”The Answer Is Baseball,” described the divided emotional state that may become familiar to Chicagoans this month:
”I, like many lifelong Sox fans, waited for what should have been the last out, and wondered what I`d do if they won. I thought I`d have to change my philosophy of life. The world wouldn`t be the same. I have always known the Red Sox to lose big games, and I am fated to root for them. . . . But I also knew that if they won, they`d be just another team rather than an infuriating emblem of my psyche. . . . Don`t think I didn`t want them to win. I`d have gladly traded my sense of the universe for the world championship. I just didn`t know what I`d do. Weep? Repent? Vote Republican?”
The only other comparable case is the Mets, who remained lovable after their first improbable victory in 1969, but whose recent arrogance has annoyed even their own fans. But the Mets are in New York, which exudes arrogance. Chicago is not arrogant, at least not collectively. Individually, Chicagoans can be arrogant, even blunt. Oh, why euphemize? This can be a mean town. But it is just a bit too unsure of itself to be arrogant.
In fact, what Chicago has done, with the help of the Cubs, is to convert its inferiority complex into a strength. It always has been a bit less sophisticated or fashionable than some other cities-not just New York and Los Angeles, but also Minneapolis and Denver-so it has gloried in its artlessness. And it has gloried in the Cubs` frustration. Even as the team headed toward a division championship, peddlers outside the ballpark were hawking T- shirts proclaiming ”Ten Lies Told in Wrigely Field”-among them, ”August is our month,” a one-line parody about the Cub propensity to fall apart late in the season.
In addition to everything else, then, the Cubs and their failures have performed the absolutely necessary function of helping Chicagoans laugh at themselves. If they win, they may not be able to provide that service for a while.
Not to worry. Something will.