The return to school for students in Districts 203 and 204 also means a return to routines, to eating dinner at a regular hour and — try as we might — a return to earlier bedtimes.
And the Chicago Cubs’ likely return to the postseason in this potentially historic season promises to wreak havoc on all of it.
This was clear Monday night as my daughter and I watched the Cubs play Pittsburgh deep into the night at Wrigley Field. What was a 6-3 deficit to the Pirates to start the 8th inning became a narrowed 6-5 margin going to the 9th, a 6-6 tie after 9 and eventually an 8-7 Cubs win in 13 innings. All thanks to more of the same late-inning heroics for which this team has become known.
Unfortunately, we weren’t there for the fantastic finish, what with my daughter’s 5th-grade school day starting a scant eight hours from when the game finally ended. As exciting as this Cubs team is, and as much as we both had a feeling they would eventually win that game, we had to listen to the final three innings on the car ride home.
Much to the disappointment of my 10-year-old daughter, the only other true Cubs fan in our family of five, besides me. She knows who almost all the regular players are, who’s a rookie and who’s been around a while. She takes note when new players join the roster (“Who’s he?”) and when other players leave (she still misses Starlin Castro, “He has such a cute baby face.”).
So when I first told my daughter that we would be leaving after the 9th inning regardless of the score, she pleaded to stay. OK, we’d watch the 10th inning and leave no later than 11 p.m., her mother and I decided via text. That would allow the girl to be in bed by midnight. She’d still have to be up again less than seven hours later for school, but that would be enough sleep to go on, for one night anyway.
When the Cubs failed to win the game in the bottom of the 10th, victims of a close play at the plate that had the game’s outcome hinging on a video review, off we went. We walked to where we’d parked and listened to the game on my phone until we could tune in on the car radio. Win or lose, this was going to be a late night whether we saw, heard or otherwise witnessed the end of that game.
Such will likely be the case for many Naperville lads and lassies this fall, as the Cubs embark on what will hopefully be a deep run not only into October, but perhaps even into November — the World Series could potentially end as late as Nov. 2 this year. Brrrrr.
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That will leave many parents at the same crossroads we were at Monday night — stay, and let your child run on fumes or perhaps even go into school late the next day; or leave, and have them miss the outcome that everyone will be talking about at school the next day. Either way, apologies to the fine educators who have to deal with the aftermath.
Of course, we could hope for a return to more day games in the postseason, letting school-age kids watch their favorite team play in daylight hours like it used to be rather than staying up to the wee hours. But given surefire ratings success of a Cubs World Series, don’t hold your breath.
Yeah, yeah. I know, it’s just a game. Tell that to the generations of folks whose time on this earth has passed without seeing the Cubs win a World Series, and for some of them, not even play in one!
Sure, the decision is far easier on a regular-season game in August, no matter how thrilling the outcome. But you don’t have to think much further back than the Blackhawks’ recent postseason runs to know how difficult these things can be. Those double- and triple-overtime games have had young Hawks fans getting to bed well after midnight in some cases, even later if attending the games in person.
As we listened to the last three innings on the car ride back to Naperville Monday night, I wasn’t sure what would come first — midnight, the end of the game or our arrival at home. As that day’s final few minutes ticked away and turned to the next, I saw my daughter nodding off in the back seat, startling herself awake when she heard yelling or cheering on the radio. Each occasion brought the same exclamation, “Did they win?” Not yet, I told her.
By the time we pulled into our driveway, the Cubs had the potential winning run at third in the bottom of the 13th. We got inside just in time to see replays of pinch hitter Miguel Montero’s game-winning single. We laughed about missing the end of the game in person, almost making it home in time to see it on TV and how glad we were that they’d won, regardless. My daughter then got to bed, somewhere around 12:30 a.m.
I’d made her promise to get up in the morning with no fuss, and she later obliged, even on what turned out to be about six hours of sleep, well less than the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommended nine to 12 hours for children ages 6 to 12, like her. But, hey, this was a one-time thing.
Ah, who am I kidding? No it wasn’t.
Rob Manker is a freelance writer who lives and parents in Naperville.
Twitter @RobManker