Flying the W flag after a win is tradition — but now it’s changing

For Cubs fans, the flying of the W flag after a victory is tradition.

But now that tradition has evolved.

The custom began in the 1930s. After home games, scoreboard operators would hoist either a white flag with a blue W or a blue flag with a white L, thus announcing the outcome to neighbors and elevated-train riders.

The Cubs also installed two lights on top of the scoreboard to illuminate the flag.

”If you came by at night and the light was turned on the left field side, it was a win,” Cubs historian Ed Hartig said. “A light on the right field sign was a loss.”

Now the W flag has come to represent the team, not simply a victory, and the flags fly all the time, day and night, on the Michigan Avenue bridge, on office buildings, on cars, on boats, on front porches, in office cubicles, on the backs of airplane seats, on T-shirts.

“The meaning does seem a little watered down to me now that everyone has ‘W’ flags or posters in their windows or on their flagpoles,” Stuart Shea, author of “Wrigley Field: The Long and Contentious Times of the Friendly Confines,” said. “I’m just waiting for Sox fans to get their vengeance by flying blue flags with a white L.”

“It’s an everyday flag now,” said Michael Olson, president of Advertising Flag company in Chicago, which manufactures flags, including the W flag, for the Cubs. “It’s a marketing campaign, but it’s also something that’s unique to the team.”

Olson said that yes, he does own a W flag, and said that he used to fly it after Cubs victories. But no more.