by Steven Hyden April 6, 2009
For much of my life I didn’t hate the Cubs, and for that I am truly sorry. When I think of all the time I’ve spent not despising the Cubs, their fans, and their city, I feel a shame that will never be erased, no matter how hard I close my eyes and hate them now. Because hating the Cubs and their fans is the most righteous thing a person can do—it means you love all the things they don’t stand for: success, loyalty, self-respect, having the maturity to refrain from yelling “Prince Fielder is a cocksucker” while standing next to an 8-year-old, and everything else that’s not rotten and despicable about humanity.
I might be exaggerating slightly here. Before anyone gets overly emotional, let me point out that I don’t hate-hate the Cubs. I try to reserve my precious hate-hate for truly evil things, like social injustice and those Freecreditreport.com commercials. No, what I feel for the Cubs is sports-hate; unlike hate-hate, sports-hate is totally benign and has never driven anybody to strap plastic explosives to their chest. Sports-hate is reserved for meaningless “problems” like Terrell Owens’s adverse affect on locker room chemistry or Alex Rodriguez’s backne. You know, the fun ’n’ frivolous kind of hate.
Every sports fan knows that choosing a team or player to hate is almost as important as picking a team or player to love. I’d argue that it’s even more important, because sports is one of the last cultural institutions where hating something unconditionally is not only considered OK but encouraged. Sports is a hate reservoir. It’s what makes it such a valuable public service.
Remember how I said that sports-hate is benign several sentences ago? There are exceptions, and Friday’s Brewers home opener against the Cubs could be one of them. I might not hate-hate the Cubs, but I’ve only been a serious Brewers fan since moving to Milwaukee in 2006. Thousands of my fellow fans have been marinating in that shit for a lot longer than I have. Imagine if the Jews invited the Palestinians over for Passover, and you get a sense of how explosive things might be this weekend in the Miller Park parking lot. Nothing turns sports-hate to hate-hate quite like 17 too many beers mixed with regional resentments and 91 years combined of not playing in the World Series.
(True story: My friend’s brother once ended up sitting in the vicinity of some obnoxiously unruly Cubs fans who didn’t let the presence of little kids stop them from screaming expletives at Brewers players. After several innings, my friend’s brother followed the Cubs fans to the bathroom and belted the biggest one in the mouth. This was a devoted husband and doting father of two young girls. If he can’t keep it together, what hope do the rest of us have?)
This is the part where I’m supposed to explain that Brewers fans shouldn’t get worked up about the Cubs because, really, it’s only a game, and we should apply our passions to more noble pursuits like protecting the environment and working in soup kitchens. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to fan the flames.
Two years ago, back when Decider was still known as the Milwaukee version of The A.V. Club, I wrote a story listing five perfectly good and rational reasons to hate the fucking Cubs with every fiber of your being. Since these reasons are still pertinent, let's revisit them, shall we?
They’re like the Yankees, except sucky
The Cubs are known as baseball’s quintessential “lovable losers,” a ragtag team of scrappers who don’t win very often but, gee, they just try so darn hard. The reality is that the Cubs are the George W. Bush of Major League Baseball—they’re filthy rich, but because they are also incompetent, people inexplicably regard them as working class heroes. In 2008, the Cubs had baseball’s eighth highest payroll, and all but one of the teams ahead of them have played in at least one World Series this decade. That other team is the Los Angeles Dodgers, which humiliated the Cubs in the playoffs last year. (The Brewers, in contrast, spent $40 million less and survived one day longer in the post-season.) If people hate the Yankees for spending tons of money and winning, don’t the Cubs deserve worse for spending tons of money and never getting it done? As Harry Carey once said, “BAHHWWRR!”
Their favorite cheer: “Goo goo ga ga!”
Which is the more plausible explanation for the Cubs not playing in a World Series since 1945: The team has been cursed by black cats and Billy goats and witches with pointy noses and green skin, or the team and its followers are a bunch of whiny, superstitious babies who can’t take responsibility for their ineptitude? The choice seems obvious unless you’re one of the yahoos still blaming Steve Bartman for the colossal choke job against the Florida Marlins in the 2003 NLCS. Or if you’re former Cubs relief pitcher Kent Mercker, who called up former Cubs TV broadcaster Steve Stone and told him to shut up during a game in 2004. Then there was last year’s NLDS debacle, which was caused as much by negative mojo from self-pitying Cubs fans as Manny Ramirez’s center-field bombs. Can you imagine Brewers fans booing The Crew in a playoff game, no matter how much the team struggled? Failure is a self-fulfilling prophecy with these jokers.
Wrigley Field: Majestic scam
I have a confession to make: I visited Wrigley Field last year and thought it was pretty awesome. (Even better was that the Brewers beat the Cubs in the ninth that day.) But I'm not about to be overly complimentary about anything Cubs-related right now. And, yeah, I'm annoyed by the over-played bullshit about Wrigley Field being this historic jewel of baseball, a mecca for the sport, blah blah blah. Fact is, Wrigley Field has been overhauled so many times since it opened in 1914 that it can hardly be considered the same stadium. It’s like comparing the Beach Boys of today with the band that made Pet Sounds. The fools who pay up to $30 for the “privilege” of parking within five miles of historic Wrigley—which now seats about three times as many drunken loudmouths as it did in 1914—are essentially throwing their money away on Mike Love and a bunch of faceless senior citizens in Hawaiian shirts.
Their fans are the biggest dickholedouches in the majors
Are Cubs fans big a-holes, total dicks, or real douches? It’s a tough call, so let’s just combine all three into a properly descriptive epithet—dickholedouches. Several times a year the Cubs come to play at Miller Park and Cubs fans turn our beloved stadium into Wrigley Field North. Then there’s every other home game, which inevitably draws a handful of odious Cubbie backers who come just to cheer for whomever the Brewers happen to be playing. I understand why they come here—the tailgating is great, the ballpark is beautiful, and it’s super easy to get in and out of the parking lot. How do they repay us for being such good hosts? By holding their liquor like freshman girls during Greek week. Thanks, pricks!
They’re from Chicago!
Even if the Cubs didn’t make our blood boil for being petulant crybabies with an overrated stadium and boorish fans, they would be worthy of hatred because they hail from Chicago, and it’s the solemn duty of every Milwaukeean to unconditionally despise our neighbors to the south. That’s not a chip on our shoulder; it’s an angel.
