life story entry
For those who don’t already know, baseball is my life.
One summer evening, my friend Stacey asked if I wanted to attend a Chicago Cubs game with her. For the record, Stacey and I are huge White Sox fans, but her mom got free tickets from work so I casually agreed. Only later did I fully realize the brevity of my actions. I, Emily Kondras, die hard White Sox fan would be entering an arena which the enemy, the Chicago Cubs, called home and which would most likely be crawling with mindless Cubs fans. I began to panic slightly, but my die hard White Sox father encouraged me saying “It’s fun to laugh at them” and “They’re just drunk losers”. The dreaded day finally came. I was deciding what to wear because I wanted to make sure I did not look affiliated with the Cubs in any possible way. My final choice was a shirt with the face of beloved Cubs announcer, Harry Caray. Above his face were the words “Holy crap” and below it, “Cubs Still Suck!” I felt this suited me perfectly, because it was like I was RickRolling Cubs fans. Unsuspecting Cubbies would see the picture and think “Oh, sweet! Harry Caray is awesome! I’m drunk!” and then they’d read the whole shirt and I’d be like “GOTCHA BITCH!”. And instead of being happily surprised by Rick Astley’s big black man voice it would be like I was slapping them in the face. Great success. My friends and I took the bus down to Wrigley Field to avoid mindless Cubs fan traffic and fifty dollar parking fees. I took a deep breath as I stepped on the bus, immediately enveloped in a sea of red and blue. It was a shock to my senses and I felt sick to my stomach. As I sat with my friends, I felt as if I was spying on the enemy, an agent on a secret mission to infiltrate the adversary’s deepest ranks. I felt that at any point a Cubs fan would comprehend that I was one that did not belong, discovering my true indentity. It went down like this in my head.
Drunk Cubs Fan: “Hey! You’re not a Cubs fan! Your shirt just insulted me!”
Me: “Uhhh…”
DCF: “Are you wearing a wire?”
Me: *whispering into small microphone underneath my insulting t-shirt* “Mission has been compromised. Abort!”
While in real life it may or may not have gone down like that, my friends and I did make it all the way to the stadium without a hitch.
Now, as much as I would love to say the Wrigley Field was the worst place I’ve ever been in my life… it surprisingly was not. I mean, if you took out all the obnoxious Cubs fans and cleaned the place up a bit, it would actually be a decent ballpark. That being said, the obnoxious Cubs fans ruined it from the very start. The Cubs are so mainstream, it actually hurts me. Every single Cubs player had a top forty song as their batting music.
No thank you, Marlen Byrd, I would not like to Get Like You. The perpetually losing, injury-ignoring, and fratboy-adored Cubs deliberately create a fan base of the upper class. Their “fans” are yuppies who can afford ninety dollar tickets which we got for free. When I looked around me from my seat at Wrigley Field, I saw a sea of white dressed in red and blue. And the worst part was, the fans don’t even pay attention to the game. I mean really pay attention, living or dying by each pitch like White Sox fans do. The Cubs fans cheered EVERYTHING that happened, as if they won the World Series. I guess that’s what happens to fans of a team that hasn’t won in 102 years. And even worse than that, Cubs fans cheer their team when they screw up. They think it’s cute to lose. What else could possibly explain the nickname “Lovable Losers”? Now, this has quickly turned from a narrative about my first (and hopefully only) trip to Wrigley Field to a Cubs ranting session. Well hating the Cubs is a part of who I am, as a White Sox fan, as the daughter of working Chicago citizens. Sure, my trip to Wrigley wasn’t as traumatizing as I make it seem (even though the Cubs did win) but it certainly was an experience for me.
One summer evening, my friend Stacey asked if I wanted to attend a Chicago Cubs game with her. For the record, Stacey and I are huge White Sox fans, but her mom got free tickets from work so I casually agreed. Only later did I fully realize the brevity of my actions. I, Emily Kondras, die hard White Sox fan would be entering an arena which the enemy, the Chicago Cubs, called home and which would most likely be crawling with mindless Cubs fans. I began to panic slightly, but my die hard White Sox father encouraged me saying “It’s fun to laugh at them” and “They’re just drunk losers”. The dreaded day finally came. I was deciding what to wear because I wanted to make sure I did not look affiliated with the Cubs in any possible way. My final choice was a shirt with the face of beloved Cubs announcer, Harry Caray. Above his face were the words “Holy crap” and below it, “Cubs Still Suck!” I felt this suited me perfectly, because it was like I was RickRolling Cubs fans. Unsuspecting Cubbies would see the picture and think “Oh, sweet! Harry Caray is awesome! I’m drunk!” and then they’d read the whole shirt and I’d be like “GOTCHA BITCH!”. And instead of being happily surprised by Rick Astley’s big black man voice it would be like I was slapping them in the face. Great success. My friends and I took the bus down to Wrigley Field to avoid mindless Cubs fan traffic and fifty dollar parking fees. I took a deep breath as I stepped on the bus, immediately enveloped in a sea of red and blue. It was a shock to my senses and I felt sick to my stomach. As I sat with my friends, I felt as if I was spying on the enemy, an agent on a secret mission to infiltrate the adversary’s deepest ranks. I felt that at any point a Cubs fan would comprehend that I was one that did not belong, discovering my true indentity. It went down like this in my head.
Drunk Cubs Fan: “Hey! You’re not a Cubs fan! Your shirt just insulted me!”
Me: “Uhhh…”
DCF: “Are you wearing a wire?”
Me: *whispering into small microphone underneath my insulting t-shirt* “Mission has been compromised. Abort!”
While in real life it may or may not have gone down like that, my friends and I did make it all the way to the stadium without a hitch.
Now, as much as I would love to say the Wrigley Field was the worst place I’ve ever been in my life… it surprisingly was not. I mean, if you took out all the obnoxious Cubs fans and cleaned the place up a bit, it would actually be a decent ballpark. That being said, the obnoxious Cubs fans ruined it from the very start. The Cubs are so mainstream, it actually hurts me. Every single Cubs player had a top forty song as their batting music.
No thank you, Marlen Byrd, I would not like to Get Like You. The perpetually losing, injury-ignoring, and fratboy-adored Cubs deliberately create a fan base of the upper class. Their “fans” are yuppies who can afford ninety dollar tickets which we got for free. When I looked around me from my seat at Wrigley Field, I saw a sea of white dressed in red and blue. And the worst part was, the fans don’t even pay attention to the game. I mean really pay attention, living or dying by each pitch like White Sox fans do. The Cubs fans cheered EVERYTHING that happened, as if they won the World Series. I guess that’s what happens to fans of a team that hasn’t won in 102 years. And even worse than that, Cubs fans cheer their team when they screw up. They think it’s cute to lose. What else could possibly explain the nickname “Lovable Losers”? Now, this has quickly turned from a narrative about my first (and hopefully only) trip to Wrigley Field to a Cubs ranting session. Well hating the Cubs is a part of who I am, as a White Sox fan, as the daughter of working Chicago citizens. Sure, my trip to Wrigley wasn’t as traumatizing as I make it seem (even though the Cubs did win) but it certainly was an experience for me.