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Holding It All Together

Well, it's finally October. You know what that means.....baseball's finest hour. Oh, were you thinking pumpkins and black cats? Sorry. I'm talking World Series time!

So who is your team? Around here you usually run into a lot of Cubs or Cardinal fans, with an occasional White Sox fan thrown in there. I personally am a Cubs fan, ever since I fell in love with a cool short-stop named Larry Bowa when I was 12 years old. But I married a Cardinals fan, so now I'm double-minded. I try and keep the peace by rooting for which ever of our favorite teams is playing at the moment. My kids cleared it up for me the other day when I overheard one of them tell a friend, "I'm a Cub-nals fan."

Although I own more Cubs shirts than Cardinals shirts, I did go over-board in 2006 and wore a Cardinals shirt for all of the post-season games, sometimes under my clothes when I went to church. They won the World Series that year, and you have me to thank for that. Like most fans, I like to believe that my meager attempt to show my support somehow has amazing outcomes for my team. I also think that I can hex the other team by pretend-flicking at them, ok not really.

Isn't it strange, though, how we join ourselves with a team to the point that we talk about them in first person? "We won!" "Oh man, we almost had them!" "Can you believe how we did today?" As if by sitting on our couch watching our plasma screen, and shouting comments at the bad players, that we are part of the team and have altered the game.

Well, I was only on one baseball team in my life. That's probably a good thing. It wasn't too pretty. In fact, I don't think it was baseball at all. Softball perhaps? I was 10, what do I know. I didn't even know that the ball glove my mom got for me and my sister at a garage sale was really a catchers mitt. We had to share it, so I only had to wear it every other inning. It was for my right hand, but I'm right-handed. Never did figure out how to actually use it.

Now I know what you're thinking. The Cubs stink. But that simply isn't true. I know they haven't won the World Series in a long time, but that isn't the only series that matters. Are you aware that the Cubs won the Central Division title in 2007 and 2008. I bet you didn't know that the Chicago Cubs, formerly known as the Chicago White Stockings, is the oldest team in American organized sports, and in 1882 The White Stockings became the first team to win three straight National League Championships.

In 1902 The Chicago Daily News was the first to pen the "Cubs" nickname as the team's moniker. The nickname referred to the amount of young players the team had. On September 15 of that year, three of those young players Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance recorded the teams’ first double play in a 6-3 win vs. the Reds, and that inspired the famous poem by Franklin Pierce Adams, originally entitled Baseball's Sad Lexicon, also known as Tinker To Evers To Chance.

For whatever reason, we love the team we love. Instead of wasting time and energy dissing the Cubs, why not pick on the team that deserves it. The Cubs aren’t that bad, quit with the jokes already! Want to know who the worst team in baseball is this season? It's the Washington Nationals. The Cubs have won 24 more games than them. Next comes the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Cubs have won 21 more games than them. The Cubs came in second in their division this season. And that's ok with me. My Cardinals came in first, so I win either way. Remember, I'm a Cub-nals fan too.

These are the saddest of possible words:

"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,

Tinker and Evers and Chance.

Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,

Making a Giant hit into a double –

Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:

"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

Franklin Pierce Adams