Is it Bears season yet?

(To quote Ron Santo) "Geez".

Phillies 12, Cubs 5.

It is no longer a let-down to me when the Cubs lose, it is rather a foregone conclusion. No matter the score, no matter who is pitching - there is always a chance they can, and probably will, lose the game. It actually makes it easy to exist from day to day as a Cubs fan - I blissfully ignore watching the games on TV, keep the radio channel tuned to Roe Conn, and if they do actually win, it is as mildly pleasant as finding that last pair of clean underwear in the back corner of my dresser.

Thanks to Bozo the Clown, growing up in the northern suburbs, and the concept of the "intervention" not existing back then, I was doomed to be a Cubs fan at an early age. I can remember countless summer days spent listening to Harry Caray welcoming the Schultz Family from Des Moines, and spelling players' names backwards when the action was a little dull. (I would have loved to hear him try and spell "Pierzynski" or "Fukudome" backwards...)

I still do not know why I have not changed allegiances after all these years, or just given up on baseball entirely - maybe it is somehow my version of Schadenfreude (the German concept of taking pleasure in someone else's miseries so you feel better about your life).

The most notable events in White Sox history? Winning the World Series and Mark Buehrle's perfect game - fun and exciting memories that my wife (a South Side Sox fan) mentions all the time. So what can I, as a Cub fan, counter with? The Billy Goat Curse, the Bartman Incident, and Marla Collins (the ball girl who infamously posed for Playboy...and I was too young to buy the magazine at the time...). And for those who do not believe in curses - we had a pitcher this year try to jump over a dugout fence to celebrate a win, but he fell instead and broke his big toe. That is so Cubs.

I even just went to close the back door and I came face to face with a skunk. But he didn't spray me - he knew I was a Cubs fan, and that would just be rubbing it in.