Chicago Cubs: Being a fan has never been more rewarding than right now

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CHICAGO, IL – APRIL 05: Members of the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals stand for the National Anthem before the Opening Night game at Wrigley Field on April 5, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) /

Broken bathrooms, unfinished bleachers and the start of an era

If there’s a common theme throughout all of this, it’s family.

We’ve got a Clark & Addison sign above the door to our deck, a ‘W’ pillow on our couch and over half of my closet has the Cubs logo on it. For her birthday, I got my wife a David Ross jersey – the year after he retired. In our house, there are two seasons: holiday season and baseball season.

For Christmas three years ago, my now-wife came through big-time, getting tickets for my brother-in-law and the two of us for Opening Night 2015. It proved to be Joe Maddon‘s first game as Cubs skipper, Jon Lester‘s first start for Chicago and the bleachers at Wrigley were still under renovation.

That game didn’t play out quite how I’d hoped. The rival St. Louis Cardinals shut out the Cubs – and it was clear there was still work to be done before we were ready to contend. But, by season’s end, that same Cubs team ended the Cardinals’ run in the postseason.

There was an energy around Wrigleyville that night. An excitement I’d never felt there before – and I’ve been to plenty of Opening Days at the Confines. With Lester on the bump, it made things real. We were ready to start winning – and the pieces were all starting to fall into place.

It still ranks as probably my favorite game I’ve ever been to – simply because of what that game signified: the end of the rebuild.

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