Chicago Cubs: Top 5 essentials for every Cubs fan

Chicago Cubs: Most Cubs fans have this essential already

1. Patience is a Cubs Fan Virtue and Essential 

I’m going to step out of the box (which I’m told is a good thing to do every so often) and not look at anything material at all for the last and final Cubs fan essential. You see, the Cubs grew a lot of fans in 2016. Some had wandered off over the years just checking the standings every so often and waiting to re-engage with the Cubs once they saw the team had started moving toward a division race or even Wild Card.

I’ll be honest and candid without flinching and say we lost a lot of fans in 2005 when the Chicago White Sox won the World Series. Cubs fans had been waiting about 97 years in 2005 for the Cubs to make a move. Instead, the Cubs finished fourth in the National League Central Division with a 79-83 record that year. Fans were spooked that they might die without ever getting to celebrate a title in Chicago.

Add on to the fact that the following year the Cubs came in 6th in the NL Central finishing (66-96) and overnight many loyal northside Cubs fans and fans throughout northern Indiana turned in their blue caps for black. I’d like to think they just ‘added’ the black cap just in case the Cubs finally won it all. But that scenario looked less and less likely as it would be 11 years before the Cubs would eventually win the World Series.

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I do not doubt that after 2016, if a fan had even thought about the Cubs in their life, then they became Cubs fans (again). Everyone wanted to be part of the 108-year hiatus, broken curse, or whatever you were calling it; Cubs fans were crawling out of the woodwork.

Many have stayed and remained loyal and patient fans waiting for that next shot at destiny, while others have reverted to rechecking the standings, especially with an uneventful offseason. While still others have heard that ‘other’ Chicago team is supposed to be smoking hot this year and have dusted off their black hats that have been in the back of the closet since 2016.

Oh sure, it happens because some folks just want to enjoy baseball in Chicago and will go wherever the ‘W’ lands. Other fans will wait patiently for a Cubs resurgence, and it’s these fans that are enjoying that last essential, which is patience.

Cubs fans who have lived through the ’60s to the present have seen so many good Cubs baseball but without that championship. When it finally does arrive, it means so much to those who have waited for it patiently. It’s not easy, and no one ever said being a Cubs fan is easy.

I remember meeting my first roommate in the Army, Mike, from upstate New York in the early ’90s. Mike was, of course, a New York Yankees fan and across the hall were two guys from Boston who were die-hard Boston Red Sox fans. I was literally surrounded. The first time Mike saw me put on my Cubs baseball hat after work, he said, “Oh Cubs fan, huh? Guess you don’t like to win much,” he laughed.

That’s what it was like everywhere Cubs fans dared to wear the classic C cap. Others would say something like, “Oh, I used to be a Cubs fan too watching all the games on WGN with my family, but they never won anything, and then I moved to (pick) and became a (who cares) fan,” they would explain.

It takes a lot of patience to follow this franchise and stay loyal, but patience feels so good when years like 2016 come around, and they will again Cubs fans.

Be patient.