3 people Chicago Cubs fans love to hate – and 1 they’ll always adore

Chicago Cubs fans are, for better or worse, among the most passionate fans in sports. Since 2016, how the fanbase is perceived has wildly shifted, with more than one poll ranking us among the most despised fans out there.

So what? We know what we like – and what we don’t. Theo Epstein came to town a decade ago looking to change expectations here on the North Side and he did just that. Three NLCS appearances, a World Series championship, some division hardware – not to mention the individual accolades that piled up. The Lovable Losers are no more.

Scroll Cubs Twitter on any given day and you’re bound to see some heated exchanges and bold takes. So who grinds the gears of this fanbase more than anyone? Let’s take a look and see.

3 people Chicago Cubs fans sure love to hate: #3 – Rob Manfred

It’s safe to say Cubs fans aren’t alone in their dislike of Major League Baseball’s current commissioner who has, at almost every turn, seemingly made the wrong decision when it comes to the game we all love.

From his wild comments on the Commissioner’s Trophy, in which he called it ‘a piece of metal,’ a relentless obsession with pace of play and rules experimentation and this winter’s lockout that has stopped the game in its tracks, it’s been misstep after misstep from Bud Selig’s successor.

He wasn’t popular even before the ongoing MLB lockout – and will come out of it looking worse than ever in the eyes of pretty much anyone who doesn’t own a big league club. It’s harder than ever to watch your favorite team thanks to ridiculous, outdated blackout rules, ticket prices show no signs of ever going down and the game is in a very dangerous place, indeed.

Unfortunately for the commissioner, when you’re at the top, the buck stops with you. There are few in the game today capable of setting off baseball fans than Manfred.

3 people Chicago Cubs fans sure love to hate: #1 – Tom Ricketts

If you told me in the wake of the Cubs’ 2016 World Series championship that within five years, Tom Ricketts would be among the most despised with fans, I’d have thought you’d lost your mind.

I mean, how do you burn that much political capital with a fanbase that waited for 108 years for a ring that quickly? Well, I guess we should just ask Ricketts, who has done just that. Refusing to spend near the end of the team’s competitive window, slashing and burning when it came to payroll and a complete failure of a launch of Marquee Network – the losses keep piling up for Ricketts.

“You won’t be booing next year,” he told us. Yet the Cubs’ television network remains as hard to watch as ever, with no signs of that changing anytime soon. Despite a lackluster on-field product, ticket prices at Wrigley are higher than anywhere else in the league – and all we’ve heard from ownership is talk of ‘biblical’ losses since the pandemic hit in 2020.

Let’s call it what it is. For the Ricketts family, ownership of the Cubs (and an ever-growing portion of Wrigleyville) is an investment. It’s about the bottom line, period. At one point, maybe we thought otherwise – but the evidence speaks for itself. Even if this ownership group delivers another championship, I don’t know if Ricketts will ever be loved again at Wrigley. 

1 person Chicago Cubs fans will always adore – #1: Anthony Rizzo

This generation’s ‘Mr. Cub’ and the unofficial captain during the most successful run the franchise has seen since the early 20th century, Anthony Rizzo will always hold a special place in our hearts.

He’s still out there on the free agent market, but after moving out of his Chicago home this month, a reunion seems more unlikely than ever. The team’s spring 2021 extension offer looks like it’ll hold up incredibly well with time, but that certainly doesn’t change the emotions that came with watching him get traded to the Yankees at the deadline.

Rizzo was here for it all. The hard-to-watch 101-loss 2012 iteration of the Cubs to the 103-win World Series championship club inn 2016 and many other years. He felt like the likeliest member of the team to spend his entire career on the North Side, but the relationship soured quickly this year and he’s out looking for a new team.

A cancer survivor and a tireless force in the community, Rizzo is one of the good guys in sports and Chicago embraced him, both on and off the field. If there’s one guy we see at Cubs Convention 20 years from now who will garner the same type of affection legends like Billy Williams, Ernie Banks and Ron Santo saw over the years, it’s Rizzo.