Cubs Fans

A quick note to the Ricketts family - if you had enough money to buy the Cubs without relying on public aid to help you close the deal, you have enough money to fix up Wrigley Field without our help. Somewhere along the line, the public stopped being a potential fan base for professional sports franchises and more of a personal piggybank for billionaires looking to pad their bottom lines. The Rickettses, despite claiming to be a family of the people, are no different. Right now, they want the already severely cash-strapped city of Chicago to chip in $150 million to help renovate Wrigley and develop the area...

Ending his recap of a recent Cubs loss, a local TV sports anchor said, "D'you know what Cubs fans have to look forward to this summer? Lollapalooza. " My wife, a Sox fan, wondered how I could still get excited about the prospect of going to games at Wrigley Field. "The place is broken down," she said, "and you're only going there to watch them lose. " It's true. I've been to Wrigley plenty of times, but I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen the home team win. Yet even on the countless losing days, I always walked away smiling, knowing I'd be back in no time.

The last time the Cubs played a truly meaningful game, Barack Obama was still a U.S. senator and the "Twilight" series existed only in book form. It's been a long, rough road through the unmet high expectations of 2009, the midseason quit job of 2010 and the general malaise of 2011. But I believe the franchise may have hit rock bottom, and there's no way from there but up. If you've disengaged from regular Cubs fandom - and judging by sinking broadcast ratings and empty seats at Wrigley, you have - now is the time to make like Captain Picard.

For Cubs fans, home opening day means flowing beer, baseball gear, and a healthy amount of hope.   But historically it's also helped usher in a seasonal uptick in “quality of life” offenses around Lakeview's bars. In anticipation of the opener and accompanying festivities, (some Wrigleyville bars plan to open in the early morning), the Chicago Police Department is posting extra bike-patrolling officers to the 19th District, which encompasses Wrigleyville, and will add a neighborhood patrol car, according to a newsletter Ald. Tom...

If the rumblings prove true and 2013 sees the North Siders playing next season at The Cell while Wrigley is revamped, I'm going to do something I swore I never would. I am going to pray the Cubs suck. The thought of hoping a team tanks - the one with a big white flag with a "W" on it to which I've pledged allegiance - makes me feel less Chicago patriotic than putting ketchup on a hot dog while genuinely appreciating the tastefulness of the Marilyn statue. But it must be done.

It always gets darkest before the dawn, or so the cliché goes, and it's all Cubs fans have at this point. If this Cubs season were a prime-time sitcom, it would be NBC's "Whitney," a grating, joyless exercise in entertainment that improbably manages to draw a respectable audience week in and week out. Before winning seven of 10 games recently, this team was on pace to lose more than 100 games as the ghosts of the past continue to haunt the...

You've heard of men who stare at goats. Well, there's a pack of men who travel with goats. OK, well just one special goat named Wrigley. The clan, goat included, is making a cross-country road trip by foot from Mesa, Ariz., where the Cubs have spring training to Wrigley Field. "It's going pretty good," Matt Gregory, 33, from Washington, told RedEye by phone from Arizona, where he was walking alongside a train track. Gregory is part of a group of six guys from Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Tennessee - all Cubs fans who met in Alaska last...

After 95 days and about 2,000 miles, a group of five friends and a goat have arrived safely at Wrigley Field. Cubs fan Matt Gregory, 33, said he plans to present a $22,000 check for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where Gregory's mom was treated for cancer before she died in 1999, at today's Cubs game against the San Diego Padres. The fundraising effort began on Feb. 25 (Cubs legend Ron Santo's birthday) in Mesa, Ariz., where the Cubs hold Spring Training.

It's been 103 years since the Cubs called themselves World Series champions, and more than a half-century since they've even contended in the game. As the sentiment shifted from "this is the year" to "maybe next year" last season - one that saw 91 losses overall and way more losses than wins by July - something remarkable happened. A reliably and historically packed ballpark, even in the worst of times, began to see empty seats and gaps in the bleachers. Fans weren't just leaving after beer sales ceased, they were simply not showing up at all. But Cub fans say...

If you want to know why there's not a “Real Housewives of Chicago,” Bravo TV exec Andy Cohen has the answer. Or not. “That's a good question,” Cohen told RedEye in a recent phone interview. “We've done development on a few other things in Chicago, and I'm working on getting a Chicago-based show up and running in the next year. I can't say it will be a 'Housewives' but we have some other stuff in the hopper.” Prepare for more housewives love as Cohen's “Watch What Happens Live” expands to five nights a week starting Jan. 8. The St. Louis...

It's 2013, and that can only mean one thing. It means, uh … help me out. Oh that's right, the World Baseball Classic. Remember? The World Cup-like March tournament that supplanted the Olympics as a way to have people play baseball for their country? The one Paul Konerko didn't seem to want to play in? They do it once every … two years? Four years? OK, it's every four years. This is the third time it's happened. The first two were won by Japan. I did not know that. That is a clear signal that I'm not the only person not taking this event seriously.

Like most Cubs fans, Starlin Castro is eager to put last year behind him. "It's a new season," the face of the franchise said when asked about 2013. "I'm excited. I feel pretty good. " After the way 2012 ended, it would be hard to fault Castro for wanting to get away for a while. The team had just lost 100 games for the first time in nearly 50 years and he had just signed a seven-year, $60 million contract months earlier. And while that would be enough to have most guys packing their bags for a relaxing vacation the moment the season ended, Castro took a different...

Cubs fans and irrationally overreacting to the team's moves go together like an overpriced Old Style and the Wrigley Field bleachers. Enter @facebookcubs, a Twitter feed devoted to taking a magnifying glass to the funniest overreactions to the team's moves on Facebook. "As a Cubs fan, there's a gold mine of opportunity to feed off the comments on their page," said Mike Shoro, an Elk Grove Village native and the brains behind the feed. The 18-year-old, who is studying broadcast journalism at the University of Nebraska, created the account...

When it comes to Cubs fans, nothing sells quite like nostalgia. There was no better evidence of this at last weekend's Cubs Convention than vendor Dave Noll trying to sell a pair of 20-year-old used shoes for $750. "The coolest thing, I think, are these Ryne Sandberg game-worn baseball spikes," Noll said at the event, which took place at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers. "They were in the trenches. They were on Sandberg's feet. They probably helped him steal bases, field ground balls, jack baseballs out of the park.

The text arrived about 30 minutes after my column went live on redeyechicago.com . It was my buddy G, a Vikings fan. He was not happy. "I want you to know I take personal offense to your column," he wrote. "You went too far. " We'd been smack talking all day both privately and on Twitter, and perhaps I was still channeling that mindset when I wrote my postgame column about my dislike of the Vikings. I'd imagine my disrespect of the Vikings wasn't what bothered him, though, but rather my disrespect of Vikings fans: "[The Vikings]

A documentary filmmaker has garnered more than 13,000 signatures in his campaign to give former Cubs outfielder Adam Greenberg one more chance at bat. The last time and only time Greenberg was at bat was July 2005 in the ninth inning in a game against the Florida Marlins. Pitcher Valerio de los Santos threw a 92-mile-per-hour fastball, which hit Greenberg in the back of his head. Greenberg suffered a mild concussion but never played a major-league game again. His plate appearance is listed as a "hit by pitch" not an official "at bat. " Filmmaker Matt...

In case you've been in Indonesia this baseball season, word is the Washington Nationals are pre-emptively shutting down their perfectly healthy ace, Stephen Strasburg. For precautionary reasons. Apparently the front office doesn't want him to turn into Mark Prior Part 2: a dominant young pitcher who was overworked too early in his career and never fulfilled his promise because of related injuries. Mark Prior. Just hearing the name makes Cubs fans suck air through their teeth. You remember Prior.

In case you've been in Indonesia this baseball season, word is the Washington Nationals are pre-emptively shutting down their perfectly healthy ace, Stephen Strasburg. For precautionary reasons. Apparently the front office doesn't want him to turn into Mark Prior Part 2: a dominant young pitcher who was overworked too early in his career and never fulfilled his promise because of related injuries. Mark Prior. Just hearing the name makes Cubs fans suck air through their teeth. You remember Prior.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. Cubs fans could be forgiven if they saw the box score from the Gwinnett Braves-Pawtucket Red Sox game June 12 and did a double take. That likely would have been followed by a wistful pause to ponder what might have been. That day, would-be Greatest Pitcher in Cubs History Mark Prior came on in relief for Pawtucket in the eighth inning to face Felix Pie. You might remember him as the would-be-franchise-cornerstone-turned-Gwinnett-outfielder. Prior promptly hit Pie with a pitch; he retaliated by stealing second base.