There's Always Next Year

There's an old radio commercial that I remember hearing as a boy in Illinois. I've long since forgotten the company or product it pitched, but one line stuck in my head these fifteen years. Toward the end of the spot a boy asks his father:

Was that before the Cubs and the White Sox were in the World Series every year?

Ah, if only.

A DYING CUB FAN'S LAST REQUEST


My wife told me she's glad that I don't fall apart when such sports tragedies strike. Of course I'm not happy about the Cubs repeat postseason meltdown, but what am I supposed to do? I'm a Cubs fan. We Cubs fans have been falling apart for a hundred years, and we're used to picking the pieces up and putting them back together again while quietly reminding ourselves that there's always next year.

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME


There's always next year. Next year...that's the hard part. Losing I can handle. Disappointment I get over. But living without that baseball game in my radio for six months...that's hard. I guess I'll have to see what the Blackhawks are up to these days. I hear they're playing at Wrigley Field this winter.