IS THE PROBLEM WRIGLEY FIELD?

  The Cubs won the World Series; it’s only a game but let’s get serious.  The structure of being itself has been altered: nothing is sure anymore, we must live life simply making good guesses.

 

   And now some guesses:  Two games lost in Chicago; could we see this as a reminder that Chicago-land is historically Native American?  After all, the name Chicago comes from the Potawatomi language.  (Field of garlic) 

   As kids we played baseball and football in pasture land just west of Chicago’s Harlem Avenue.  It was formerly a Native American burial ground, but is now ‘developed.’ Thanks to the Great Spirit, the forest preserve across Thatcher Avenue remains.

   Let’s not forget, in 1917 Fred Toney of the Cincinnati Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Chicago Cubs pitched a double no-hitter.  In the tenth inning Jim Thorpe, the great Native American athlete, squeezed in the winning run for the Reds. 

    The game took place at Weeghman Field renamed Wrigley Field in 1925.  William Wrigley, the gum baron, bought the team in 1921.  Before transferring to Weeghman Field (nothing to do with garlic) the Cubs had won two World Series Championships while playing at West Side Park as their home field.  In contrast, the Cubs have gone 2 for 10 in World Series match-ups at the “friendly confines” of Wrigley Field.  The 1918, Cubs vs. Boston Series, featuring the pitching of Babe Ruth and Hippo Vaughn, was held at the home of the White Sox - Comiskey Park - because it had a larger seating capacity than Weeghman.  The Red Sox and Babe Ruth won the war time Series.  Had Jim Thorpe already fostered the tradition of Cub tragedy in 1917?

   Perhaps the Cubs would do better in Chicago World Series games if the owners, the very wealthy Ricketts family, built a new stadium and then sent some money to the protesters in North Dakota.

   But Cub fans are definitely among the most admirable.  They mirror the Divine in that they have faced stark nothingness for over one-hundred years - with love, created and maintained the Cub entity of frustration - with hope.  And it happened – well deserved congratulations to the fans and the indomitable Cub ball players.  

  

Note: For full and complete disclosure – Bill Lang played for the Cubs at West Side Park from 1893 – 1899.