Constable: Cubs fans like odds, even against even-year Giants
For more than a century, we Chicago Cubs fans have been hoping, "This is the year." Instead, we end up blaming a billy goat or a black cat or a Gatorade-soaked mitt or an overreaching fan. In this decade that has seen the San Francisco Giants win the title in 2010, 2012 and 2014, any Giants fan with a calendar and a second-grade math education expresses confidence that "This is the year."
"I just flew in from San Francisco with a bunch of Giants fans on the plane," says Brian Soderberg, 42, a Cubs fan who grew up in St. Charles and attends Friday night's game with his wife, Terri, 39, who grew up in Schaumburg as a Cubs fan. "They kept talking about 'BeliEVEN' over and over."
While Cubs fans hope an 8th-inning home run by Javier Baez in a 1-0 victory is the start needed to propel the Cubs to World Series championships in back-to-back centuries, Giants fans expect their team to win a championship in every even-numbered year.
"Yeah, we do," says Tony Lowe, 49, decked out in his Giants gear. "It's an even year, and it's working so far. Do we feel bad for you? Absolutely. You have a lot to deal with. But we still want to crush you."
No Cubs fan was alive the last time the Cubs won in 1908. But Giants fan Alex Cortez, 26, has distinct memories of the challenges his team faced in winning three World Series in his 20s.
"Every other year, it's been crazy," Cortez says. "We got tickets knowing it's an even year."
If Giants fans want to play the numbers game, Cubs fan Tim Chriest of Aurora says bring it on.
"Well, you look at the dates of our (National League division series) games. There's three odd and two even, so we'll win," says Chriest, 59, who comes to the game with fellow U.S. Treasury employee Ken Carlson, 49, a former Lombard resident who drove to Wrigley Field from his home in Georgia.
"My son's middle name is Ryne," Carlson says, noting his home still boasts a shrine to Cubs legend Ryne Sandberg, who earns an ovation when the video screen shows him sitting in the stands.
Chriest says he bought the tickets from a Wrigley Field season-ticket holder who lives in New Jersey and is holding out for the World Series. "He buys tickets every year, just in case," says Chriest, who has become his best customer until that day arrives.
From the Giants' ability to get men on base only to have Cubs catcher David Ross gun them down, the emotional ebb and flow of this opening pitchers' duel between the Giants and the Cubs could be the most dramatic moment in the relationship between Cubs fan Gavin Amato, 38, and Giants fan Sandra Velasquez, 39.
They met at a Wrigleyville bar while watching Wednesday's wild card game on TV when the Giants beat the New York Mets. Now, Amato, in town on business from his home in Portland, and Bay Area native Velasquez, who came to Chicago to see Wrigley Field, wear their favorite team's gear inside Wrigley. She remembers cheering for her favorite player, Will Clark, the last time the Giants knocked the Cubs out of the postseason in 1989, and she has reveled in the team's recent World Series run.
"I can't say I've had too much," Velasquez says, noting that it is an even year.
"I've been a Cubs fan for 30-plus years, and it's been nothing but losing," Amato says, noting this young Cubs team will have to become a dynasty to even the score. "So this is our even year."