Imrem: For fans, there's no pain like Chicago Cubs pain
As another World Series commences Tuesday night without the Chicago Cubs, let's reflect on something said before the first pitch of this postseason.
The status of Cubs fans as kings and queens of pain - sports category only, of course - was challenged by actor Jeff Daniels of all people.
The comment was so insulting that Cubs fans might want to boycott Daniels' current movies, "Steve Jobs" and "The Martian."
Daniels, who grew up in Michigan, was bemoaning the Lions' bizarre loss at Seattle on Oct. 5's edition of "Monday Night Football."
"You feel cursed," the Detroit Free Press quoted Daniels as saying on ESPN. "It's just painful."
Then came the blockbuster misconception, misconceived as if Daniels woke up in a tub of Jack Daniel's.
"I don't care what the Cubs fans say," Daniels added, "this is more painful."
How dare he!
Nobody has suffered more sports-induced emotional distress than a Cubs fan over the years, decades, more than a century, myriad generations, countless lifetimes.
Nobody else's team has been more futile. Nobody else's has been the butt of more jokes. Nobody else's has been patronized as lovable losers.
However, Daniels' point is well-taken in one respect: The Cubs are the gold standard for sports trauma.
That tradition is the burden every Cubs team has carried since the franchise last played in the World Series in 1945 and last won one in 1908.
The Lions weren't even founded 107 years ago. Nor was the NFL. Back then a football still was a whole pig - ears included - rather than merely a slab of skin.
The thing about Cubs fans is that they incur periodic spells of convenient amnesia that enables them to experience periodic spells of convenient hope.
This autumn was an example. The 2015 Cubs had fans believing this year would be the elusive "next year" they have been waiting for.
The feeling was that this was going to be different from the black cat of 1969 and Gatorade glove of 1984 and Bartman ball of 2003.
Uh, no, sorry, not yet.
No curse was necessary this time unless you want to count the "Curse of the 'Back to the Future II' Prediction that the Cubs Would Win the World Series in 2015" curse.
Despite all the historic close calls, the Cubs simply haven't been able to win a pennant in 70 years or a World Series in 107 years.
Chicago sports franchises overall make a habit of going long stretches without winning championships. The Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox have endured their own.
But even in this town, the Cubs blow away all other gaps between titles. A sports franchise has to almost try to go 107 and 70 like the Cubs have.
So Jeff Daniels must be channeling his character in "Dumb and Dumber" if he is comparing the Lions to the Cubs.
Now the Cubs' drought is supposed to end sooner than later - next year or the year after or surely no later than the year after that - as Tom Ricketts, Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer remake and update everything associated with the franchise.
Still, the Cubs will have to turn promise into production and production into a pennant and a pennant into a World Series championship.
If the Cubs ever do that, Jeff Daniels will be able to moan about the agony of being a long-suffering Lions fan.
In the meantime, the Cubs will remain the gold standard for sports suffering and Jeff Daniels will remain that guy from "Dumb and Dumber."