My great grandmother Anna Stemwell emigrated to the US from southern Germany in the early 1900's, and her English was pretty rudimentary, according to my dad. He grew up in the same house with her from the age of 10 in Milwaukee. In the late 1930s, when my dad was in college, he would call his grandmother regularly, and she always worried that her English was hard to understand on the phone. At that time, there was no major league baseball in Milwaukee, only a minor league team called the Brewers. If you wanted to listen to a baseball game on the radio in Milwaukee, you could listen to WGN broadcasting the Cubs games. So my dad suggested to his grandmother that she listen to the Cub games to improve her English.
This lead to my great grandmother becoming a huge Cub fan. She listened to every game, and her English did get a lot better - I've often wondered if she ever got to go to a game.
For years, when my dad would call his grandmother during baseball season he would ask her how she was. Her response depended on the Cubs - if they'd won, she was in great spirits; if they'd lost, she'd say "terrible, terrible. The damn Cups, they lost again." (She lived into her late 80s and would have lived longer if she hadn't fallen on the ice running out to get the newspaper.)
Because my dad lived in Chicago by the time the Braves went to Milwaukee in 1953, like his dad, he was always a Cubs fan, even when one of his good buddies, John Allyn, owned the White Sox from 1961-1975. We went to White Sox games at Comiskey Park, usually sitting in the owners box, but it was never as much fun as sitting in the stands at Wrigley.
My brother became a die-hard fan, listening to games whenever he could - he was living in Arizona for the last 20 years of his life, and was over the moon when WGN-TV became a "super station" and he could watch his beloved Cubs again. He died much too young, but I hope he has a birds-eye view of all the games, along with all the other Cub fans who left us before the Cubs could have a good post season. He was a huge Billy Buckner fan - that added to the heartbreak.
I married a Cubs fan - one of my requirements - and we took our kids to games from a very early age. When our son was around 6, I took him to a game without his dad along. When he had to go to the men's room, I walked him to the door, and told him I'd be waiting at the exit door, which was down at the other end. I waited patiently at the exit, but he didn't come out. I was getting worried, so I found an Andy Frain usher, a young African American lad, and asked him to search the bathroom. He went in, called out our son's name repeatedly, but came out empty handed with a very worried look on his face. We looked all around the concession stands, no luck, and I was getting extremely nervous.
The usher asked me if he could have gone back to his seat, and I thought it would be impossible for a 6-year-old to find his way through all those seats, but we decided to go look. and there he was - sitting happily in his seat, watching the game, oblivious to the fact that I was not there. When I saw him in his seat and exclaimed "He's there!" the usher and I hugged each other in relief.
I went to my seat and asked my son where he'd been, and he said that he just came out the entrance and went straight back to his seat - he remembered "the hair do of the girl sitting in front of him," and found it with no problem. I, however, was having a coronary for about 20 minutes.
Then there was the time I got hit by a Vance Law line drive foul ball - right across my chest. All I had time to do was turn sideways, so it didn't hit me straight on - it was a night game, and the guys in front of me, in business suits, didn't even try to catch it. Boy did that hurt. The ushers took me to the first aid room (the fish husband said it was a big inning and he'd find me after it was over). I was amazed at the number of people who'd been hit by balls - you definitely need to keep your eyes on the game!
None of this has anything to do with fish - everything to do with a multi-generational love affair with the Cubs. It's hard not to get our hopes up - being very cautiously optimistic. Go Cubs!!
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