Editorial: Get used to it, fans. Your Cubbies are winners

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What’s a wait of 108 years among friends? We knew we’d get back there.

All the same, it’s more than a little surreal to realize today that our Chicago Cubs, those famously “lovable losers,” are losers no more, having won their first World Series since 1908. In a nail-biter of a final game. We brace for further big news. World peace, perhaps. Or no more traffic jams on the Eisenhower.

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What a terrific World Series this was — the Cubs were down three games and roared back — and what a terrific year in baseball it was. If we believed all along the Cubs would beat the Cleveland Indians to win the championship — and we did, though we said nothing for fear of jinxing it — we had our reasons. The Cubs played superb baseball all spring, summer and fall. They won 103 regular-season games with a positive energy that was contagious.

The Cubs created an air of inevitability about winning that we, as Cubs fans, had never felt so fully before. But we went with it.

Thank you, Joe Maddon. Thank you, too, Tom Ricketts. Thank you all, Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs gave Chicago something to cheer about at a time when, let’s face it, our town really needed it. So much of the news all summer long — about a crazy-high murder rate, about a threatened teachers strike, about higher taxes — was bleak. But along came Kris Bryant, swatting another home run to clinch another Cubs win, or Javier Baez making another impossible catch to kill an opponent’s rally, and we felt the sun shine.

Baseball has a lovely way of collapsing time, and we felt that as well, all season long. In baseball, especially in an old park like Wrigley Field, everything that ever was somehow ever is.

Maybe that’s why baseball fans obsess over statistics, which is just a way of sizing up the present by never letting go of the past. We watched Anthony Rizzo play first base and — Could it be? — there was Ernie Banks playing first, too. Or was that Mark Grace or even Charlie Grimm? We watched Jon Lester take the mound and we swear we could see Fergie Jenkins. We watched Bryant play third base and we saw Ron Santo — always Ron Santo.

More than a trick of memory, we were living in baseball time.

And as many of us watched a Cubs game this year, whether at Wrigley or on TV, we knew we were not in it alone. We watched for ourselves — and had a darn good time — but also for fathers and mothers, for grandparents and old friends, for those who were no longer here to watch with us.

A civic duty in baseball is to cheer on their behalf.

A week ago, Sun-Times reporter Maureen O’Donnell wrote touchingly about how Cubs souvenirs are popping up in cemeteries across the Chicago area, so we visited Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie one morning this week to check it out for ourselves. Sure enough, there were Cubs flags and “W” flags all over.

On the grave of a fellow who had died in 1995 at age 58 was a brick etched with his name and the words “Cubs Fan Forever.” On the grave of Robert G. Reining, a World War II recipient of the Purple Heart who had died in 2004 at age 81, were two Cubs gloves and two Hamm’s beer cans.

That got us to thinking about the people who lovingly tend to these graves. Cubs fans themselves, no doubt. And you can bet they had a pretty good summer cheering this Cubs team on, with Dad or Grandma in spirit by their side.

Nationally, we undoubtedly are at the height of Cubs mania. It’s a delirium that began with a generation of fans who grew up watching day games on TV —no lights! — courtesy of WGN. It grew when WGN launched one of the first pre-cable “superstations” and people across the country began watching the Cubs. It was fed by a paradox of the heart: The longer the Cubs lost, the more people pulled for them. Americans love an underdog.

What now for the Cubs, then? Will today’s proliferation of media outlets erode their fan base? Anybody can watch any team now with the right digital package. Or will winning, weirdly enough, diminish their appeal? Some folks just loved those curses, goats and black cats.

Or will the Cubs only grow in popularity? That would be our guess. Our hearts may go out to a loser, but there is something to be said for cheering for a team that earned its success. Over five years, Cubs President Theo Epstein recreated the Cubs from scratch, rebuilding its farm system and bringing along a host of talented young players. The average age of the Cubs’ infield players during the playoffs was 24.

This Cubs team is capable of returning to the World Series as early as next year.

Real Cubs fans are nothing if not faithful. They never stopped cheering a losing team. Now that the Cubs are winners, we suppose fans will just have to adjust. Happily.

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