Cubs fans: ‘We’ll get ‘em next year’

SHARE Cubs fans: ‘We’ll get ‘em next year’

The street violinist playing outside Wrigley Field Wednesday night said she didn’t know any funeral dirges.

“I could play a jig or a reel really slow, and it sounds sounds solemn,” said Sammy Jo Zale, 23, a few bucks strewn across her instrument’s case.

A man down the block sitting on a bucket with a squeeze box in his lap figured “Yesterday” by the Beatles would be appropriate.

To top it off, in the seventh inning, a trumpeter stood on the sidewalk at Waveland and Sheffield and

played “Taps.”

Ben Bell-Bern, of Madison, Wisconsin, plays ‘Taps’ to signal the end of the season after the Cubs lost Wednesday night. | Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Ben Bell-Bern, of Madison, Wisconsin, plays ‘Taps’ to signal the end of the season after the Cubs lost Wednesday night. | Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Musical arrangements — as well as the body language of dejected fans — took queues from a scoreboard that went lopsided early and completed a four-game Mets sweep of the Cubs.

“It was a death march,” said Art Schulman, 70, a retired trader who grew up near Rogers Park but now lives in Florida. “I’m going back home to cry.”

His cheery wife, Janis, refused to follow suit.

“It’s a young team that exceeded expectations. We can build on it,” she said. They both bolted in the seventh.

Mets fan Tom Pirone (left) of Queens, New York, tells his friend Scott Jastram, a Cubs fan from Milwaukee, that Chicago fans were classy in supporting their team after the Mets swept the NLCS on Wednesday. | Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Mets fan Tom Pirone (left) of Queens, New York, tells his friend Scott Jastram, a Cubs fan from Milwaukee, that Chicago fans were classy in supporting their team after the Mets swept the NLCS on Wednesday. | Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Cubs fan Scott Jastram stuck it out.

He got a tear in his eye when, as the game concluded, fans chanted: “Let’s go Cubbies!”

“I’d say 70 percent of the fans stayed to the end,” said Jastram, 48, who attended the game with Tom Pirone, a pal from New York who supports the Mets.

“I just texted a buddy back in Queens: ‘Classiest fans I’ve ever been around,’ ” Pirone said after the game.

Blake Dakota, of Chicago, tosses the ball around outside Wrigley Field on Wednesday. Maybe he could pitch for the Cubs in 20 years? | Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Blake Dakota, of Chicago, tosses the ball around outside Wrigley Field on Wednesday. Maybe he could pitch for the Cubs in 20 years? | Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times

Robert Sargis, who parked cars outside Wrigley Field for nearly 80 years and attended the game with his sons and a grandson, kept it positive even when the Mets scored six quick runs early in the game.

“The Mets are just tiring out now. The Cubs are about to sprout up,” said Sargis, 90.

In 1934, you could flip him a quarter and 10-year-old Sargis would find a parking spot on Addison for you.

Years later, he bought several lots near Wrigley. He also became a chemist.

When he started a family and couldn’t escape his main job to park cars during baseball season, his wife, Alma, did it. Sometimes she’d wave traffic with one hand and rock a carriage with the other.

“When I was 5 he’d have me backing cars into spots because suburbanites would come to the city and couldn’t do it,” recalled Scott Sargis, 59, who runs an executive recruiting firm.

But Sargis always kept an eye on his beloved Cubs, and he fell in love this year with the youthful team.

“This is the only Cubs team that I’ve ever seen that’s enjoyed playing the game this much,” he said.

Sargis offered this post-game analysis: “They didn’t play like they should have. They played uptight.”

His son, Mark, hit the default Cubs switch. “We’ll get ‘em next year,” he said.

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