November 2, 2016

Men don’t cry. Right? Or if you’re crying, you better have a good reason.

I cried on November 2, 2016.

I was at Tanner’s Bar and Grill in Lenexa, Kansas. It’s not a seedy bar. They don’t roll like that in Lenexa. No, this place has clean wood paneling, new green felt on the pool tables, a wrap option on the menu, and craft brews along with the cheap stuff.

On November 2, 2016, I was in the back room (to the left when you walk in the door) sitting on a cushioned barstool next to the Big Buck Hunter machine. That was where I was sitting when the Cubs won the World Series on November 2, 2016.

Where was I on November 1, 2016? That same spot when the Cubs won Game 6 to force a decisive Game 7. I’m not superstitious, but with the Cubs, you don’t take your chances.

I was with my friend Dan from church, and we chose Tanner’s because it was across the street from my apartment.

Every Cub fan had thought about where they might be when the Cubs finally did it. Would I be with my family? They were Braves fans (and one brother is a Yankees fan. We pray for him often). But they loved me, so they’d cheer for the Cubs if they weren’t playing their own team. I just knew I couldn’t be alone.

When your team has been under a curse for 108 years, you think about things like this. It’s why I fell in love with the Cubs in the first place: the club had a lore built on hope. It was a battered hope, for sure. But that made you give a “Go Cubs” when you saw another guy in a Cub hat walking down the street. Misery loves company. Hope does, too.

I’ve wavered on all my sports teams (Even the Vols. I was an Ole Miss fan for a confusing moment in the early 2000s — it’s sinful, I know). All of them except the Cubs.

I became a fan in the late 90s when Slammin’ Sammy Sosa was two-hopping up the first baseline. I remember watching them beat Roger Clemens in 2003 when he was going for his 300th win, and Eric Karros broke the game open with a home run into the bleachers. I remember when they won their first playoff series since 1947 over my brother’s Braves later in 2003. Yes, I remember the Bartman incident, too.

When the Marlins finished the Cubs off in that NLCS that season, I got out my sketchbook and made a little sign in colored pencil: “Next year.” It was the Cubs motto. Every year ended with hope: “Next year.”

“As surely as God made green apples, someday the Cubs are going to be in the World Series,” said Harry Caray, the famed Cubs broadcaster, when he closed out one season. Harry died in 1998. He never saw it — a lot of Cub fans didn’t. Many generations can pass in 108 years.

The day after the Cubs won, fans took chalk and wrote names on the brick wall outside of Wrigley Field. They wrote the names of uncles, aunts, papaws, and Gigi’s who didn’t live long enough to see it finally happen. Someone set up a radio in the cemetery where Harry Caray was buried and broadcasted the game. Another man drove from North Carolina to Indiana to listen to the game at his dad’s grave because he and his dad had agreed to be together when it happened.

For me, I hadn’t given as much thought as that man.

I’d moved to Kansas City earlier that year. My family was back in Tennessee. Sure, we had texts, but that wasn’t enough for the homesickness I felt from time to time … or daily. So mixed with the anxieties of Game 7, I was also sad. Not just that I couldn’t be there in person (tickets were in the $4,000s). But also that I couldn’t watch it with my family.

And then Dan from church called — just to make sure one Cub fan didn’t have to see this moment alone. Misery loves company. Hope does, too. And there are too many things we suffer long hope for in life that we never get to see. But sometimes we do.

And that’s why I cried on November 2, 2016.

Go Cubs.

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