Editorial: Cubs fan reflects on team’s historic moment

Editorial%3A+Cubs+fan+reflects+on+teams+historic+moment

by Nathan Carlin, Special to The Simpsonian

This year is for the fans who have stuck it out year after year, missed playoff after missed playoff, and if there are any still alive, century after century.

To say I have an emotional attachment to this franchise would be a severe understatement.

Their highs are my highs, and their lows are my lows. But thankfully, Theo Epstein has engineered an increasingly amount of highs every season since he stepped foot in Chicago.

Theo, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations, has experience with snapping incredible World Series droughts when he constructed a 2004 World Championship Red Sox team—a franchise without a ring in 86 years.

Epstein has drafted, traded for and signed consistent improvement in his first five years with the Cubs in the form of young, energetic position players and proven, experienced pitching.

The combination of youth and leadership has created a locker room with the attitudes of little kids not just playing the game we all love, but developing the mindset of champions who have been there before.

However, the attitude has spread past the dugout, over the ivy and into the hearts of those who bleed Cubbie blue.

Witnessing players like Javy, Addi, and Kris making impossible plays and admiring the unfazed demeanors of leaders like Grandpa Rossy, Rizzo, Zobrist and the pitching staff gives us hope that maybe, just maybe, this Joe Maddon team truly isn’t cursed by the Billy goat.

Next year is now. This is the year.