Paint it Blue

Photo © Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune

A ball falls between three Cubs fielders in a Friday afternoon loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field.

Not that it's taken me 38 years of being a Cubs fan to figure this out, but the obvious became moreso this weekend: the reason one remains a Cubs fan is that when they win, Wrigley Field is more fun than any ballpark in America. When they lose, none is more blue.

So it's for the former that I stick it out. I've just got to work on my timing.

Friday, we're in the 10th row, directly behind home plate. The Cubs implode in the 6th inning and lose 8-3 to St. Louis.

Today, we're listening to the car radio on the way home, and the fading crackle of AM-720 is barely audible as the Cubs beat those same Cardinals 5-2. And Wrigley is singing again.

So, we went the wrong day. But that is a long-established corollary of my life as a Cub fan, two others being primary among them:

• The outcome of the game is inversely proportional to the quality of my seats. (I've seen a lot of victories from the upper deck and watched a lot of losses from the box seats.)


• Never get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the game; the other team will hit a home run. (Friday: top of the 5th, I go to the men's room and Albert Pujols parks a fastball in the center field bleachers. Sixth straight game that's happened. Next time, I'm not even drinking water on game days.)