Cubs, Red Sox know misery loves company

Name the following major league baseball franchise. They have won one World Series in their history. They have won only four pennants since 1915. They once scored 14 runs in a World Series game and lost.\nCubs? Red Sox? No, that would be the Phillies.\nHere's another one: They have not won the World Series since 1917. The Red Sox have won a World Series since they last won one. They have been to only two World Series since 1917, none since 1959. They retired a slightly above-average outfielder's number when he was 30 even though he'll have to buy a ticket to get into the Hall of Fame.\nCubs? Red Sox? No, that would be the White Sox, and didn't we all shed a tear when they retired Harold Baines' No. 3?\nOne more: They last won a World Series in 1948. They have been back only three times since. In 1954 they were victims to the greatest post-World War II Series upset when they lost to the Giants (who, by the way, have not won a World Series since). They once made a movie featuring the team, portraying them as a bunch of ragamuffins winning big called, "Major League." Naturally, it was a comedy.\nCubs? Red Sox? No, that would be the Indians.\nSo what is it about the Cubs and the Red Sox?\nBoth play in old-fashioned stadiums located in the middle of neighborhoods that are almost mandatory tourist destinations for visitors.\nBoth teams have loyal fan bases. Not only are they loyal, but they have famous hangers-on. Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Denis Leary root for the Red Sox. Bill Murray, John Cusack and Eddie Vedder root for the Cubs.\nBoth have had local writers who made their team's plight an operatic struggle. Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote lovingly and bitingly of the Cubs and popularized the ex-Cub Factor, the bizarre coincidence that any team that has made the World Series with three or more ex-Cubs since the Cubs' last trip in 1945 has almost certainly lost (with the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks as an exception).\nMeanwhile, Boston is a cradle of literary giants. From John Cheever to John Updike to Peter Gammons, they want the reader to feel their pain. Okay, to be fair, Gammons is much more objective about it, and they want the pain to be exquisite. Updike's story "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu," about Ted Williams' last game at Fenway Park, is probably the greatest piece of baseball writing ever.\nHas anybody ever written anything so poignant about the Phillies? \nPart of it has to do with the promulgation of rather ridiculous curses. The Red Sox sold Babe Ruth in December 1919 to the New York Yankees. Ruth became the greatest player in history, and the Yankees have won 26 World Series since. The Red Sox have won zero World Series since. That's where the Curse of the Bambino started.\nThe Cubs have the Curse of the Billy Goat. When Bill Sianis, the then-owner of the Lincoln Tavern, wanted to bring his billy goat for a game of the 1945 World Series, he was denied entrance. The backwards thinkers who worked for the Cubs back then thought bringing in a billy goat would be a problem. Imagine that. So Sianis, whose descendants now own the Billy Goat Tavern glamorized by John Belushi in the infamous "Cheesebooger! Cheesebooger! No fries! Chips!" Saturday Night Live skits of the 1970s, put a curse on the Cubs, and they haven't been back to the Series.\nBoth teams also found amazingly difficult ways to lose. The Red Sox lost Game 6 of the 1986 World Series when Mets' outfielder Mookie Wilson's grounder went through first baseman Bill Bucker's legs. The big play in the Cubs' Game 5 loss in the National League Championship Series to the Padres in 1984 was Tim Flannery's grounder going through Leon Durham's legs.\nIt's all been mythologized to the point of exhaustion. No baseball fans, whether they are Cubs or Red Sox fans or not, need to hear it much more. \nIn fact, non-Cubs and Red Sox goofs over the years have gotten off the hook, be it Jose Lind's error in Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series, Jerry Dybzinski's baserunning gaffe in Game 4 of the 1983 American League Championship Series, Tony Fernandez's error in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series or Mickey Owen's dropped third strike in Game 4 of the 1941 World Series. \nThey all get forgotten when you're not the Cubs or Red Sox. As both advance in this year's playoffs, fans of many other teams will make the following realization: they stink too.