“You’re going to be vomiting vomits of joy.”
The Chicago Cubs won the World Series, and that sentence was the first thing I heard as I hit the streets of Kirkwood Avenue.
I’ve previously written about the follies of sports, the irony of rooting for leagues predicated on violence that actively are trying to eradicate the violence, the removal of fun to create a more business-like atmosphere and the assessment that those associated with sports aren’t allowed to speak on other subjects.
The first three words I wrote as the national sports columnist were “Sports are stupid.”
Last night was different.
The camaraderie, the tension, the expletives, the weird shrieking sound that the girl at the table over with the jean jacket and Chicago Cubs hat kept making after every Cleveland Indians run. Sports create a togetherness that otherwise wouldn’t exist. The Cubs and their 108-year trudge to the top of the mountain again does just that.
There’s a reason we invest our time and money in something that otherwise wouldn’t care about us because of those highs that are indescribable.
I distinctly remember hitting my first shot in a competitive basketball game in first grade. It hit the front of the rim and just snuck in. I’ve done many things , at least 12 notable ones, since that moment and yet, that’s one of the memories I remember most fondly.
Sometimes we have to find ourselves in something, be swept away by something bigger than ourselves even if the end result won’t really change our immediate lives. Sports have that power and then some.
“Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports,” wrote author David Foster Wallace in a New York Times feature on Roger Federer. “But high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty.”
The Colosseum has become Madison Square Garden. Athens’ Panathenaic Stadium is now Wrigley Field. The dates, names and laundry change, but the togetherness that it brings stays the same.
I know many Cubs fans, the old and the new. I hopped on that bandwagon heading into the World Series because if there would be a celebration of any sort, I would damn sure be a part of it.
With that said, as I sipped my drink and kind of rooted for Chicago, I watched as true sports fans lived and died by every pitch.
Every Chicago hit to the outfield led to a near riot, and when the signal dropped due to the rain, I half-expected the storming of the Normandy beach part two.
One of those fanatics, IDSer Michael Williams, has been waiting for this moment his entire life. He celebrated in style, long after I called it a night and went to sleep.
I woke up this morning to a text from him at 3:24 a.m.
“Holy shit,” he wrote.
I think that says it all.
