For the first time in a long time, 71 years to be exact, the Chicago Cubs are back in the World Series. I’m sure this is not news to most. Since they clinched their spot on Saturday night, and it was all over television, radio and the internet. However, I can say for the first time in my life, I am excited to watch baseball.
I am not a baseball fan but I don’t dislike the sport either. It is fun to go watch the Iowa Cubs every once in a while, and I have even been to Wrigley in Chicago as my only professional sports experience.
I don’t have the patience to pay attention to the 162 games played during the regular season and if that makes me a bandwagon fan, I’m cool with it. My husband is a big baseball fan, as he played in high school and is a lifelong Cubs fan.
Even though we don’t watch a lot of baseball, he still knows all of the history and stays pretty up-to-date on who plays for what team and where every team is standing in the league.
I have a lot of friends who are baseball fanatics, because of that I tend to have an idea of what is happening during the year. I knew going into this year, the Cubs were projected to be pretty good and decided to try to pay a little closer attention to help my bandwagon fan status. If I saw a Cubs game on TV, I would turn it on while we were home and started to teach the girls to yell “Go Cubbies” along with our “Go Hawks” chants.
I was aware when the Cubs clinched their playoff spot and took notice of who they would have to play during the first round. Then, for the past few weeks, I went on to watch the entirety of more baseball games than I have ever watched in my life.
As with hockey, it takes the suspense of playoffs to pique my interest. I was surprised by how into the games I got, teetering on the edge of my seat for almost every pitch.
I quickly learned the names of all of the players, some of their personalty traits and decided who my favorites are on the team. Soon I was basing my television watching schedule around the baseball games and staying up too late to catch the final out.
To prove how much it has taken over, I completely missed the entire Ohio State, Penn State football game, which normally would have been a must see and felt sick to my stomach over deciding between the game and the season premiere of “The Walking Dead” if it would have gone to game seven.
I am excited to follow along as they walk into history on Tuesday and hope they can win it in four or five so the celebration is in Chicago. It will be a dream come true for so many Cub fans and might make me more of a baseball fan than I ever thought I would be.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson
at jpierson@newtondailynews.com