The Cubs Backlash Is Booming, & There's Nothing You Can Do
By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 7, 2016 9:55PM
Last week, Chicagoist spoke with a psychologist about Cubs fans and the uncomfortable transformation potentially waiting in the path of a World Series championship, namely from lovable loser to loathsome victor.
“The normative case would be: Most people would be OK with forming a new identity shift,” Dr. Stephen Schueller said. They may have to get used to it pretty quickly.
Leading the backlash, of course, was Deadspin, which offered “The Cubs Don't Have To Pretend To Be Lovable Losers Anymore” the very next day after the team ended its “curse”—which, be sure to invoke if you want to exacerbate the hostility. It’s deliciously snarky stuff but it has some merit, going straight for the jugular of the team’s self-styled lore:
The Cubs aren’t, and never have been, the little guy. Not in Major League Baseball, and not even in their own town. They’re a big, strong, abundantly advantaged organization, blessed with avenues to success that genuinely burdened organizations like the friggin’ Tampa Bay Rays will never have. The Cubs print money, then sell a hardscrabble image with no basis in reality. (Just as a near-term example, they were able to sink monster money into Jason Heyward, have him turn out to be completely dreadful, and still won’t have to sweat it even when all their talented kids start getting paid what they deserve.)
It’s true: the Cubs are financially loaded, and there’s not anything necessarily charming or charismatic about the incompetence narrative that was so deeply woven into the team’s core. And the inarguable point about the White Sox being the true Chicago underdog was made abundantly clear several times over this postseason. Deadspin’s advice: “Embrace it!”
Vice Sports had a take in the can, too, apparently ready to go. It mulled the already-alluded-to anxiety of becoming a neo-Boston model of sports hate-ability: “Your team won after something like 87 millenia or whatever. That is a big deal and you should enjoy every second of it. Until you start acting like Boston Red Sox fans, then everyone will hate your guts.”
One of those ill-advised moves was Fever Pitch, the resoundingly irritating Jimmy Fallon/Drew Barrymore teeth-gritter set against the backdrop of the Red Sox’s own long-elusive championship. Buuuut we’ve already seen enough Cubs-flick chatter to prove Chicago might be too happy to be able to take that good advice.
“The parallels between Boston and Chicago, helpfully personified by the GM, are all there, and the narrative will develop all on its own. So it's up to you fans to make sure you don't throw those 108 years away,” Vice writer Sean Newell continues.
So what’s the right answer? Anti-Red Sox-ian humility? Or an elbows-out recognition of such a stand’s fallaciousness? As a Cardinals fan by birth, this writer can assure you either way is a magnet for scorn. You're either damned or you're damned, so just enjoy the glow. And if you choose to turn heel, don't be too ridiculous.