Curses! Cubs fans still keeping the faith

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If there’s one thing a Chicago Cubs’ fan has, it’s faith. What else can you have after 100 years of heartbreak, headaches, frustrations and wait ’til next years?

After watching their beloved Cubbies fall behind the Dodgers 0-2 in the N.L. Divisional Series after Thursday’s 10-3 loss, a game in when each of the four infielders had an error, that faith is being tried all over again.

Julia Yaklich, 43, of Princeton, who attended Wednesday’s 7-2 Game 1 loss to the Dodgers at Wrigley Field, said Cubs’ fans must remain positive.

“That’s just part of being a Cubs’ Fan,” she said. “It can be done. (Rich) Harden can do it; this team has proved they can do it. We’ve waited 100 years; might as well make it a wild ride.”

At the same time, she said, “I just don’t know how much more my GI track can take ... or my family can put up with me.”

Growing up in Park Ridge and having Rick Monday as her first Cubs’ love, Yaklich remembers watching her dad pace the driveway over the “stupid things the Cubs would do.”

She wonders what her father, now 82 and using a walker, was doing during Thursday’s game but says she won’t bother to call because it’d be too depressing.

Don King of Manlius likens the Cubs outlook to that of the country’s economical woes and subscribes to a conspiracy theory.

“I truly believe that Jim Hendry and Lou Piniella have been working with Congress on the economic Bailout Bill, using the Cubs as a strategic symbol showing America that when everything looks so bleak, that the American pride will win out,” he says.

King predicts the Cubs will win the series on a Jim Edmonds’ walk-off homerun in the ninth inning of Game 5.

Princeton High School baseball coach Bob Bima, 44, who grew up in rural LaMoille, was also at Wednesday’s game and said the grand slam hit by the Dodgers’ James Loney “sucked the life right out of the crowd.”

He said, to call it “frustrating” would be an understatement.

“I don’t understand how you can play the game with so much confidence and enthusiasm during the regular season and then totally do the opposite in the post season for two years in a row,” he said.

“The Cubs are very capable of winning three in a row, but they are also capable of doing a total collapse and getting swept. Any way you look at it, we will probably be saying wait ’til next year again unless a few players step up.”

Cardinal fan Eric Tinley walked into the courthouse Friday morning and told the county clerk,  Kami Hieronymus, a 44-year-old Cub fan, he figured she’d be taking a sick day after watching the Cubs.

She says being a diehard Cubs fan means you don’t give up on them, no matter what happens.

Bureau Valley superintendent Terry Gutshall, 54, of rural Wyanet, says after watching the last two nights, “I would say the Billy Goat curse is still alive and well.

“In my heart I hope they pull it out; in my mind, I would say not likely. As they say, there is always next year and the next 99 as well.”

Shawn Doubet, 42, who grew up a Cubs’ fan in Princeton, said the Cubs have come back repeatedly this season, so why not this time.

“Maybe the California sun is just what they need to wake up the bats,” he said. “They can do it, but this is more suspense than I would prefer.”

No matter what happens, Bob Hartwig, 51, of Princeton says the Cubs will not disappoint their fans.

“They will swing at curve balls in the dirt. They will hit homeruns after the game is out of reach. They will walk batters ahead of the other teams’ big hitters,” he said.

“But they will not win three in a row. That’s why we love them. They are the Cubs.”

Diehard Cubber Don Smith of Princeton, who still has the scrapbook he kept of the Cubs’ infamous collapse in 1969, was still wearing his Cubs’ hat Friday morning, but losing hope.

“I have seen some bad baseball but not like this. It’s like a bad-bad dream,” he said. “Somewhere I read that nine out 10 sports writers picked the Cubs to win — that will neeeever happen again. Once we get in the playoffs — it’s not the same team. I have no answer.”

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