All posts tagged: Chicago Cubs

I Want to Live in a Real Sports Town

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I’m sitting in the bar of Michael Jordan’s SteakHouse (in our Historic Hotel of America, the Intercontinental) watching Chicago vs. the LA Dodgers with dozens of passionate Cubs fans. Stores and offices throughout the cities are hanging the iconic “W” flag in their windows.  Hell, even the University Club has a decorated bear in Cubs attire. I am texting with my Dodger daughter Claire in Southern California. Life is good. Except…this isn’t my normal life. I want to live in a real sports town. After spending portions of my life in Atlanta and Washington (neither of which is a real sports town), I am tired of the wimpy sports culture that comes from people who think that policy debates tell you more about life than arguments over baseball. I’ve been in Chicago, Boston, New York, and Philly in the past two weeks.  All great sports towns. Cleveland – another passionate sports town – is in the World Series and has suddenly become the city of champions. D.C. needs some of that passion. But people leave …

Let’s Play Two!

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“It’s a beautiful day, let’s play two.” Did any words sum up the joy and optimism of sports better than the simple mantra of “Mr. Cub” – Ernie Banks – who passed away yesterday? Banks was playing in the “friendly confines of Wrigley Field” for the first major league baseball game I ever saw in person, against the eventual world-champion St. Louis Cardinals in 1963. The Cubs of my youth were awful.  Heck, the Cubs of my entire life (and several other lifetimes) have been pretty much awful. But Banks was eternally optimistic about the club’s chances.  As President Obama said when presenting Banks with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, Ernie’s cheer and optimism that the Cubs would go all the way was “… serious belief. That is something that even a White Sox fan like me can respect.” Banks was the original power-hitting shortstop and one of the first African-American stars in the major leagues. If ever there is a case to be made for asterisks in the record book, it is the …