"Only in America" is a great slogan invented by boxing promoter/crook Don King. I will use that and coin my own phrase "only in Chicago". Only in Chicago can fans of a team that has not won a World Series title in one hundred years say "this is the year" every single year. Only in Chicago can the most corrupt person succeed the most politically. Only in Chicago do they hate their mayor but yet can't name the last person who ran against him. Only in Chicago.
Tonight the Chicago Cubs officially made it one hundred years without winning a World Series title by getting swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers. I have to admit that I'm nowhere near a Cub fan, so I was rooting for the Cubs to lose. One hundred years without winning a title is one of those things you have to root for. No other franchise has such a record of futility in all of sports. Since the last time the Cubs won a WS title the Yankees have won twenty-six. How did this "epitome of loser" get started losing? Only in Chicago can they blame this all on a curse. On an innocent animal no less. A goat. The owner of the goat Billy Sianis was kicked out of the game WITH HIS GOAT (goats at a game?) because the goat stunk to high hell. So as legend has it, Sianis told everyone that the Cubs wouldn't win a World Series ever again. This was in 1945. Explain the previous thirty-seven years being their last championship was in 1908. So the Cubs suck because of a goat? Come on. Then there was the black cat curse in 1969. The Cubs had a huge lead going into the final weeks of the season but a surging Mets team passed them after a black cat ran across the field. Then there was the "curse of Bartman". A man dressed in weird clothing in the front row of the left field seats reached and touched a ball that would have probably been caught by Moises Alou. Cub fans threatened this man thinking he cost them a World Series. The Chicago Tribune went as far as to give Steve Bartman's home address to the public. That was nice, eh? Friggin idiotic. Only in Chicago. And only in Chicago will they not remember there were other fans reaching for that ball too. Only in Chicago will they forget SS Alex Gonzalez dropped the easiest ground ball hit in the history of man right after that. The ball came up for him perfectly. Only a Cub would mess it up. This year before the playoffs started, Mayor or should I say King Daley threw a huge bash for the Cubs in celebration for their season. They had not won anything yet but a division title. They acted like they won the whole thing already. Only in Chicago will you have such a losing history and yet think they prematurely won it all. Perfectly setting up their future failure against the Dodgers. Only in Chicago will you have such a losing history and blame it on a curse other than realizing that sucking isn't a curse. I'll provide a cute list of things that have happened since the Cubs last won a championship.
Only in Chicago will they blame a cow for burning down the entire city. We all have heard about Mrs. O'Leary's cow and how it burned down all of Chicago. Dumb. A cow? Who knew a cow was really Drew Barrymore? "Mooo BOOM!" A cow? Come on, Chicago. On October 8th, 1871 the Great Chicago Fire started. It burned for two days straight. The legend has it that a cow burned down the entire city. Writer Michael Ahern was the one who came up with this story but admitted he made it up in 1893 saying it would be a good story to tell. Now the part about Ahern making up this story isn't known by many people, including Chicagoans. They still think a cow did it, even though Ahern admitted to making it up and the same night there were other horrible fires in the Midwest. One was particularly bad in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The tale of Peshtigo sounds like something out of a nightmare. People outside who's clothes and hair would catch on fire without any contact of fire. Scientists have since stated that it probably was a meteorite that caused all of the fires in the Midwest that night, including the Great Chicago Fire. A cow.
Only in Chicago can an admitted terrorist get a tenured professorship at one of their prestigious universities. William Ayers, Barack's buddy (don't let him convince you otherwise) founded a group called The Weather Underground. It was a group that formed to check and see if Hell froze over. Hence the term "Weather Underground". Okay, that's not true. Sorry, couldn't resist. This group was actually a domestic terrorist group that bombed NYPD headquarters, the Capitol Building, the Pentagon, and military recruitment offices. Ayers was a fugitive and on the FBI's Most Wanted list for over a decade. He was brought to trial but since his daddy was CEO of Chicagoland's Commonwealth Edison, he got away with these crimes. Crimes to which he has admitted to committing since. He even admits he wished he could have done more damage. He can be seen stomping on the US flag in Chicago Magazine. Now he's a tenured professor at UIC. Obama actually had his coming out party into Chicago politics at Ayers' home. Ayers is married to Bernardine Dohrn who was also part of this group and was also on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Only in Chicago can a man like this be "connected" to Chicago politics and donors, from which Obama got his start. Obama has been stating that he's not friends with this guy and barely knows him, but let's take the word of Obama's own chief adviser David Axelrod when he said the two "were certainly friendly". That's a direct quote. Here's a saying I came up with that all should learn. No one that comes out of Chicago politics comes out clean. Chicago is the Mecca of voter fraud and strong-arming corporations and politicians. Jesse Jackson ring a bell?
Chicago definitely stands out amongst America's big cities. Mostly not for a good reason. There were more children killed in the last school year in Chicago than any other city. Most of the city looks like crap. Parking and taxes are ridiculous. Nobody likes the mayor because they all know he's crooked, yet they will not vote anyone else in. I would reckon 95% of the people in Chicago can't name the person who last ran against Daley for mayor. Even after the Cubs losing after everyone in Chicago foolishly thought they had won everything, the fans will say next April "this is our year". And they'll actually believe it. You gotta love Chicago.
Here's the list:
1. Radio was invented
2. TV was invented
3. Halley's Comet has passed by..... twice!
4. Prohibition of alcohol was made into law, then repealed
5. Sixteen Presidents were elected. About to be seventeen.
6. The Titanic was built and sank
7. Thirteen baseball players have won the Triple Crown (tops in league in homeruns, rbi's, and batting avg)
8. 15,719 games have been played by the Cubs... Cubs have lost the majority of them
9. A combination of 43 Summer and Winter Olympics have been run
10. Eleven amendments to the Consitution have been made
11. Harry Carey was born and passed away
12. Four generations of families have come
13. The airplane was five years old
14. World War I and II happened along with the Korean, Vietnam Wars. Operation Desert Storm and second Iraqi War
15. World population at the time was 1.65 billion people (6.7 billion currently)
16. The jet and rocket were invented
17. Man landed on Moon
18. Jazz, Swing, Big Band, Country, Rock and Roll, Disco, Heavy Metal, Rap, and Grunge music have been invented.
19. Les Paul invented the hardbody electric guitar.
20. The NFL, NHL, and NBA have started
21. League of Nations and UN enacted (League of Nations now defunct)
22. The atom bomb was invented
23. The rise and the fall of the Cold War
24. The submarine was invented
25. Nine generations of videogaming (Pong, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega CD, Playstation, Playstation 2, Playstation 3)
26. Al Capone was nine
27. Babe Ruth was thirteen
28. The "Roaring 20's" were still twelve years away
29. Scientists swore up and down we were in an Ice Age
30. Scientists swear up and down we're melting
31. Slavery was abolished thirty-three years ago
32. Al Gore invented the internet
33. The Diary of Anne Frank was still thirty-nine years away
34. Mickey Mouse would be created twenty years from then
35. Dayam!