Baseball is more than balls, strikes, home runs, and fly balls

I am an unabashed, fanatical baseball purist. Most people like me, where loving baseball isn’t just rooting for your favorite team or being as fair-weather fan — it’s a family tradition written into our bloodlines. Baseball loyalty is a legacy passed on to family at kitchen tables, in Little League dugouts, and on front porches during late-inning heartbreaks.

Since 1967 nothing has epitomized my love of baseball more than following the Chicago Cubs.  As a young boy, while I was active in playing baseball in little leagues, and sandlot baseball, I didn’t really get emotionally charged with a team until 1967 when I was…. wait for it… A Boston Red Sox fan! 

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My family was living in Middletown, Rhode Island, and like the rest of New England, I followed every game, every pitch, and every hit the Red Sox made right into the World Series as the American League Pennant winner.  I loved listening to my transistor radio to catch the games and follow along with every pitch. That was also the first year that my baseball hopes and dreams were crushed by none other than the St. Louis Cardinals.  The Cardinals won in seven games, and it hurt! From that moment on I declared that the Cardinals would be my most hated team in baseball forevermore… and they have been!
In the Summer of 1968, my family moved to the Chicago suburb of Vernon Hills, Illinois. The Red Sox were not the local favorite major league baseball team, but the Chicago Cubs were.  In fact, they garnered a large local and national fan based because of WGN television.  WGN broadcast the Cubs game on TV every day, every game. And they were all day games.  In the fall of my freshman year of high school, after just moving there weeks before, I had no friends.  But I did go home every day after school and catch most of the game. I watched Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Donnie Kessinger, and others play the game, and I listened to Jack Brickhouse describe the game in a way that made me feel like I was sitting on the dugout bench with them. I watched with even more enthusiasm than ever before.  I reasoned with myself; The Red Sox were in the American League and the Cubs were in the National League.  At that time the only time an American League team and a National League team played each other was in the World Series.  The chances of the Cubs and the Red Sox playing each other in the series was minimal at best, so I saw no conflict and decided to like them both. And besides that, the Cubs biggest rival was the hated St. Louis Cardinals! So yeah!  Go Cubs!
 
My grandfather, Fay Shaner was born in 1894 and saw the Chicago Cubs win the World Series in 1908. At 14 years of age, Fay Shaner was the same age as I was in 1968 when I became a fan of the same Chicago Cubs. He expected the Cubs to win it again every year for the rest of his life. They never did. He passed away in 1975 still thinking that the Cubs would win the next year.  I picked up the rallying cry, and every October said, “Wait ‘til next year!”
 
My father, Dave Shaner was my little league coach. He coached the boys of summer in different ways than just get up there and swing for the fences (there were none). He tried to explain the nuances of the game, to take a pitch when needed, to hit to the opposite field, hit behind the runner. My dad taught me to keep score with pencil and paper as he tried to tell me how cerebral baseball really is. He loved the Cubs too.
 
As the next generation of Cub fans were born, I simply would not accept my own sons NOT being Cubs fans. When they won, we all won. When the Cubs lost, we loved them harder — because loyalty is what baseball was built on. The rest of the world may chase dynasties; we cherish the bond that outlasts winning streaks and box scores.
 
As a professional storyteller and communicator, I have always been intrigued by how stories can transform ideas and bring people together.

As a culture that is designed to be family-centric, we pass on our family legacies by repeating stories of our youth, and events that used-to-be.
 
It wasn’t very long into balls and strikes - runs and wins, that I realized that the love of baseball often came in-between games and in unexpected ways.  When family and friends gather around and we start telling stories about our first game, or our last game we saw.  My personal life stories were often wrapped around my baseball game stories.  The stories, however, weren't always about the game itself.
 
Fenway Park
How many people can say their very first major league baseball game was between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox playing at Fenway Park? Not many, but my brother Dave and I can! I don’t remember much about the game, probably because I was not more than four or five years old.  Dave and I were tagging along with my dad and one of his Navy friends when we lived in Brunswick, Maine where he was stationed at the Brunswick Naval Air Station. 
 
I also don’t remember much about the game because apparently when something exciting happens everybody stands up, leaving a four-year old child to see nothing but the butts of the people standing in front of him! That was my view. As I recall the seats weren’t too bad. They were on the back row of a box seat section of the lower stands.  Just two rows behind me was a major walkway for attendees, and it was there I could see the hot dog vendors and the beloved ICE CREAM vendor coming my way! I didn’t really care who was playing or who was winning, I wanted the Ice Cream!  My Dad finally bought Dave and I what we were clamoring for.  When we wanted more, he said, “No,” but my dad’s friend bought us another cup.
 
Wrigley Field
Ten years or so later my father was transferred to the Glenview Naval Air Station outside of Chicago.  A few weeks after settling in my dad took my brother and I to a Chicago Cubs game. It was the second time in my life I attended a major league baseball game and this time it was at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.

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I didn’t appreciate it so much at the time, but there I was, at my second major league game ever, at the two oldest and most storied ballparks (still to this day) in all of baseball.

It was then I started to realize why so many people loved the Cubs. It wasn’t just the team, but the ballpark for which they played. You see, Wrigley Field isn’t just a ballpark — it’s a sacred shrine passed down like a family heirloom. My grandfather took my father there. My father took me and my brother there. I took my two sons to Wrigley Field and they have both taken their sons to Wrigley Field. All of us sitting in those creaky wooden seats with hot dogs in hand, beneath that iconic ivy-covered outfield taking in America’s pastime. The place hasn’t changed much — and that’s the point. Wrigley isn’t built for spectacle; it’s built for communion. Every brick and beam hold the ghosts of generations who loved the game before us. For many generations, in a world constantly trying to reinvent baseball, Wrigley refused to move, holding the line for those of us who believe the game is perfect just the way it is. But, alas time moves on and with the construction of lights, and advertising, on and off the field (and the uniforms) the Chicago Cubs have succumbed to chasing the almighty dollar. As change occurred, I didn’t always like it, but I accepted it if the money brought good players to the team and helped us win, if not now, well maybe next year!