Footprints

by Budd Glassberg

Reprinted with permission from the Zionsville Times Sentinel on October 10, 2007

Sometimes Nothing Can Be a Cool Hand

There is a scene in the 1967 movie, Cool Hand Luke, where Dragline (played by George Kennedy) is mercilessly beating up Luke (played by Paul Newman) in the prison yard. An enthusiastic crowd of inmates circle the fighters, enjoying each blow landed on the smaller fighter. As the one sided fight continues, and Luke keeps getting up after being knocked down, fellow inmates start telling him to stay down. Luke answers each punch by stubbornly getting up again only to be punched more brutally. Spectators gradually walk away, no longer able to watch. Later, Dragline befriends Luke during a poker game where Luke bluffs and wins a hand with nothing. Dragline comments that, just like the fight, Luke just keeps coming back with nothing. Luke replies, “Sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand.”

The gist of the scene mirrors the plight and tenacity of the true Cub fan. Over the weekend, the Cubs were eliminated by the Arizona Diamondbacks in three straight games, taking a one sided beating that was difficult to watch. For the 99^th consecutive year, Cub fans were left wondering what happened to the promise of a championship that made us so hopeful in the spring. Am I mixing metaphors? Who is it that keeps coming back with nothing? The Cub players, or their fans? Let me make this perfectly clear. While it is true that the Cub players did, in fact, show that they were very capable of nothing, unable to get a hit in a key situation, and pitchers that made a weak Arizona lineup look like the 1927 Yankees, it is the Cub fans that resembles the Paul Newman character. To be fair and humane, Cub players come and go. Their torment is finite. They may be traded or retire, but except for the likes of Ron Santo and Ernie Banks, they are not relegated to the Hades of rooting for their former team. No, the players are merely pawns in the debacle. It is the fans who endure and keep coming back with nothing.

This weekend the calls started coming. Calls of sympathy. Calls of well wishers wondering how I am doing. Like suffering a death in the family, the words are of little solace. Only time will heal these wounds. Hearing the words, “They had a great year”, or “There is no joy in Mudville” somehow ring false. Only the company of a fellow suffering fan, who really understands the pain, can soften the punch to the gut that I feel. The fact that there are many thousands of true Cub fans worldwide helps me feel I am not alone. There are an equal number of “jump on the bandwagon Cub fans” who come out in droves when the Cubs are winning and gobble up playoff tickets in the post season, but they are not around during lean times. True fans were there to cheer on the remarkable athletes who qualified for the Americans with Disabilities Act such as Barry Foote and Dave Veres. True fans are in mourning now.

So, where does this “Sometimes nothing can be a cool hand,” line come into play? Does it seem like there is no upside to this melodrama? Well, my fellow reader, life is a long stream of ups and downs. Some, who have been blessed with good fortune, often find it difficult to handle one of life’s knock down punches. True Cub fans have been down so often that they welcome the taste of dirt. Life cannot deal them a lower hand than they have been playing for the past century. Getting back up is as routine as brushing our teeth every morning. To a Cub fan, hearing the words, “You have been laid off,” or “Dad, I totaled the car”, or “I am sorry, but you have a terminal disease,” makes us want to respond, “Is that all you got, I thought it might be something serious.” We are resilient. Like the punching bag clown rounded and weighted on the bottom, knock us down, and we quickly rebound before you can cock your arm again.

As the pain of another season without a championship fades over the next six months, hope will return. As we acknowledge the feat of our 100^th year without a championship, we respond with, “Anyone can have a bad century,” and we move on. Unable to leave my lovable losers, I expect to join them next spring in Mesa, Arizona for spring training. I have never witnessed, in person, the birth of a team. Perhaps the Cubs just need a hand in preparation for the season. What better way to show the players how to get up off the ground than to travel 1700 miles from Indiana to the desert to witness games that do not even count in the season. I want to show the Cubs that even the arid heat of the Arizona desert will not melt this fan’s cool hand.

Budd Glassberg lives and works in Zionsville and is a 23 year resident of the community. Visit www.runz.com for reprints of all his columns. You can reach him by email at budd@runz.com.