Eamus Catuli – AC0265102

Another regular baseball season ends. Another year of Cub futility. WC guesses there is some kind of post-season playoff event going on? As a Cubs’ fan for almost 40 years, of course, WC wouldn’t have much actual experience with that.

Across Sheffield Avenue from Wrigley Field, on the North Side of Chicago, is a four-story apartment building. On the roof are seats, from which you can get views – distant views – of Cubs’ baseball games. The roof is the home of the Lakeview Baseball Club. And the Club hosts a famous sign that reads,

In very bad Latin, “eamus catuli” translates loosely as “Let’s Go Cubs.”  Well, more like “we go for the young whelps,” but Major League Baseball teams were a blank slate to the Romans. It only seems like the Cubs haven’t won the World Series since the Roman Empire fell. The “AC” stands for “in the year of the Cub,” more or less.

The first two digits are the number of complete seasons since the Cubs made it into the Division Playoffs (2008). The next two digits are the number of seasons since the Cubs played in the World Series (1945). And, infamously, the last three digits are the number of seasons since the Cubs won the World Series (1908). Of course, the last number had to be increased from two digits to three digits a few years back.

The Cubs did set one record this season: Rookie Tyler Colvin, running down the third base line, was impaled in the chest by a chunk of shattered baseball bat. That’s a first. Happily, while the injury was serious, Colvin will be all right. But, like the Bartman foul ball, it’s the kind of thing that only seems to happen to the Cubs.

Being a Cubs’ fan is a kind of extended, self-inflicted torture. It’s not disappointment; Cubs’ fans are inured to disappointment. It’s a kind of miserable resignation. To quote the late, great Steve Goodman, “Year after year after year.  After year after year after year.”

Oh, well.

Maybe next year.