THE COMFORT OF DEFEAT

baseball cubs “Let's go watch the Cubs lose!” said the driver last Friday, as the crowded subway car made its way to Chicago’s Wrigley Field for the first of a three-game series between the great cross-town rivals, the Cubs and the White Sox. Half the car groaned; the other half cheered.

This kind of banter is the lingua franca of Chicago summers. Like all sports rivalries, it has a civic function; it gives people something to talk about, a channel for feelings that might otherwise go unexpressed, and a sort of shorthand for where they stand. The cultural dimensions of Sox and Cubs fandom are slightly opaque and probably exaggerated, but it seems to be that the Sox, with their Yankees-esque pinstripes and 2005 World Series rings, are grittier. The Cubs have a more cuddly face and the longest losing streak in baseball, having not won the World Series for over a century. Cursed (according to lore) or simply doomed, they happen to be the most lovable losers left in baseball.