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Hello Hillsboro: Cubs Disease can follow you
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Like most people who were raised from childhood in the Wrigley Field bleachers, it is terribly hard, in fact almost impossible, to give up all loyalty to the Chicago Cubs.

Doesn’t matter that they are widely accepted as the all-time losers in the history of professional sports.  They have not won a championship in their entire history. No professional team in any sport near their age can make that claim with a straight face.

Don’t ask me why, but some Cub fans actually seem proud of that fact. If they ever won a World Series championship, half of their fans would probably drop them because they would no longer know how to act at a game!

Like most Cub fans I have issued my share of threats, but when the newest rich kid owner took a pass on hiring Ryne Sandberg, my favorite all-time Cub, as their manager I took a walk and turned to the Brewers for consolation.

With their great start this year, I found it confusing to actually cheer for a winner, but with the support of my family I pretty well handled the transition. Jane even gave me a Brewers hat and T-shirt with a player’s name on the back, and that’s where it went sour!

The player’s name on the back was Matt Garza. Guess where the Brewers got him from!

Like a nightmare, I can’t seem to get away from my unforgettable past. I read this morning that the Brewers are a cinch to be in first place at the season’s half-way mark.

Don’t get excited, fans. With a former Cub on their roster, they are already eliminated. The Cubby “goat” curse travels with every individual player!


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A flatlander friend sent me a wonderful email that reports some of the greatest incorrect predictions in history. None about the Cubs, unfortunately.

• “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out!” –Decca Recording Co. on the reason for declining to sign The Beatles in 1962.

• “Reagan doesn’t have that Presidential look.” –United Artists executive after rejecting actor Ronald Reagan for the lead role in the 1964 film “The Best Man.”

• “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty...a fad!”–The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s attorney not to invest in the Ford Motor Company in 1903.

• “Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night!”– 20th Century Fox producer and studio executive Darryl F. Zanuck in 1946.

• “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?” –Associate of David Sarnoff, responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921.