Let’s be upfront about this: I don’t give a crap about sports. You can have your football, your soccer, your precious curling—with the exception of one strange season in college where I was possessed by the magic that is hockey, up close and personal, I don’t get it.

So this whole World Series hoo-hah eludes me entirely. And I’m from Chicago, current home of GO,SOX!!!WOOFWOOFWOOF!!!! All I know is that King of the Hill was bumped for too fucking long and can we all please just get on with it, already?

And yet.

And yet, while I care nothing about sports or the athletes who play them or the fans who cheer them on…

…while the Super Bowl was, when I was forced to watch it, made tolerable only by the unbelievable Italian beef spread laid out by my ex’s aunt and uncle, and hopefully, a football pool win…

…while I could live my entire life without seeing or hearing about another sporting event…

…there’s something about the Cubbies.

Back in my ad days, we’d get offers of free (box) seats for all the major Chicago sports franchises. I got to see Michael Jordan from the 12th row, and yes, it was beautiful. I got to meet Michael Jordan, when he acted in a delightful batch of Wheaties commercials I wrote (hideous proof to be uploaded to Flickr soonish). But the best graft, the most coveted of all tickets, were to the Cubs games. Even when you didn’t get the fabulous box seats with the high-end booze bar and the off-duty Hooters waitresses who’d roll the dessert cart by.

Maybe it’s because Wrigley Field is so old and glorious, springing up 50 yards from the Addison “L” stop, surrounded by post-war brownstones, in the heart of a fully residential district.

Maybe it’s the rich history—so few wins, so many beautiful, beer-soaked afternoons in the sunshine for the fans.

Maybe it’s the way they’ve inspired my old friend from ad days gone by, Tim Souers. I’m mad for his art. Mad, I tell you. He’s been doodling these strange and wonderful illustrative observations with pens and Doc Martin’s Dyes between coming up with brilliant commercials for some 20-odd years now. A few years ago, he started documenting his love for the Cubs in a personal journal, a few pages of which he scanned and sent to me recently (god bless the interweb!).

So if the Cubs are what it takes these days to inspire Tim, then color me royal blue and red and slap a giant “C” on my forehead.

More baseball.

More Wrigley.

More Tim Souers.

Cubs in 2006!

xxx
c

Paintings © 2004 - 2005 Tim Souers

TAGS: Tim Souers, Cubs, sketchbooks, MLB, baseball, Chicago, sports

TOPICS: art, Shameless plugs.

This entry was posted by the communicatrix on Thursday, October 27th, 2005 at and is filed under The Quotidian Ones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.