As many of you already know, I am a Chicago Cubs fan. I know you may think this is a very sad thing to admit. Especially here in the New York area with so many fans of a team (you know who you are) who need more then their own set of fingers and toes to count all your Championships.

My usual first thought in April is “will this be the year?”. The typical year, however, follows one of two scenarios. One is that we start out really strong and then die out about two thirds of the way through the season winding up somewhere near (or at) the bottom of the Central Division. The other scenario is that we chug along all season with moments of brilliance and then, usually by the skin of our teeth, we make it to the playoffs. But, alas, the playoffs are a time to see the curse in full action once again and we go home without any type of trophy at all. Sound familiar?

At the end of the season for the Cubs this year (which of course was when we were sent home in the first round of playoffs), there was an article on the teams website titled “What it means to be a Cubs fan”. I read the article even though I know from lifelong experience exactly what it means to be a Cubs fan. But as I read, I found some parallels with what it means to be a Red Bulls fan.

“It means that you always have hope, and that your dreams will come true if you keep believing, “This was the start of the article. Certainly this is true for those of us who were MetroStars fans and now cheer for the Red Bulls. It is what we must do. At times it seems that is all we have is hope. After we blow yet another playoff opportunity, we go home, dust ourselves off and start dreaming about next year. The end of this season and the off season look to be the usual roller coaster ride and challenge our ability to stay the course. First we lose our coach, “the coach”, the one we really thought would bring the winning combination. Who will our leader be now? We wait………. Then we lose our own “Heart of the Bull” winner and fan favorite Joe Vide. And we say goodbye to Cletus once again – he must feel like he is attached to a New York rubber band!!! Who will leave us next?

“That’s OK, because we stay with our team whether they win or lose. There’s a lot of people that bail on other teams.” This is what it means to stay behind a team known as the Lovable Losers. I have not seen my team in a World Series in my entire 43 years. My father, 84, has only seen them there once – and they lost. It makes it seem easy to cheer for the Red Bulls – 12 years is really not that long!!! Soon we will focus on the new players the new coach will start to bring in. We will start to get excited again. We will look forward to the new season and all it could mean to us. We will hope and dream and make plans around the fact that we WILL be in the MLS Cup this year.

The one place where I could not draw any parallels was in the wonderful comments about seeing a game at Wrigley Field. For anyone who has been there for a game, you know how truly special the “Friendly Confines” are. If you have never been there, it is worth the drive to Chicago!!! We Red Bull fans have to look at yet another year in Giants Stadium. But, eventually, we will be in our very own park. A place where we can win a Championship and store the trophies that we will win. A place where we can start a new chapter in our teams history. A place where can hope that next year will be ANOTHER great season.

But, until then we just hope and hold the faith and dream.

We love you Red Bulls – we do.

Even when it seems nearly impossible…………..

- MamaBull

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 11:23 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.