Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Rooting for laundry


If my memory is correct, the current Cubs' roster features exactly one remaining player (Kyle Hendricks) from their historic 2016 World Series squad. 

While it's true that seven years is a long time in a baseball career, it seems like I think of the famous Jerry Seinfeld bit more and more as time goes on - when paraphrased, it goes something along the lines of "rooting for a sports team is basically rooting for laundry." It's a slick one-liner, but it also raises the very relevant paradox of attaching ourselves to teams when so many of the players on those teams jettison around the league as much as they do.

It's a question I ask myself all the time: when I say that I'm a Cubs fan, what does that really mean?




It's weird being a fan of a team in transition like the Cubs - looking at their roster, it seems like half the guys are new arrivals and/or dudes I barely recognize.

In time, the answer I've developed of what it means to be a fan is that, when I root for the Cubs, I'm not only pulling for the guys on the field - to me, fandom is a form of appreciating the history of the team as a whole. I don't think it's a coincidence that my Cubs binders feature more individual players than any other in my collection - I'm simply more interested in their history than any other club out there. Which I suppose is why Cubs cards often put the biggest smile on my face, including the Cubs-centric packages I've received from Johnny of "Johnny's Trading Spot" recently.

Do I care about a set called Panini Absolute? Not really. Do I care about Ryne Sandberg and Ron Santo cards I don't have? Absolutely!




I've said it before: when in doubt, send me Cubs - I don't consider myself a team collector, but there's a better chance I'll need more cards from a random stack of Cubs than any other team around.

I still find it amazing how common (and better yet, attainable!) those Silver Pack cards are, but I guess it goes with the territory when people are opening thousands upon thousands of boxes of a product.




Yes, I know Haray Caray called games for the White Sox and Cardinals, but ask 100 baseball fans what team they associate this guy with, and I'll bet 99 of them say the Cubs.

(P.S. - We need more baseball cards of announcers!) 




Other Cubs content from Johnny included a nifty high-end Ernie Banks, as well as a cool insert of NPB import Seiya Suzuki who's quickly become a fan favorite here at Dime Box HQ.

Johnny also threw in a non-Cubs jewel in with that Mike Lieberthal - finding weird team-issue oddballs has quickly become a premier part of my collection.




I've never been a big postcard collector - part of that is because I'm just not a big fan of oversized stuff in general, but I think another reason is because that's a whole other can of collecting worms I'm a bit afraid to open up.

The daily discoveries in the never-ending galaxy of baseball cards alone already occupies so much of my brain space - if I extended myself into the adjacent world of postcards and general baseball memorabilia, I think my head might explode.




But whether I'm a postcard fan or not, I very nearly hit the ceiling when I flipped the Boudreau over - because it's signed!

This is exactly the kind of thing I don't necessarily chase, but definitely treasure. Lou Boudreau left us in 2001, which means there's a finite amount of stuff he signed and touched out there. Knowing I have one of those sacred pieces he left his fingerprint on is just darn cool, and that's amplified even more when you consider that, besides being a Hall of Famer, he's also a key figure in the history of my beloved Cubs.

There's certainly truth to the idea that, as sports fans, we find ourselves rooting for laundry a lot of the time, but I think the true nature of our fandom lies somewhere between Jerry Seinfeld and Walt Whitman - because, of course, that laundry contains multitudes.

15 comments:

tomrobak said...

Harry Caray “briefly” called games for the Cardinals for 25 years, just short of the 27 years combined here in Chicago.

Johnnys Trading Spot said...

I was not around for Harry calling games for anyone other than the Cubs, and it's what pops into mind (keep in mind Skip was calling games for my Braves). Glad I found something you like and didn't have.

Zippy Zappy said...

Fun fact, the Cubs signed Luis Torrens as a minor league free agent and invited him to MLB spring training.

Mike said...

I feel the same about the Yankees...whoever is playing now is carrying on the tradition of what came before... and the Cubs certainly have tradition!

Cool Harry & COOL Lou autograph!

Nick Vossbrink said...

As roster churn becomes the name of the game the rooting for laundry comment is increasingly real. I'm used to this with minor league teams but it's really weird to me that most players turn over in under 5 years (the Giants used ~65 guys in both 2019 and 2022, only 8 were on both teams and half of those either joined the team in 2019 or left it in 2020) and there's zero continuity for fans.

Also. I totally hear you on the postcards. But as long as you stick to the ones that fit in 4-pocket pages you can get a lot of nice team sets that look great in the binder.

Michael D said...

Absolutely love your description of what it means to be a fan. That's me and my Texas Rangers. Granted we don't have the history of the Cubs, but its my history!

Mark Zentkovich said...

👍

Laurens said...

It may have been during the last years of his life, but Boudreau used to sign through the mail for a fee and I sent him a baseball that he autographed.

gregory said...

"You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Fans will be so in love with a player, but if he goes to another team, they boo him. This is the same human being in a different shirt; they hate him now. Boo! Different shirt! Boo!"

Jeff B - Wax Pack Wonders said...

That Boudreau postcard is awesome!!!

OhioTim said...

Great looking Harry Carey card. I am trying to piece together that insert set.

Fuji said...

It must have been so much easier being a fan when a higher percentage of players played their entire career with one franchise. I was going to write a post about how I'll always be a bigger A's fan than a Padres fan, because I liked them first. But the A's are sure making things hard for me since they rarely keep anyone more than three or four years... where the Padres are now starting to sign players to these crazy contracts that extend 6 to 10 years.

Matt said...

Rooting for laundry is how I convince myself to be OK with Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts playing elsewhere...

Jafronius said...

Johnny comes through as usual!

Chris said...

I definitely have been turned off by the extreme amounts of roster turnover in baseball. Definitely believe in players' rights and all, but it seems like football and hockey in particular keep their stars in one place longer than baseball and basketball. At least the NBA incentivizes players not to jump teams.

I remember that Seinfeld episode well, and I'm going to reference this in my next post.