COLUMN: Cubs fan just wants Sox to win

Dear Red Sox, For as long as I can remember, I have rooted for the Cubs. I'm from Chicago, from the North Side. The Cubs are in my blood, part of me, like another limb that sprouts just for the summer months and tucks itself away in October. I remember 1984, when I saw my first baseball game at Wrigley Field and Ron Cey hit a grand slam against the Astros. I remember cheering for Jody Davis, No. 7, the catcher, and I remember how he was my sister's first love (Jody Davis first made me realize how cool it was to be a ball player). I vaguely remember as a boy of seven seeing the headlines in The Chicago Tribune telling the sad, sad story of another Cubs tragedy -- "Padres beat Cubs, Advance to Face Tigers." I remember August 8, 1988, and the first time they put up lights in Wrigley Field. It rained out that night. I remember 1989 -- rookie first baseman Mark Grace, Ryno, Shawon Dunston. I remember skipping school to go to day games at Wrigley, how cool my friends and I felt changing out of our school uniforms into jeans and Cubs T-shirts. I remember the Giants beating the Cubs in five, Will the Quill we called him and were secretly happy when the earthquake hit. And I remember all the years in between, the Jerome Waltons and Hector Villanuevas, the Keith Morelands and Rick Sutcliffes. I even remember the stuff before I was born -- the pennant in 1945, the last title in 1908, the crosstown classic in 1906, Tinkers to Evers to Chance, Gabby Hartnett's "homer in the gloamin'." The memories are infused in me, like the Sunday afternoon sun in the bleachers. It's with me still, like a disease. I am ridden with the memories of 91 years of failure, eating away at my soul with no cure in sight. That's why you have to win, Red Sox. You have to win it all, Boston, because I need a cure. Every Cubs fan needs a cure. There's no light at the end of our tunnel but you have the chance to erase 81 years of your own cursed history. You have the opportunity to make everyone forget about dumb trades, grounders to first, big red machines. And maybe, just maybe, we Cubs fans can sneak a vicarious thrill. Maybe your winning will give us that most awful word in the Cubs fans' vocabulary -- "hope," and get us talking about the second and third most heinous words -- "next" and "year." See, the thing is, you Red Sox aren't just doing this for yourselves. You're not just doing this for Red Sox fans, or for Cubs fans. It goes much deeper than that. You are playing for Archibald "Moonlight" Graham. You are playing for Shoeless Joe Jackson. You are playing for the kid that was too short to get on the big roller coaster in fourth grade. So win it. Win it for the player that never made the Big Show, win it for the 1980 U.S. Hockey team, win it because people will come, Ray, win it for the kid that was too shy to talk to his high school crush. Win it for everything that makes sport sport. Win it for everything that makes life life. Win it for yourselves, your mothers, your fathers, your fans, the Cubs. But most of all, win it for me. Sincerely, Brian Hindo

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