Announcing 'Faithful, Too' by Justin Gerber

“Baseball is a good thing. Always was, always will be.” – Stephen King, “Blockade Billy”

It’s impossible not to get nostalgic about the game I’ve loved since I was eight, and especially difficult when it comes to a certain team and their pinstripe blues: the Chicago Cubs. 

My first heartbreak wasn’t when my 3rd grade “girlfriend” Darcy broke up with me, the day after I showed up to Ms. Trunbull’s classroom wearing Coke-bottle glasses in a reverse of She’s All That. No. It was when Cubs reliever Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams gave up a two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the eighth inning to the perennially-underrated San Francisco Giant First Baseman Will Clark in game 5 of the 1989 National League Championship Series.

That’s what we call an “information dump.” A test, if you will, to see if I’ve lost you.

Good. Thanks for continuing on.

What’s important for you to know as you embark on this journey with me is that you do not need to know the ins and outs of baseball to understand Major League Baseball and what it’s meant to myself, Stephen King, Stewart O’Nan, and billions of others for well over a century. If you’ve had your guts ripped out after getting that close to experiencing (more-or-less) true bliss and (more-or-less) true peace, you can relate to the fans of 29 teams that ultimately “fail” by the end of every MLB season. If you’ve followed a TV show for years and years and they absolutely botch the finale, you can relate to a fan watching their otherwise-marvelous team lose Game 7 of a World Series championship game.

The difference between the entertainment value of works of fiction and sports (we’ll use baseball, duh) can’t be measured, but can maybe be explained. If you watch a movie, a show, or read a book, countless people behind-the-scenes already know how it all ends. Not one person alive knows what will happen play-by-play in any game. In baseball, the pitcher will try to throw the pitch they want to pitch, the batter will have a split second to determine whether or not they want to hit that pitch, and the rest is up to timing, accuracy, and the occasional act of God. It’s this edge-of-your seat aspect of sports that keeps hearts rapidly pumping at the end of a “meaningless” 23rd game in a 162-game season. Apply this to an 82-game NBA season or a 17-game NFL season for the same results.

It is the Chicago Cubs who get my heart pumping the most; my first love and the team I will always attach myself to above all others. Why? Dear reader, you’ll have to read future entries to find out!

This undertaking won’t be a massive breakdown of each and every Chicago Cubs game akin to what Stewart O’Nan does for his Red Sox in Faithful. This will be much more in line with King’s entries in that same book; more of a frequent check-in on the Cubs as they make their way through their 155th Major League Season. It’s projected to be a good year for the Cubbies as they attempt to win their division for the first time since the COVID-shortened season five years ago (ah, the good ol’ days). I’ll be writing about my feelings on the current team for certain, with a lot of reminisces of the Cubs I have dating back to that 1989 season that ended in the aforementioned heartbreak. Sometimes you’ll read an entry that’s a paragraph. Other times a page or more. But one’s things for certain: it will be the greatest material you’ve ever read.

Kidding! But Spring has sprung! Join me through the rest of it, then we’ll take a dive into the Summer, and hopefully bask in the briskness of Fall as I celebrate and tear my hair out (what little is left) over the 2025 Chicago Cubs.

Play ball!