Bricks and Urns

1. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. True or false?
2. No good deed goes unpunished. True or false?

The answer to the first quote is false. As every businessman knows, it isn’t the quality of the product that drives sales but the success of the marketing campaign. Nowhere has this been more evidence than with the Chicago National League Ball Club, LLC, more commonly known as the Chicago Cubs baseball team.

The Cubs have not won a World Series for over 100 years. They have not won the National League pennant for almost 65 years. If they were in the mousetrap business, this would mark an appallingly long time of waiting to catch a mouse. But business is good nonetheless. Indeed, the Cubs have drawn over three million fans into their park for six years in a row. They have not drawn less then two million fans in fourteen years. So powerful is the Cub magnet that even a homeless person in Chicago will scrape up a c-note to watch the lovable “Cubbies” lose in the rain.

The better baseball team is on the south side of Chicago, namely the Chicago White Sox. But even with a more modern ballpark and a winning team, the Sox have struggled to compete with the “Cubbies.” Example: In 2005 the Chicago White Sox won the American League pennant and swept the Houston Astros in the World Series. It was obviously a good year for the southsiders who drew 2,342,834 into their park. But on the north side the “Cubbies” experienced more than 3,100,000 fans moving through the Wrigley Field turnstiles. And this with a team that was fourth in its division, unable to win more games that it had lost.

It was not always this way. For every year from 1953 to 1967, the Cubs failed to draw even a million fans into their park. That was before the marketeers took over.

This year, 2010, we have been told (or sold, depending upon how one looks at it) that being a Cub fan is “a way of life.” This "way of life" does not end with ticket and concession sales. The “Cubbies” now operate “Cub Stores” at which they sell Cub paraphernalia.

Indeed, the marketing of Cub merchandise has become a cradle to grave operation. There are bottles and bibs for newborn Cub fans. And at the other end of life’s spectrum is Cub cremation urns. Holy cow.

The answer to the second quote is true. I am a season ticket holder with the Chicago White Sox – Chicago’s better team. And although the White Sox are winning, it is sometimes difficult to even give Sox tickets away because everybody in Chicago wants to see the “Cubbies” instead. There are three exceptions to this rule, and those are the three games that the Cubs play against the Sox at U.S. Cellular Field each year. One of those games was last night. I gave one of my valued tickets to my wife, a Cub fan, and took her to the game. How nice of me!

But the White Sox beat the “Cubbies” and in the process of doing so extended a winning streak to eleven (11) games. And so by the time the ballpark lights went out, my wife was threatening to place my cremation ashes into one of those Cub urns. In retrospect I clearly should have given my prized ticket to somebody else.

There is only one solution, and that is that I must outlive my wife. This will be difficult because women generally live longer than men and I am already five years older than Ms. Sipsa. So starting tomorrow I am working out every day. I am also reducing red meat and introducing more vegetables and fiber into my diet. A Cub urn to a White Sox fan is akin to a cross being placed before a vampire.

But on the way out of the ballpark I discovered a means of revenge. Surrounding the 2005 World Series statue are a series of bricks, purchased by Sox fans and upon which are inscribed the names of Sox faithful. Thus for a small donation to White Sox Charities, Ms. Sipsa can be permanently enshrined as a fan to Chicago’s better team. Moreover, there are a lot of bricks there. So unless Ms. Sipsa has the patience to visit the park regularly and read each and every one of them, she will never know.

Go Sox!