They are of all sports fans the ones most to be pitied. Let me take you back in time to an earlier lament when the Cubs were still considered the team to beat. It was right near the beginning of their long losing streak.
Baseball's Sad Lexicon
A poem by New York Newspaper Columnist Franklin Pierce Adams, published in 1910
These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double--
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
"Pricking our gonfalon bubble" means popping the balloon of pennant hopes for the poet's beloved team of choice, the New York Giants. Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance were a renowned double-play combination who helped the Chicago Cubs win four National League pennants (1906-08, 1910) and two World Series titles (1907-8). This was the Cubs' last hurrah.
The bankrupt Cubs could use them today.
