FANS

By its very definition, "fans" is a personal opinion on one's own state of something or someone. Early in this Cubs season, the fan community has started to snark at each other on what it is to be a Cub fan. It is hard to debate conflicting religious tenets, but even for those who believe baseball is their personal savior, one must respect each other's views.

However, there are various aspects of being a baseball and a Cubs fan.

First, you may be just a fan of the game itself. You don't have a rooting interest in any one team or any one player. You watch a baseball contest for its purity. You just want to see a well played but exciting game.

Or, you may be a fan of the team like the Cubs. You may have been indoctrinated as a fan at an early age when a parent or grandparent took you to your first contest at Wrigley Field. You may have marveled at the miracle of a vast green park inside some brick walls of an old building in a tired city residential neighborhood. The game was faster, the players bigger and plays more exciting than the sandlot games back home. Your parent would have told you about the players, what to look for, and the history of the game and the team. And once you liked baseball as a sport, it is easier to follow it by following "your" team.

There are various levels of devotion. A fan may like the players on the team, but dislike their manager. Fans may like the team and the manager, but dislike or mistrust management. Or, the fans may have outright contempt for ownership like many Yankee fans had during the George Steinbrenner era or when Charlie Finley owned the Oakland A's. Then, there were some fans who liked their owner better than the team itself, such as many years when Bill Veeck owned the White Sox. Then, there were times when the fans did not like the players on their team such as when late in the Dusty Baker days, his players started to assault the respected team broadcasters. A fan can oscillate between the various plus and minuses of the entire organizational spectrum. Some fans may hold a grudge against management for not hiring a guy like Ryne Sandberg to manager their club. Some fans may hold a grudge against a manager for benching their favorite player. Some fans may head slap themselves after each odd managerial decision that cost the team a victory.

And of course there will be fans who will remain die-hard fans through the good, the bad and the ugly.

The 2014 Cubs bring out a range of emotions in the fandom. For some, the Cubs continue to be their beautiful baseball mistress who is having a serious bout of projectile vomiting. She will get over it some day. Some believe that that the team makeover is trying to put make-up on an old 500 pound sow.  It won't work. Some find dark humor in the badness of team play. The players can find work if keystone comedies ever make a come back. Others think that this is a long incubation process that will work in the near future. The same was said in the original Jurassic Park movie. That turned out well, if you were a meat eating dinosaur. A few think the Ricketts are way over their heads; they don't know how to run a baseball team let alone a business in the city. The new ownership may set back the franchise like P.K. Wrigley did - - - extending the non-championship for several more generations. The current roster may be filled with nice guys, but nice guys in life most often finish last. And who is to blame for that?  A little bit for everyone associated with the team, including the fans.

If the fans view their baseball team as a civic icon, then the fans should demand better of their players and ownership. If owners truly believe in winning (and not the mere marketing words to sell expensive tickets), then owners should demand better accountability from their employees, from management to the players. It seems obvious that all three elements of the baseball pyramid want the same thing: to win. Owners, managers, players and fans all want to win the World Series.  In Chicago, we know how nice that accomplishment feels when the White Sox won in 2005 (going a remarkable 11-1 in the playoffs).

So it not really fair to tell a fan he is not "supportive" enough of the current Cubs. Likewise, it is not unfair to say that the current Cubs have not earned the trust and money of loyal patrons. The sniping between Cub fans at the early stage of this season does not seem productive; it is just another in a long line of distractions which gets us from the true issue confronting everyone: winning games.

In order to keep one's sanity this year,  you may be just a fan of the game itself. You don't have a vested interest in the Cubs or its players.  You watch a baseball games for the good plays, the bad plays, the comedy of errors and the occasional win.  At the very least, you may just want to see a well played game played by some team on the field. Or something unusual like Monday's game in Denver where the Reds and Rockies hit 10 home runs in 6 innings before the game was suspended due to bad weather. If you don't find some alternative pleasure from just rooting for the Cubs to win, you may end up wasting another summer.