I've received lots of advice on how to break up properly with class and dignity and without hurting anyone's feelings. The best one I guese, would have to be to invite the person out to a nice dinner, and tell them, "It's not you, it's me." Taking all the blame for the problems in the relationship, and taking the heat as the person responsible for the relationship breaking up is evidently the best way to do it. Clearly state that, although you still love them, you just didn't have the patience to make it work. That you know they did all the work and you were the one that let everyone down, WHATEVER. Just make it sound nice and leave with dignity.

So I'm formally inviting the entire Chicago Cubs team and staff out to dinner because I have something to tell them that they might not want to hear. But honest Sammy, Dusty, Kerry, all you other guys that tried, it's my fault, I just don't have any more patience to make it work. I know you did all the work. It was you that showed up for mostly every game.

I should have been there for you in Chicago instead of cheering you on from Las Vegas. I should have been there, standing outside the park asking if anyone had a $50 bleacher ticket they could spare at all those sold-out, standing-room-only games to cheer you on when you were winning, like when I was there throughout the 60's and 70's when you couldn't sell a seat except for the $1 bleacher seats and when third place was considered a winning year; when finishing twelve games out was an improvement from the year before.

I should have been there when Jack Brickhouse would put not only the people watching at home to sleep, but even the kids at the ball park would start snoozing after watching him broadcast the game from the booth. I should have been there for you when you won the pennant, except you never did win the pennant. Well, I should at least have been there for you when you won your division, except you never did win the division when I was alive in Chicago.

Maybe if I were there in '84, Leon Durham wouldn't have missed the slow grounder that went through his legs and we would have beaten the Padres one out of those last three games and won the pennant. Maybe if I were there when the pop-up came to Moises Allou I would have pushed everyone out of the way so he could have caught the foul ball and gone on to get another out and end the inning with no runs instead of tying the game because some asshole thinks an $8 foul ball baseball is worth more than a stuffy old pennant any day.

Maybe I shouldn't have worn my Cubs hat to bed every night with my picture of Ernie Banks the night before a day game hoping that would bring them luck, except Ernie Banks never won anything anyways. Or maybe I shouldn't have faked being sick and ditch school to go down to Addison St. for all the spring day games. Or when I got older and had to start calling my bosses every time the thermometer hit 70 and there was a break in the clouds. Yes, it was me, not you, that cheered the same team on since I was nine. You guys weren't even born yet, so how could it be your fault?

But in a way the pressure's off for Cubs fans. The idea that they lost year after year is what endeared them to us all. We knew they were trying, we saw them on national, even world-wide television blowing games they were ahead, losing every game they were behind. Every year in April or May they'd win a come-from-behind game and everyone would jump on the band wagon and say, "Hey, maybe this is the Cub's year." Then by June they'd be 12 games out and we'd start talking about how they'd just have to sweep the next three teams and they'd be right back in it. A week later we'd be talking about next year and how that one kid they called up this year after they were clearly out of the running, might just be their savior next season. Of course, if he WAS any good they'd trade him off during the late summer to a team that was in contention for a back-up catcher or a dry cleaner to be named later.

But it's enough, it's too much. I can't do this anymore. I love you but it's over. From now on it's going to be flying kites and going on picnics, going to the Triple A games here in Vegas instead of watching the Cubs on TV. It's going to be re-runs of I Love Lucy or learning how to use my Vegomatic on the food network. I'd rather learn how to do my own facials from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy rather than spend my time watching the Cubs. The Las Vegas Chess club gathers on Sunday afternoons, a much better way to spend my time than watching the Cubs. I'll have time to finally take that Navajo basket weaving class at UNLV. This year was like watching a girl taking her clothes off and just before she gets naked the lights burn out and when they come back on she's got her cloths back on and eating Twinkies and chocolate milk.

"Maybe next year" was a saying Jack Brickhouse made famous and the reason is obvious. I could say the same thing, "Maybe next year" along with 12 million other Chicagoans, but like a relationship, you can't say "Maybe she'll love me later." Date after date, it's just better to let it go and find a new girlfriend.

I've heard of a team going bad for a few years but FOR A FUCKING CENTURY?!

So if there's any local girls volleyball team or maybe a good Triple A Lacross team that could use me, I'm available as a fan. I cheer when you win, I cry when you lose. I wear your hats and jerseys whether you win or lose (As long as you're not wearing pink and green and you're team name doesn't start with a Q or an X). I'll memorize your players and use their names in full sentences whenever possible.(My last full sentence was a two year stretch in Cook County Jail). I use action adjectives whenever it applies to a winning game, like "SHIT, did you see last night's game?" You don't even have to win, just get close every few years and get a TV crew that likes to show the young girls with big boobs sitting in the stands between hitters like WGN always does and I'll still like you. Then you've got 45 years to prove yourselves before I give up on you too if that helps to take some of the pressure off.

Then there's the "KID" who managed to take a possible 58 year wait for a World Series appearance and blow it with one greedy move by trying to catch a fucking $8 baseball away from Moises Allou. The fact that both the Chicago Sun Times and Chicago Tribune both named him along with his home address and work address so that the guy hasn't been able to return to work since the game and will probably have to move out of town altogether, except that I hate to tell him but there's Cubs fans EVERYWHERE. I was in Telluride Colorado, a small ski town hidden in the western Rockies, a town of 400 during off-season, 300 of which were at the only two bars in town, both showing the Cubs-Marlins game. Driving into town in many of the store windows were Cubs pennants. Many of the people in town were sporting Cubs caps and jerseys. The next morning the Chicago news papers reported his name, by noon his name was shit in the town of Telluride. For those of you that want to defend him that's all fine and dandy but I'm telling you Allou had the catch, his glove was directly under the incoming ball waiting patiently for it to fall, Mark Prior was also awaiting the much-needed out and was totally disgusted when the kid interfered with the catch, he then went on to give up eight runs, a career high for him. Now this guy will never be going to another baseball game, probably not even back to the kids he trains at home. Yes that's right; this guy WAS a kid's baseball coach. The only thing he'll be coaching now is a girl's chess club in Antartica. Numerous people have come out to try to get Chicago to lay off the guy. Dusty Baker tried, Mayor Daily tried to get everyone to forgive him. Even members of the Cubs team tried in vein to get everyone off his back, but all I can say is "it's over"… there's nothing more we can do at 1125 W. 63rd St. apartment 202, no more calls should be made to his phone number at 674-5405 after 3am. any more either. And I also think the wrapping of the dog shit in a newspaper and dousing it with gasoline and setting it on fire on his front door step will have to stop, he quit putting the fire out with his foot a few days ago and now douses it with a fire extinguisher, however, if some unforgiving Cubs fan really wanted to get him I'm sure they've already thought of putting a second big bag of dog shit above his door at the same time so there's no reason for me to remind you.

But this is just the moaning and crying of another Cubs fan for another year. Sure most of us come back next year, sure most of us don't tell anyone but still tune in when they win a few games, then when they win a few more games we pull the Cubs cap back out and start wearing it again and saying "Maybe this year…" The few lucky ones that pass away over the winter are spared the humiliation and shame of enduring another summer as a Cubs fan. As for me I'm feeling fine, and thus another reason to bitch about living through another winter listening to the Cubs fans say "Maybe next year." As for me, I'll be spending my summer listening to Arena Football, Indoor Soccer, World Fag Wrestling, Budweiser Beenie Kicking, but I won't be watching the Cubs…Like Michael Jordan said "I'm 99 percent sure I won't be coming back."

-Ken Pearlman