CHICAGO -- My phone rings. There’s a familiar voice on the other end, and he’s not laughing.
“This is Jeff Garlin, and the answer is no. No, they never were funny.”
“They” are the Chicago Cubs, Garlin’s favorite baseball team and the longest-running punch line in sports.
Earlier in the day, I had a thought. Typically, these are fleeting, but this one stuck. If everything goes as planned -- and seriously, when doesn’t the world fall at the feet of this charmed team -- are the Cubs still going to be funny?
I’m a columnist, so making jokes about the Cubs is a major part of my job. Fans need gallows humor to calm their jangled nerves year after year.
After three seasons of organizational construction, the rebuilding, on the field and around it, comes to Wrigley Field this year.
The Cubs open the 2015 season against the Cardinals on Sunday night at Wrigley.
There’s a giant video board rising from what will be the bleachers, a larger-than-life harbinger of the modernization of this franchise. Big-money free agent Jon Lester is pitching the opener for big-money new manager Joe Maddon. For all the focus on Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler could be his best competition for rookie of the year.
After three mostly awful years of baseball, not to mention most of the previous century, the Cubs are aiming to stifle the laughter and alter their identity.
But what if you like telling jokes about the Cubs? What if you find this organization hilarious?
I'm not talking about the clichéd jokes either. For those of us on the ground, there’s always something entertaining, most often unintentional, about this team. That's why everyone loves the @nottomricketts Twitter account -- even the front office.
Such as when president Theo Epstein, in his Bryant excuse tour, says one reason he doesn’t want to bring the slugger up yet is because Opening Day is so distracting, and then the story of him not coming up becomes the biggest distraction in baseball.
Where else would a player’s apparel sponsor slap up a “Worth the Wait” billboard across from the stadium?
Since Garlin is a legitimately funny Cubs fan, unlike say, Jim Belushi or George Will, I thought he’d be a good person to ask about my conundrum.
Turns out, when it comes to the Cubs, he’s more serious than Marty Funkhouser on a golf course.
“There was never anything funny about them to me,” he said. “Zero funny to me.”
Garlin, who grew up in Morton Grove, is a Second City alum. Comedy is part of the fiber of this city.
Chicago is home to some of the best experimental sketch comedy, and for many, that includes the Cubs, who have improvised some truly unthinkable ways to lose.
The college of coaches, a vengeful Greek with a goat, a scapegoat with a Cubs cap, a black cat, the 1984, 1989, 2003, 2007 and 2008 playoffs, a dumpster cake, falling concrete, rats in the batting cages, Tom Trebelhorn’s firehouse chat, the Mike Quade era, the Rick Renteria era, Clark the Cub, troughs, Milton Bradley’s contract.
What are the Cubs without frequent “Cubbie Occurrences?” Their penchant for slipping on the banana peel, for better or worse, is part of the charm.
Brad Zibung, who helped start the satirical newspaper and website, The Heckler, back in 2003, said I have nothing to worry about.
“All you have to do is look at the disaster of a stadium,” he said in a phone conversation. “And that project goes until, what, 2018? We’re set, man. That alone, as long as nothing terrible happens, will be enough for humor.”
That's true. I think Epstein is keeping Bryant in Triple-A until he believes the video board won't fall on him when he plays left field.
The Heckler happened to launch during that memorable Cubs season of 2003, and Zibung said people asked him then what they would write about as the team took off.
“We found a lot,” he said.
The off-kilter personalities on those teams sure helped. But the Epstein Cubs seem to lack those characters. There doesn’t seem to be a Kyle Farnsworth in this bunch. Joe Maddon is goofy, but he’s no Lou Piniella.
“For sure, what there’s less of on this team is those personalities, and in baseball, in particular,” Zibung said. “The personalities are less pronounced. No Sammy Sosa, no Farnsworth. What’s the biggest gaffe? Edwin Jackson going to the wrong stadium?”
Pitcher Jason Hammel recently joked about Wrigley Field looking like “Baghdad,” but then went back and apologized on Twitter. Would the Farns apologize? Doubtful.
Now, I’ve never bought into the backward idea that winning a World Series would kill the authenticity of the Cubs experience. Only out-of-towners think it’s about losing.
The Cubs are really about renewal and optimism. We all need this team to win, if only so a new story can be written.
The same old tales of woe are why Garlin can’t find anything humorous when it comes to his team.
“Nope,” Garlin said. “Nothing funny. Nothing funny. I take the Cubs very seriously. Never anything funny. The only thing I’ve found in the Cubs is sadness.”
Actually, Garlin actually could think of one funny thing about the Cubs.
“One time on the 'Tonight Show,' I brought this cup with a Cubs player, this was a cup the Cubs gave out, it had a Cubs player jumping at the wall with the ball going over it,” he said. “The other team was hitting a home run. That was funny. I’m looking at that cup on my shelf.”
Now, talk to Garlin about the Cubs’ prospects in the near future and he sounds like every other fan on Twitter. He raves about Epstein’s plan, and he’s head over heels in love with Maddon.
But he’s not ready to buy playoff tickets just yet. Like me, he thinks the Cubs should win 80-some games. Just enough to be respectable and interesting.
“I think they’re showing great potential to be a great team,” he said. “But the whole premise that sending Kris Bryant down will cost us winning, it’s crazy. The Cubs are serious about winning, but they’re not going to the World Series or making the playoffs. They’re going to be a real good ballclub, crazily improved. But people have to get their expectations in order. It’s nuts, all this World Series talk. It’s nuts.”
Garlin said he didn’t waste time feeling anything in recent years as Epstein nakedly steered the franchise into rebuilding mode.
“I didn’t take them very seriously,” he said.
Now, with the Cubs positioned to compete for the first time since 2009 -- back when the uproarious Bradley was around -- there is great potential for happiness, and also for disappointment.
“I firmly believe for the first time in my life, the Cubs, in due time, will win a World Series,” Garlin said.
“It’s a different era,” Zibung said. “But there will still be plenty to laugh about.”
I, for one, hope they’re both right.
