The journey that will last a lifetime
On Friday night, Leo Albano III will watch his son, Leo Albano IV, quarterback the Bishop England football team in its game against Timberland.
Early the next morning, the Albanos will get in the car, drive to Myrtle Beach, hop on a jet and fly to Chicago on a trip that will last less than 20 hours. The journey, however, will provide memories that will last a lifetime.
The elder Albano is a Chicago native and a long-suffering Cubs fan who wants to be there when the Cubs attempt to exorcise curses, jinxes and even some bad baseball when they make their first World Series appearance in 71 years. The Cubs last played in the Fall Classic in 1945. If you think that’s depressing, they haven’t won a World Series since 1908.
The Cubs were scheduled to play Games 1 and 2 in Cleveland beginning Tuesday. The Series shifts to the Windy City Friday night, and the Albanos will be there for Game 4 on Saturday. They will fly back early the next morning.
The Albanos couldn’t get tickets to gain admission to Wrigley Field so they will hang out at a restaurant nearby and watch it on a big screen with a few thousand friends, family and fans.
“The tickets are almost impossible to get,” Leo Albano III said. “From what I hear, standing-room-only tickets are going for $2,000 apiece because everyone’s working their connections. You have 108 years of connections working against you. I just want to be in the presence of Wrigley Field. It’s something I want Leo to experience.”
Albano knows all about the Cubs’ history, which is the epitome of bad mojo. He wasn’t alive in 1945 when a bar owner placed “the Curse of the Billy Goat” on the team after he and his goat were ejected from Wrigley Field.
He’s still traumatized by what happened in 1969. That’s when the Cubs were in first place for 155 days, until mid-September, when they lost 17 out of 25 games. Some superstitious fans attribute the Cubs’ collapse to an incident during a game against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium in New York. A black cat walked behind the Cubs’ on-deck circle where Cubs legend Ron Santo was standing. The Cubs were never same.
And, of course, there was the 2003 NL Championship Series game against the Florida Marlins when the Steve Bartman incident occurred.
The Cubs led the NL Championship 3 games to 2 that fall and were leading Game 6 by a 3-0 margin. They were five outs away from an appearance in the World Series when Bartman tried to catch a foul ball that disrupted a potential catch by the Cubs’ outfielder Moises Alou. The Marlins got new life and ended up scoring eight runs in the inning. The Marlins won the game, and took Game 7 the following night.
The elder Albano still feels his parents’ pain. They haven’t given up hope. It’s still not unusual for his 80-year-old mother Louise to show up at Wrigley for a game. She lived on the South Side and grew up a White Sox fan. She made the religious conversion to the Cubs in 1960 when she married Albano’s father and the family settled on West Addison, which happens to be the same street where Wrigley Field is located.
Leo Albano IV, who also is a star pitcher for Bishop England, feels his family’s pain. He was born in late 1999 and went to his first Cubs’ game the following summer.
When he was in the first grade, he wrote a paper about what he wished for in life. He wanted to make his grandmother happy by pitching the Cubs to the World Series championship. Then, he would make his parents happy by joining the priesthood.
All the suffering could end in the next two weeks.
“If the Cubs win, my celebration won’t be for me,” Leo Albano III said. “My celebration will be for my mother and all the people who have waited even longer for this to happen.”
And if the Cubs lose?
“I know,” Albano said. “I know. It’s wait ‘til next year.”