Yes, I was at Dodger Stadium Saturday night for the series-clinching victory, cheering my boys so hard I nearly lost my voice before the game had even started.  And yes, like every other “Manny-maniac” at Chavez Ravine, I jumped for joy when Jonathan Broxton gassed a 90 mph slider past Alfonso Soriano to complete the sweep.

            But my heart momentarily sank just a few pitches earlier.  A Cubs fan sat in front of me, donning a Soriano jersey and an inside-out Chicago hat.  “Rally cap, huh?” I said to him as his favorite Cubbie stepped into the batter’s box.

            Tears welling in his bloodshot eyes, he turned back to me and replied, “It’s all I can do. The season’s over.”

            Now I can’t pretend to fully comprehend the emotions that accompany rooting for a team that’s been losing for 100 years, but an experience that I had this past summer gave me a small glimpse into that world, and it’s what made Saturday’s win so bittersweet.

            Chicago. June 12, 2008. I’m on the 95^th floor of the John Hancock Center, gazing down at the activity along Navy Pier as I finish an early lunch with my sister and a friend on an overcast day.

We’re on a cross-country road-trip, (filming a documentary, typical L.A., scoff) and as if our mere presence in this tourist locale didn’t immediately mark us as outsiders, the mound of guidebooks and maps sprawled across our table were a dead giveaway.

As the waitress places the check down amidst our map mayhem, she asks what we have planned for the rest of the day.

“I think we’re just going to see a few museums,” my friend says.  “The Holography Museum looked interesting,” my sister chimes in.  “Do you have any recommendations?” I beg.

“Well, there’s a day game at Wrigley.”

Before we knew it, we are riding the el, trying to make it to the North Side for the first pitch at 1:20.

Our car is so cramped that I am actually envious of the sardines that I devoured in my salad an hour earlier; their tight quarters would have been a five-star luxury compared to this.

Public transportation, however, does provide an electrifying pre-game camaraderie, something Angeleno sports fans know very little of. 

Everyone has baseball on their lips. Some converse about last night’s win, while others look ahead to today’s match-up. A grown woman with her two children by her side reminisces about when her father would let her play hooky from school and bring her to the game.  “It’s tradition,” she says.

An elderly woman mentions to me that she’s on a bit of a road-trip herself.  “My grandson and I just got in from Raleigh. Drove thirteen hours yesterday and a few more this morning, but here we are.”

I look at her grandson, who’s grasping for dear life at the pole in the center of the car, “Let me get this right. You drove from North Carolina just to see this game?”  He nodded. 

I’ve heard of hardcore fans, but this is much more serious than I thought.

When the car’s doors open, we slowly file out amongst the mass of Cubbie faithful, following the herd to the gates of the hallowed stadium.

After taking a moment to stare at the statue of Harry Caray outside of the entryway, I make my way to the box office.

            SOLD OUT.

            The crowd roars from inside. The game has started, and their cheers are only a taunting reminder of what I’m missing.

            We look lost. A pitiful bunch of disappointed kids, naïve enough to think that there still might be a few seats left in the top row that nobody wanted.

            I notice a line forming in front of a kiosk next to the row of closed ticket booths. Season-ticket resale. This was our last hope.

            As the line grows shorter, I can see the dejected faces of those who walk away from the window ticketless. If we wanted in, this one was going to hurt.

            “Three seats together. Cheapest possible,” I request. The man behind the glass searches his computer, crunching the numbers as I sweat in anticipation.

            “That’ll be $405.36.”

            The crowd roars again.

“Do you take American Express?”

Any hint of buyer’s remorse evaporates as we enter the park and make our way to our seats, which we find waiting for us directly behind home plate, only sixteen rows back.

We made it.

I take a deep breath, lean back in my $135 seat, and take a moment to appreciate my surroundings. In that instant, I earn back every penny that I just spent. The verdant grass set against a now nearly-cloudless summer’s afternoon, the grandeur of the old ballpark’s architecture, and, of course, the ivy.  It was beautiful.

But it was what Wrigley lacked that really blew me away. No wave. No beach balls. No Jumbotron. Just baseball in its purest form, stripped of its distractions.

And man, what baseball.  The Braves had already scored twice before we sat in our seats, but that would be the end of their offense for the day.  Zambrano’s looking good on the hill, but the Cubs struggle to produce runs.

            Finally, they break through in the seventh when Aramis Ramirez singles to lead off the inning. He dashes safely to second after a nail-biting Kosuke Fukudome ground out, then to third off a single by Geovany Soto, and into home on a sacrifice fly by Jim Edmonds.

We exchange high-fives and fist-bumps with everyone around us. “That’s how you manufacture a run,” I tell my sister over the din of the crowd. “We just need one more.”

Bottom of the ninth. One out. The afternoon’s shadows are growing longer, and the Cubs’ chances are growing thinner. Edmonds sails a solo shot deep over the left field wall. Tie game. Another round of celebratory hand-slapping with our newfound friends.

Wrigley had already repaid me, but it graciously gave us a chance to watch two extra frames of baseball, just for our trouble. Now I was earning interest. 

With the bases juiced in the eleventh, southpaw Jim Ridgway pegs Reed Johnson in the leg on his first pitch, walking in the winning run and completing the three-game sweep of the Braves.

Okay, so it was a little anti-climactic, but it was enough to send us into a Cubbie stupor. As fans behind us raise signs above their heads that say IT’S GONNA HAPPEN and W, we jump up and down and exchange our final fives with our neighbors.

What’s come over me? How could I possibly feel so attached to a team I’ve only known for three hours? I’m known for falling in love quickly, but this is ridiculous.

Sure, the ivy was brilliant. Yes, the lack of the Jumbotron appealed to my purist sensibilities. But it was the infectious passion of the thousands of devoted fans that came to the park that day that truly won me over.

Standing on every 0-2 count. Clapping it up for taken balls. Cheering just as loudly for turning a double play as for hitting a double. These fans get it.

With a new ditty stuck in my head - “Go, Cubs, Go” – I exit the stadium behind two teenage boys. “So that puts them twenty games over .500,” one says. “Nineteen,” the other boy corrects him. Even the youngsters know not to get ahead of themselves with this cursed club of lovable losers. “It doesn’t matter. It’s gonna happen,” the second boy adds. Okay, maybe they haven’t suffered enough to completely learn the lesson.

But the truth is, until the Cubs drew my Dodgers in the NLDS, I wanted it to happen too. And until Saturday night, I thought it could still happen.

            “It’s all I can do. The season’s over.” In a single gesture, the rally-cap-wearing Soriano junkie in front of me summed up the plight of the Cubs fan – passionately believing in your boys even though you know they’re doomed to fail.

            So here’s a tip of my Dodgers cap to the nearly-magical 2008 Cubs and their loyal fans, the most devoted and humble sports-lovers in America. And no billy goat, black cat, or Bartman can take that away from you.

            I understand your pain. Sort of. As much as I can.

            As I look forward to the NLCS, I think it’s a good thing I’ve never been to a Phillies’ game.