The secret to Cubs’ 100 years of suffering? No fan club

March 26th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanR

When futility has been your modus operandi for the last 100 years, it’s easy to look outside the guys on the diamond for a reason why you haven’t won a World Series. We’ve all heard the curses involved with the Cubs. Silly stuff, for sure. But Ernie Banks has found another reason why the Cubs have sucked for so long: a fan club called the “West Side Rooters” was disbanded after their last World Series win in 1908.

And he’s aiming to bring it back. Via Fred Mitchell at the Trib:

Mr. Cub is eager to revive the West Side Rooters as the association’s 2008 chairman in hopes of inspiring that long-overdue World Series championship.

Grant DePorter, who runs Harry Caray’s Restaurant and has done extensive research on this century-old phenomenon, is the group’s president, and Dutchie Caray is the treasurer.

[ … ]

The 1908 members did “scientific rooting,” according to the newspaper accounts.

They would meet at People’s Theater, their headquarters near West Side Park, before games to discuss what cheers to do and what times to do them. The members acted as “hoodoo detectives” because the players were very superstitious. The rooters did their best to help protect the team from things involving the “evil omen” or “hoodoo.”

According to the reports, the group organized “tallyho” parties to the game. That is, they would parade or “tallyho” over as a group while offering Cubs cheers and playing any instrument or noisemaker in celebration of the Cubs. The fans would dress with Cubs badges, buttons, flags and banners, canes, megaphones and hats. Any Cub who would hit a home run or “three bagger” would receive a new hat from the group.

I doubt the “tallyho” traditions are going to be carried on, but these are Cubs fans so who knows. What’s so patently ridiculous about all this is that at some point — hell, maybe even this year — the Cubs are eventually going to win a World Series and fans and the organization are going to point to some silly new tradition or fan club or play or something as to why it happened.

Anything to make you believe, I suppose.