Real Hope for the Cubs

   Long-suffering Cubs fans, there is a chance. Not Frank Chance, the only manager of 60 in team history, including their time as the White Stockings, to lead the Northsiders to a World Series title. This is a real chance they could win it all again, and soon. I have figured out the secret to grabbing the brass ring in Chicago sports. It’s simple, elegant, and as plain as the nose on your face.

   In the last thirty years our four other major sports teams have brought a combined ten championships to the Windy City and their head coaches have all had one thing in common.

The Winners

   Fiery, take-no-prisoners Mike Ditka led the Bears to their one and only Super Bowl win in 1986 and became a Chicago legend.

   In the nineties Phil Jackson led Michael Jordan and the Bulls to six NBA titles with his Zen-like calm and enigmatic style.

   Next up is Ozzie Guillen. Arrogant and foul-mouthed in two languages, he took the White Sox to a World Series championship in 2005.

   Finally, there’s Joel Quenneville, the intense, scowling, steely-eyed skipper of the Blackhawks. Forty-nine years after the Hawks last won the Stanley Cup, he hoisted it in 2010 and did it again three years later.

The Reason

   So what do these diverse leaders have in common? What binding element has taken them to the pantheon of Chicago sports history?  As I said earlier, it’s as plain as the nose on your face, only a little lower. It’s the mustache.

   Granted, Ozzie Guillen wore a goatee, part of which is a mustache, so we could say any type of hair on the upper lip is the secret. Or could we?

   Dusty Baker led the Cubs tantalizingly close to the series in 2003 with that thing he sported under his nose. It just wasn’t enough. If there’s a standard length or hair count that qualifies a growth on the upper lip as a bona fide, genuine mustache, he didn’t meet it, and the Cubs’ glorious chance tragically evaporated in the League Championship Series.

   Ditka, Jackson, and Quenneville have manly, luxuriant mustaches and their records speak for themselves.

   The last Cubs manager to wear a mustache was Don Baylor from 2000-2002. He wasn’t here long enough for the mustache magic to work but it’s possible the residual effect is what brought the Cubs so close in 2003. Prior to that it was the immortal Frank Selee who, with his glorious handlebar, led the team from 1902-1905. It could be that his mustache effect carried over to Frank Chance and led him to his victories.

   So listen up, Joe Maddon. As the 60^th manager in Cubs history it’s all up to you. If you want to lead the Cubs to World Series glory, you know what you have to do. Keep the razor away from your upper lip and let that hair grow. It doesn’t matter if it’s a walrus ‘stache or a cookie duster. Just grow a real mustache during the 2015 season and a World Series championship will at long last make it back to the North Side. Then you, too, will be enshrined in the temple of Windy City sports legends.

My Worst Writing Nightmare Come True

After finishing a talk about my last (OK, only) book at a local park district, I autographed a copy for a woman from the audience. She shook her head as she walked away. During the rest of the signings (both of them) I glanced up occasionally to see her staring intently at my inscription, shaking her head even more. When the last copy was signed, she stormed back to the table and said, “Mr. Riley, your handwriting is atrocious.”

   Instantly, I was drawn back to Sister Marcos’s class in fifth grade. She had told me exactly the same thing except she didn’t call me mister. The good sister, right then and there, made it her personal quest to single-handedly turn my chicken scratches into elegant script.

@#$% You, Austin Palmer

   Her chosen form of torture was the Palmer Method. Developed by one Austin Palmer, his method was used from the 1880's to the 1950's in an effort to force every schoolchild in America to turn out script like Thomas Jefferson’s. If only I’d been born a few years later I’d have been spared this torment. By the next day, Sister Marcos had rummaged through the school’s attic and presented me with a writing workbook that looked like it hadn’t seen the light of day since Hoover was President. It would be my ball and chain until the end of the semester.

   I was subjected to staying after school making countless loops, wearing pencil after pencil down to the nubbins, and wasting reams of specially-lined yellow paper (both sides) in a futile attempt to make the perfect loop. I actually got pretty good at it but it was nothing like the unattainable flawlessness displayed in the workbook.

   Tens of thousands of loops later, I could make excellent loops but my penmanship still looked like the product of a deranged chicken with a pencil for a beak. The beatings the good sister inflicted upon my hand with a ruler (on edge) didn’t seem to help either. In fact, I think they permanently consigned my cursive to that of a ten-year old.

   The word “cursive” as it applies to handwriting probably comes directly from those of us held prisoner with Mr. Palmer as our cellmate while our friends happily went home. Even with the obligatory Catholic school crucifix hanging over my head, I cursed him with every loop.

   Yes, I agree with the woman and Sister Marcos. My handwriting is indeed atrocious.

Analyze This

   Then the woman said, “I’m a handwriting analyst and…” Oh God, I didn’t want to hear the rest. I knew this day would come and what it would bring. After all, more than half of analyst is “anal.” It almost made me long for another round with Sr. Marcos’ ruler.

   “…your loops, look at them,” she said as she thrust the inside cover page inches from my face, bringing me back from my fifth-grade reverie. “The L and the E slant in different directions. That tells me you’re a slovenly person.”

   Slovenly? There’s a word I hadn’t heard since grade school. I thought only nuns used it. Of course I’m slovenly. I’m a writer. I work in my pajamas or a ratty bathrobe. I go days without shaving. My office is a spare bedroom strewn with books and paper. I submit all my work via email. I never see an editor and rarely leave the house. If I’m straightening my office, shaving, showering, or washing what’s left of my hair, I’m not churning out scintillating pages of brilliant prose, like this one.

   “The tittles over your i’s,” she continued, seemingly without taking a breath, “they’re not directly above the letter. You care nothing about symmetry.”

   Lord, have mercy. My tittles aren’t symmetrical. My dots probably aren’t either. Look, I’m not designing an airplane or erecting a building. I take ideas and turn them into ones and zeroes in my computer which, I hope, will turn into ones and zeroes in my checking account. Symmetry, schmimmetry. I put words on paper, straight left side, ragged right. You want symmetry? Go find an architect.

   Then she went on about the J in my first name, “You’re too loopy…”

    I’m too loopy?

   “…and the Y in your last name. The bottom loop isn’t complete. You have problems finishing what you start.”

   Listen, lady, I’m finished with this conversation and I’m starting to hate you. Try this crap on Steven King. I’m sure he’ll love it, and so will his security people.

  When she started on the sexual ramifications of poor penmanship, I wanted to tell her about the sexual ramifications of being a nit-picking old harridan. Then I got to thinking sexual ramifications might be the least of her worries. The giveaway was her attending an evening event like this all by herself. I wondered if maybe she had a cat or seventeen waiting at home.

   I packed up my gear and never did another book signing. But in the back of my mind I couldn’t help thinking about just what the sexual ramifications of poor penmanship might be.

   Now where did I put that Palmer Method workbook?