Love = Hate?

This is a crazy world we live in. I think I'm finally losing my mind.

I never would have guessed that it would be Chip Caray that would push me over the edge.

Allow me to explain...

I've never really been able to watch the Cubs as much as I would like to. During high school, when I began to pay attention to baseball seriously, the Cubs still played 92% of their games during the day. Being in school all day, I missed a lot of games during the tail end of the school year. During the summer, I was slaving over a hot McStove making food for others while Wrigley was rockin, so no time to watch then. After high school was college, where most of my time was spent either drunk or onstage (though never at the same time...) so I missed a lot of games during that period. Then came graduation and having to get a "real job" to pay "bills". Then I moved out to LA, the land where the Cubs are only on TV a handful of times. I couldn't even catch many games on Gamecast because even night games would start when I was still at work.

I missed the Cubs. I missed them real bad. But as Bob Dylan once sang, the times, they are a-changin'.

After my relocation to San Diego this month, I FINALLY got cable installed today while I was at work. I came home, turned on the TV, and scrolled through the channels:

1: Crap
2: Crap
3: WGN
4: Cra...

Wait...what?

Could it be?

Is this...a Cubs game?

It was a Cubs game. San Diego digital cable includes WGN. I cannot tell you what it was like watching those first few innings. Seeing all of these players I had only read about around a campfire and in box scores. As the game wore on, I knew that watching the Cubs close out the bottom of the ninth with a win was going to be like home again, like a coke fiend that does his first line after a year of sobriety.

And you know what? It wasn't like home again. At least, not as much as I expected. I knew the feeling I was looking for, and I didn't quite get it. There was something missing. And that thing was Chip Caray.

Chip was the voice of the Cubs TV games for the years I fell in love with them. Even now when I flip past Braves games on TBS and hear his voice, it takes me a second to tell my brain not to stop flipping, that it's not the Cubs playing. And that's what I was missing last night. I actually missed Chip Caray.

Here's the thing...I HATE Chip Caray.

I've hated him for years, almost as long as I've loved the Cubs. I tried to mute the TV and pick up Pat and Ron on the radio when I could, but I've never lived in a place where the reception was good enough to do this on a regular basis. I don't know what it is, but I just can't stand Chip. I can't stand his stupid voice. I can't stand his stupid announcing. And yet I miss him.

Nothing makes sense anymore. Up is down. Black is white. Dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!

When this guy is playing first base for the Brewers, I don't know what to believe in.

And it doesn't stop there. You know when people say something that's stupid, and then you say it to mock them and be funny, which eventually leads to you using the word in everyday conversation, thus becoming the person you were making fun of in the first place? That happened to me today when I caught myself saying "Oh snap" at work today.

Trying to find some sanity, I flipped over to Sportscenter. I saw the Cardinal highlights and Mark Mulder was pitching! That's not possible! In a world where Mark Mulder pitches in a major league game, with playoff implications no less, what can I believe?

So now I'm holed up in a Motel 6 writing this from the bathtub. I refuse to leave this room until some order is restored to this planet. Someone please take a baseball bat to Mulder's shoulder and elbow so I can have some peace.


BTW...