Dare not speak its name

Denise Oppenhagen
Published: August 30, 2008

Labor Day generally signals the end of summer. 

It’s the last three-day weekend for a while, so traffic is really bad as everyone makes their last hurrah on vacation.

All schools are back in session. Everyone’s thoughts turn to cooler weather, regular schedules, football, politics and baseball.

Baseball?

Yes, baseball.  You may have thought that baseball was just a summer game. 

For most teams, it is. But for a lucky few teams and their fans, summer gets to continue long past casual Fridays and camp.

It continues as the leaves on the trees turn orange and red. It battles for screen time with more traditional fall sports like football and soccer.   

It was only a few short years ago when I wrote about my favorite team. At the time, my team was in the playoffs. Shortly after I wrote about them, an overeager fan (whose name is now synonymous with
certain actions that I cannot write about in a family newspaper) changed history and broke the hearts of millions.  (Am I exaggerating? I don’t think so.) 

I felt at that time that perhaps I added to the curse of the (animal that eats everything near it) by discussing a certain team (named after baby bears) from a certain city (hometown of a certain presidential
candidate) doing something unusual (rhymes with sinning) at this point in the season (second half). 

I do not want to tempt fate yet another time, so I am going to write with extreme caution this time. 

While it should not be too terribly difficult to figure out which team I am talking about (look at the standings for the National League Central), I will not allow my computer to spell the name of the team for
fear of upsetting the baseball gods. 

I take the chance because I am way too excited to keep quiet about this. The baby bears team is beloved by almost everyone — in the Windy City because it’s just the way we are and outside of the
Windy City because in the past we have made their team look good.  But this year, my boys are looking pretty darned good. As of today, they are ahead six games in their division. 

Woo-hoo!

For those who are not ardent fans of the baby bears, there are a couple of other items to occupy the news — something about a huge meeting in Denver this week that has made history, another huge
meeting in Minneapolis-St. Paul next week, a debate over whether or not housing sales are beginning to rebound, gas prices slowly on the rise once again, and how the Redskins will do this year.  But for
those who are fans of the blue pinstripes (myself included), there is no more important news than how the team did in its latest game. 

And so, this Labor Day week-end — the last of the three-days-off-in-a-row for awhile weekends, the last of the sleeping-in-until-noon weekends, the last of the three-digit-temperature weekends — I will
leave the busy highways to the travelers, the tailgating to the football fans, and the scheduled errands and weekend sports to the soccer moms and dads. 

I will be in front of the television watching the — oops, almost wrote it — my team playing ball.  I’ll have plenty of time for other things when the (meeting of baseball teams for a best of seven series that
will be a bigger deal than Michael Phelps’ best of eight gold medals) is finished and the best team (which has been unlucky for one hundred years) wins. 

What else could possibly be more important than that?

Denise Oppenhagen is a longtime resident of Prince William County and she can be contacted at .