From the Newest Pig Fan

A note from our new friends in Oklahoma. Enjoy!

When I was growing up in Southern Illinois in the ’80s, you could root for one of two teams: the Chicago Cubs or the St. Louis Cardinals. Mom was a Cards fan. Daddy and I were Cub fans.

The first year I was old enough to understand much about the game was the same year a shy young man with a movie-star smile teed off on the best closer in baseball twice on national television, making a name for himself and effectively lighting the spark that sent the Cubbies to the playoffs for the first time in 39 years.

Cub fans know the rules of engagement: You root for that team, you’re gonna get your heart broken. Happens every year. There’s a sort of Zen to it: You just accept as given that you aren’t going to the Series, and then you can relax and enjoy the ride. But when the owners let an incompetent GM drive Ryne Sandberg out of the organization last fall, they took the usual heartbreak to a new level. The Cubs without Ryno? Unacceptable! What were they going to do next — pour Roundup on the ivy?

For the first time in 30 years, there was no “next year.” My heart was well and truly broken, and the winter seemed unusually bleak as I faced the prospect of a spring without a team to root for.

Then Dallas Green coaxed Sandberg back into the Phillies organization, and Ron and I — who love minor-league baseball, and who had been flirting with the idea of exploring the eastern part of the Lincoln Highway for a couple of years anyway — started making tentative plans to head east.

I went to Allentown a Sandberg fan. I came home an IronPigs fan. Noise Nation had everything to do with that. I have fun at Tulsa Drillers games, but … well, they just need more cowbell.

Ron and I are heavily involved in the Route 66 community. We know people who fly in from Japan, Norway, and even Australia every summer to drive the Mother Road, despite the fact that they’ve already seen it. When you ask why they love it so much, invariably, you get the same answer: “It’s the people.”

When we first learned about the ‘Pigs, we wondered how they consistently managed to draw the biggest crowds in Triple-A ball, despite their less-than-stellar record the past three years. After spending four evenings at The Coke last week, we know the answer to that question. It’s the same reason we drive Route 66 every chance we get: It’s the people.

Come back and visit us again! OinK!