Cubs Rally: 'This is it'
CUBS RALLY | 10,000 fans crowd into Daley Plaza
Haydee "Connie" Kluber -- a native of Puerto Rico -- doesn't speak much English, but ask her if the Cubs are going to win the World Series this year, and she's irked enough to snarl out an answer in Ingles.
"What you think?" snapped the 55-year-old Chicago homemaker, sporting a pink Cubs ball cap. "I'm sorry, but that's a stupid question. You know the Cubs will win the World Series, already."
With varying degrees of unshakable confidence, Kluber and some 10,000 Cubs fans -- a city estimate -- swarmed into Daley Plaza Monday morning to declare: This is the year the North Siders finally bury 99 years of misery.
"A chance like this comes along once in a blue moon, and let me tell you, this is a blue moon, and they're going to make it," said Rosemary Libby, 77, a retired legal secretary from Barrington.
Leading the cheers Monday at the Cubs rally -- beneath drizzly gray skies -- was a host of former Cubs players, other local celebrities and politicians.
With the crowd chanting, "Put it on! Put it on!" Mayor Daley -- a loyal White Sox fan -- gamely donned a Cubs ball cap.
"My hat goes off to Cubs fans!" Daley told the crowd, to which the crowd chanted back: "Leave it on! Leave it on!"
Daley obliged, and endured some boisterous ribbing from Gov. Blagojevich, a Cubs fan.
"Mayor, now you know how I felt in 2005," said Blagojevich, referring to the White Sox winning the World Series in 2005.
Blagojevich joked that when he's making a decision as governor, he now asks himself how Cubs manager Lou Piniella might tackle the problem.
"What would Lou do?" the governor said.
As giddy Cubs fans -- including some office workers in high-rises overlooking the plaza -- sang and danced, no one seemed particularly interested in past meltdowns, curses, etc.
"This is it," said Greg Trovillion, 54, of Antioch. "No more billy goats. No more curses. The wait is over."