He’s been waiting more than 70 years. She, even longer.
Jim Mowery and Loretta Dolan are among the legions of long-suffering Chicago Cubs fans, who’ve been hoping, praying, fingers-crossing almost a lifetime that this year will be THE year their beloved team breaks its ignominous streak.
And now that the Cubs are closer than they’ve ever been since 1945 to winning the World Series, no one is more excited than them – the most patient fans in sports.
Here, we meet three of them:
Jim Mowery
Jim Mowery is 83. He was in the stands to see the Cubs lose Game 7 to the Detroit Tigers. That was on October 10, 1945. He was only 12, but he remembers it well.
“It was a long night, drizzly night,” Mowery told CNN affiliate WBBM.
Mowery said he paid $1.50 for his ticket back in 1945 — he still has his ticket stub.
Tickets for this year’s series are selling for a lot more. The average is about $7,200 a seat.
But he’ll be back at Wrigley Field on Friday for Game 3.
“I think the Cubs will win in six,” he said. “I wish four, but I think six.”
Loretta Dolan
Loretta Dolan will be watching the World Series on TV and the 102-year-old will be keeping score.
She’s been doing it all her life – notebooks full of scorecards, going back to 1963.
“Otherwise I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t know who was up,” Dolan told CNN affiliate WLS.
Gram, as she’s known, has thrown the first pitch at Wrigley twice — most recently to celebrate her 100th birthday.
She thinks this team is special.
“When they get up to bat, they haven’t got an angry look. They smile… I think that’s what keeps me going with them,” Dolan said.
Lenore Gomez-Bustamante
Lenore Gomez-Bustamante has done a lot of praying this season.
The 95-year-old great-grandmother of 28 has family over to watch every game in her second floor apartment filled with Cubs signs and memorabilia. A Cubs “W” flag hangs over the balcony.
“It’s been fun, lots of nerves, lots of praying,” she told CNN affiliate WGN.
She’s been repeating the Cubs fan mantra – “maybe next year — for far too long. She’s confident this will be the year.
“I knew some day they would make history,” she said.
Addison and Clark McFarland
On the other end of the spectrum, Addison and Clark McFarland will never know what it’s like to love a team that hasn’t gone to the World Series in their lifetime.
The four-month-old twins were born in June and their parents decided to name them after the intersection that faces Wrigley Field’s iconic red marquis.
“It was a few weeks before opening day, so it made sense to us,” he said.
They’ve already been to their first game.
It was in April and they were still in the womb, but their dad, Scott McFarland, says it still counts.
McFarland, 33, has been a fan his entire life and used to watch games on TV with his grandfather.
The family plans to go to Chicago for Saturday’s game, so it can at least be near Wrigley.
Scott McFarland says they’d love to get the twins into the game.
But even if they can’t, it will make for a great story.
And, for all of them – these patient Cubs fans — maybe, finally, a happy one.