Normally, I would agree with you on this one, but after 98 years of utter futility maybe it's a good thing. The Cubs were coined the "Lovable Losers" for years because the home town fans never booed them regardless of just how awful they really were. Going to a Cubs game was all about the Wrigley Field experience. It didn't matter whether the team won or lost, but in recent years, that has begun to change.

It seems that after 2003, the Wrigley Field experience just isn't enough. More and more often, the Cubs are getting booed at home, and while I don't condone boorish behavior, the booing may not be all bad. If you are the owners who have been getting away with putting a sub-par product on the field for all these years by selling the field instead of the team and all of the sudden your patrons care enough to boo, it might not be long until they care enough not to show up at all.

These are not our fathers' Cubs fans. It's a different generation and a different time. We live in a hedonistic society. People want instant results, and in the midst of the information age, people are more aware in some ways than ever before about their own teams and the teams they are competing against. They see the greatest hedonist of all, Steinbrenner, and wonder why their team can't be more like his team.

We also live in a time of societal decay, and people, as a whole, just are not as polite as they used to be.

I'm not inclined to worry too much about his outbursts. We've seen this before: he does something dumb, then he apologizes and acknowledges that he was wrong. I've never seen any indication that he's insincere in those apologies.

I am worried, though, about fans booing him. I know he's struggling, but seriously, what's up with that? He's the best pitcher we've had since Maddux left for the Braves, and probably since Fergie Jenkins.