For all Chicago Cubs fans, every new baseball season means another season of optimism. Just 162 games stand between us and our first pennant since 1945.

Ryne Sandberg is back. The Cubs are holding their own in the Central Division. Wrigley Field and its green ivy walls are as poised as ever to host the World Series. I'm hopeful.

I have been a Cubs fan since I was a child growing up in the Chicago suburbs. Despite more than half a century of frustrated pennant dreams, the Cubs are still my favorite team. Even when baseball has tested my patience and allegiance, I've always managed to hold on to my soft spot for the Cubs.

In our household, rooting for the Cubs was a family affair. My father talked about the Cubs in the same way a parent talks about an errant but still loved child. "I know they can do it if they don't blow it, which they probably will, so we've got to stand behind them all the way. Who knows? Maybe this is the year."

On rainy summer afternoons, my brothers and I often watched the games on television. We'd act out the plays that had just happened and yell and scream and imitate announcer Jack Brickhouse. And then as soon as the sun came out, with my mother's encouragement, we'd all go out into the backyard and play the game all over again.

It is that atmosphere of enthusiasm, support and continuing hopefulness that I think unites all Cubs fans. Not many of us can re-create what it felt like to be a kid or a teen-ager watching the Cubs play. I can't remember any of the statistics I'd memorize and discuss with my friends, but the Cubs gave us wonderful memories that we can draw upon when we need them.

Since leaving Chicago, I've discovered that Cubs fans are everywhere, connected by a set of complicated emotions and attachments that only Cubs fans fully understand.

It doesn't matter what city we're in. We quickly recognize each other. We're the ones with a look of undaunted optimism on our faces. Some might call it foolishness or naivete, but we prefer to call it what Ernie Banks calls it — positivism.

We know that being a Cubs fan prepares you for life (and, I've discovered, for Washington and politics).

Season after season, we learn that even though our faith will be tested, it can't be extinguished, no matter how many setbacks or defeats we have to endure.

It was Mr. Cub himself, Ernie Banks, who came to embody the ebullient spirit of optimism that has been the team's trademark over the decades. I remember watching Ernie Banks play. He was not just a hero on the field — in the batter's box, at shortstop and at first base — but also a role model in our daily lives. He was the rare person who, throughout a long career, consistently embodied ideals of grace, humility, civility and loyalty.

Ernie Banks played for the Cubs for 19 years. He played for 10 different managers. During that time, the team never won the pennant. But none of that stopped Ernie from hitting 512 home runs, knocking in 1,636 runs, collecting 2,583 hits and being the first player from a team with a losing record to be named Most Valuable Player.

He taught us all to smile, play hard, do our best and keep going no matter what obstacles stood in our way. I think of him, his positive attitude and his pure love of the sport and forget about the contract disputes, roving franchises and bench-clearing brawls that have cast ugly shadows over baseball.

A few years ago, I met Ernie and several other stars who had played for the Cubs when I was growing up. They were in Washington for a luncheon held by Cubs fans who give out an annual "Ernie Banks Positivism Award."

That was in 1994, the same year I was invited to throw out the first ball at Wrigley Field and sit up in the announcer's box with Harry Caray for a few innings.

I hadn't played baseball in quite a few years, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Fortunately, my husband had taken me out to the Rose Garden a few days earlier for a practice round of pitch-and-catch, and my father's pitching tips were still etched in my memory.

Still, it wasn't until I let go of the ball and saw it land safely in the catcher's glove that I breathed a sigh of relief. "Holy Cow!" I thought, in best Harry Caray fashion.

Or, as Ernie Banks would have said, "Let's play two."

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