The Cubs picked the perfect weekend series to celebrate the 1984 Cubs. The hated Mets are in town and Sunday night’s game is on the 40th anniversary of the Sandberg game and the Cubs are unveiling the Ryne Sandberg statue.

Saturday night I was able to attend a mini celebration of the ’84 team with other diehard Cub fans that were there for that season. As it turns out there were a handful of other gatherings this week. People wonder what’s the particular fascination with this team. After all, they famously fell short in Game 5 of the NLCS to the Padres.

I’ve already posted about the significance of this team to me and the city and heading into the weekend I wondered if it meant as much to the players. Fans assume everything means as much to the players, regardless of the team or particulars.

I have no doubt that every member of that team didn’t feel the same way as the three guys that showed up last night. The organizer of this event had Ron Cey, Leon Bull Durham, Bobby Dernier and Jody Jodee Davis. Due to circumstances beyond his control, Cey couldn’t make it.

And without divulging what we learned from the guys, the moderator did an excellent job of directing the discussion. Every team each year is different and has its own particular dynamic. These 3 guys did a great job of describing the season from their point of view and how they saw the change in the fans and city as we all realized the team was for real.

While our roles in the relationship were well defined at no point did they look down on the fans. Rather, they enjoyed the relationship-one that couldn’t exist today with social media and the disparity in income. The guys that returned to Chicago this weekend to honor Ryno and support him during his battle with cancer needed and wanted to be here and to celebrate and remember with the fans.

As some sort of defense mechanism, fans are very protective of their fandom and the team and players they love. We don’t welcome interlopers, but we accept bandwagon jumpers during the fact. The interlopers pretend they were there in the past, misremembering games they never attended.

While the three gents shared stories and answered questions on stage, the soundtrack of ’84 was playing. None of the fans needed to proclaim where they were on such and such a date. We all had different experiences, some shared but mostly distinct. From what I heard, we were all alive in 1984 but were at different stages in life or fandom.

The ’84 season didn’t end the way any of us wanted and nobody discussed the abject failure that 1985 season was. While that season and team was important to all of us back then for different reasons, we’re all 40 years older and a lot has happened (most notably the 2016 season), but the team still resonates.