Kurt: Welcome to Round 2 of the Debateacolypse! This one should go perhaps three or four rounds and will consist of myself debating the great Uncouth Sloth about a topic that sprang to mind during the first great debate ... the use of the term "Cubbies."

My opening statement is thus:

I fully support the use of the word Cubbies. I understand why some people oppose its usage, although I think it's mostly hip thinking from the cool kids in the back of class. But much as we all have pet names for the things we love, why not have a pet name for our favorite baseball team? What does it hurt? Why do people get so offended? I can't help but ask.

Rob: I wish I knew how to make my name bold, like Kurt did. I guess he can come along and do it for me when he comes back here. (Note from Kurt: hold down the control button and push b on your keyboard)

Having admitted that I am particularly stupid, how does that position me in a favorable light in an intellectual debate? It doesn't at all, at all, except for one thing: Kurt is trying to convince you that referring to the Cubs as "cubbies" is an okay thing, and I am here to tell you otherwise, which is like stealing candy from a baby.

I mean, do they call the Oakland Raiders the "raiderbees"? How about the Jordan era Bulls...did any of you call them the "bullies"? You did? Are you a grandma? Are you MY grandma? If so, aren't you supposed to be DEAD or something?

To me, the whole concept of "cubbies" goes right along with the whole Jack Brickhouse 'sun is always shining, the cubbies are always in the game' flavor of blue kool aid we were forced to choke down when we really sucked. I'm going to give the old perv the benefit of the doubt, because I have actually sat three feet away from him (Cubs Caravan 1979) and listened to him actually swear like a stevadore when describing how frustrating for him it was when the product on the field was terrible and he was charged with keeping people interested in the program.

Old 'Hey-Hey' was selling a product, he was cynically preying on the soft-shelled minds of the little kids and housewives who were watching 6th-place baseball on a day-in, day-out basis, hypnotizing us with his Peoria corn-pone patter, trying to convince us that the "cubbies" are never more than one big rally away from beating the Reds or Pirates today!

I can't even type "cubbies" with upper case, the whole name is so distasteful and undignified to me....

Kurt: It seems to me that a lot of baseball teams have pet names - more so than what you get in other sports. The Cardinals are the Cards, Redbirds, or Deadbirds. The Yankees are the Yanks. The Red Sox are the Sawx. The Royals are That Team What Sucks. Y'know, cutsie pet names that convey familiarity and love.

I'll acknowledge this much to you, Rob. When Harry Caray called them the Cubbies during the 7th inning stretch, I never once hesitated to sing along. When self-described Cub fans call them the Cubbies, I'm okay with that, too. But when asshole commentators who either know nothing about or flat out hate our team calls them the Cubbies, then I am offended. It should be our word that we get to say whenever we want. Don't you agree with me, my cubbie? Are there any cubbies out there with the balls to stand up and disagree with me?

When a cubbie speaks true, a cubbie speaks true. /end rant with borderline racist undercurrent

Seriously, I agree with you that it can be annoying when no-nothings use the phrase, but I try to come from the school of not judging other Cub fans because they're not the same as me. So, when I'm at a game and some idiot wants to tell me that Dusty Baker got a bad rap and should still be the manager, I can shrug my shoulders and shake my head, but is he any less of a Cubs fan than me just because he's resoundingly stupid? Nah. I'm cool with it. Same with when middle aged ladies wearing Cub jerseys and perm-mullets go on about "the Cubbies." It's harmless, isn't it?

Rob: now, how do I turn this thing off?

Very clever, equating "cubbies" with the evil N-word. Is that an attempt to give it some, uh, street cred?

I disagree that it rankles me more to hear "outsiders" use the term more than when so-called Cubs fans use it - to me, that's a true sign that the user doesn't understand shit about being the same type of Cubs fan I am - one who wants to win! And yes, that included Harry Caray, formerly employed by the Cardinals AND White Sox, who used it in his song, arguably, to preserve the pentameter of the tune, but every time it did it bugged me, and I would NOT say "cubbies" when it came up, I would simply say "Cubs", pentameter me no pentameters.

It is one of the surefire ways I can sniff out bandwagon jumpers, ala Kyle's experience down in the Harvard of the Cornfields. I ask you if you are a Cubs fan, and you say "shure, I luv teh cubbies", then I ask u where ur black Jetta is parked, and when ur back is turned, I then go and piss in ur gas tank.

Some of the current pet names being used for the Cubs, as they have been for the past 100 years, include "Lovable Losers", "Bartmans", "Billy Goats", "Flubs", "Scrubs", and "Around the league, losers included the..."

They don't need any more pet names. They need an identity that incorporates winning, disembowelment, and torture of prisoners.

Kurt: Well, maybe the C-Word is like the N-Word ... people are offended by both, and they both are used by people who should know better, right? Right?

Anyway. I think we should let people use the C-Word. Think about it this way ... the way people express themselves is how other people can figure out their sensibilities and character. If you have a racist cousin who never cursed minorities, wouldn't you be shocked to hear about the time when he dragged a cubbie down a dirt road while keeping him chained to the back of his pick-up truck? At least if you heard him say cubbie this and cubbie that, you'd know a) that he's a worthless racist piece of crap and b) to keep your kids away from him.

Therefore, I welcome people to use the word Cubbie. It tells me exactly what I need to know about them as people and as baseball fans. If I hear a fan say "let's go Cubbies!" I don't even need to look at him to see that he has a pair of rose-colored glasses covering his fool's expression, nor do I need to look at him to notice his heapin' pitcher of the cubbie blue koolaid that he's been chugging. But if he didn't use the word "Cubbies," then I'd possibly have to engage him in conversation to learn that he's a moron.

Make sense? Having laid forth that argument, I'm still considered Pro-Cubbies, right? Granted, I probably just contradicted myself, but going back to read what I wrote earlier is so much work. Plus, I don't think you can really argue with my logic.

Rob: it would be a little unseemly to tell the kid that: it is easy to argue with logic, but impossible to argue with illogic. Anyway, it would be rude for me to say that on the same day he showed me how to embolden my name.

See, once you've proven your own stupidity, it's best to clam up shut. True story. Once walking home from a frat party, I encountered an actual propeller-wearing weenie, who said he was new on campus, and he wanted assistance in finding his way home. Fair enough, seemed like a humble chap at first. Hah! Was I wrong! He went on to ramble for about twenty minutes about how he was attending school on scholarship, on account of being one of the top ten math brains in the country.

Um, sure, so I tossed the hardest Calculus problem I could grunge up at 1AM at him, and he solved it without breaking stride, and was awfully proud of himself for doing so. At which point I broke away towards my own pad, and he wailed about my leaving him.

I said, hey, if yer so damn smart, find yer own pluckin' way home.

So I no longer care to quibble with young Kurtis about the use of the appellation "cubbies" for our favorite sports team. He kind of beat me when he showed me how to use a simple tool that we've all been using for years - although he did kind of double back on himself, and proposed we use the term to weed out them that matter from them that don't, which is pretty much how I have utlilized the term all along. Like a great Calculus problem, the issue has achieved harmonic convergence, and we now have the ultimate ruling on the use of the word "cubbies".

I'll just, um, let Kurt tell us all what that ruling is.

Kurt: Nah, I'm going to pass the buck onto the readers. If you've gotten this far with us, why not comment below and tell us your opinion on the deal?

Rob, I can understand your thoughts and views on this. But, if you have been using the term "cubbies" as a way to gage the idiocy of Cub fans, then haven't you been supporting its usage (by idiots) all along? I'm just saying, if you're at a game and your neighbors say "let's go Cubbies!", then don't admonish them for their use of that word. They've saved you from the inconvenience of having to figure out if they were worth getting to know better.* And if you're at a game with a good friend who - as it turns out - uses that term as well, then you now know that it's perfectly okay to screw his wife, steal his car, and leave him lying in a ditch with a newly contracted case of syphilis. ...wait, sorry, what was I talking about again? Oh, right, right....

So, let's close this article down and leave it up to the reader to judge. Tell us, how do you feel when people use the term "Cubbies?" Does it drive you nuts? Does it make you dance? We want to know.

*Unless they happen to be visiting from the Playboy Mansion. At that case, they can do whatever they want. Sure, honey, his name is Donny Lee, and Arnie Ramirez really is a good third baseman. Yep, keep talkin', keep talkin'.