Pirate Galaxy » looking anymore.We signed our bar tabs whe

LONDON -- Fourth-seeded David Ferrer overcame another slow start to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals with a 6-7 (3), 7-6 (6), 6-1, 6-1 victory over Ivan Dodig of Croatia. Having trailed twice in the previous round before winning in five sets, Ferrer struggled initially to create opportunities on Dodigs serve and was two points from going two sets down against the Croat. But he dominated the final two sets, breaking Dodig five times and clinching the match with a forehand winner. Coming off his first career Grand Slam final at the French Open, Ferrer reached his second straight Wimbledon quarterfinal. He will play the winner between No. 8 Juan Martin del Potro and Andreas Seppi. CHICAGO -- We arrived at the corner of Sheffield and Waveland around 9 a.m., and a rough count put only 125 people ahead in line. We didnt have tickets to the game, at least most of us didnt, so we wanted to stand with a crowd of fellow fans in Murphys Bleachers, the famous baseball bars patio in the glow of the Wrigley red neon sign. We came because we felt compelled to be close to it, to know this electricity and claim a piece of it for ourselves. We wanted to know what it felt like in Chicago, when the World Series finally returned to town. The memories would be something to hold onto, long after the souvenirs were gone. It would be a shared experience to find the silly and overwrought things we felt for a baseball team.We wanted proof we werent insane.Then we paid a $100 cover to go into a bar without tables or chairs, and we stood and drank beer for the next nine hours.We ordered shots and burgers and beers. In the hour before the first pitch, we cheered when Eddie Vedder came in the back door of the bar, through the alley by the train tracks. We cursed the fire marshal, who decided to police these bars on their biggest weekend in history. We saw Vedder lean over the railing from the roof and throw a towel down into the crowd. We serenaded him.Someday well go all the way, we sang.We showed off the photo of our mother on our phone, of her holding the newspaper that came out the morning after the Cubs won the pennant. She has Alzheimers and thought we were messing with her at first. We are named Todd and we are drunk. We laughed at how much wed paid for a ticket to tomorrow nights game, and then we said, with complete earnestness, Today Todd doesnt have to worry about. Thats Tomorrow Todd.The national anthem began and we sang, all of us -- an entire bar, with men taking off ball caps and putting them over their hearts. The cops outside stood at attention, too, and we screamed out the last lines. Then we started chanting, F--- Joe Buck ... F--- Joe Buck, because, well, we were drunk and nervous.A breeze blew through the back bar. We dressed up as Harry Caray. When the Cubs scored first, we rang the ships bell, hanging in a corner by an enormous 10-point elk. We ordered shots of Jameson to celebrate. We dont drink Protestant hooch in Murphys Bleachers. We hung signs in our apartment windows across from the bar, signs that read, Its gonna happen. We really believed that -- especially early, in those brief moments when the Cubs led.We got aggressively drunk when the Indians tied, and then the spiral began when the Indians took the leead.dddddddddddd The bar became quiet, except for a group who chanted down near the Waveland Avenue patio. There was a television camera set up nearby, which probably explains the chanting. We act like a fool when were putting on a show for TV, but the purest expression of sports fandom is the quiet internal burn, with only brief glimpses breaking the surface: a cigarette smoked clean down to the filter, or a head hung, resting in two hands, slumped over a bar. Today Todd clinched and unclenched his jaw. Tomorrow Todd wont remember doing that at all.We turned to a man next to us and said, Were in this together. Lets just hold it together.The same people who ordered shots to celebrate the 1-0 lead now ordered shots to make the 4-1 deficit feel a bit better. We started looking for company for the night and found a guy from Tampa, Florida. We touched his side, and told our girlfriend about his muscular back, and when we did a shot together, we kissed his cheek. His friends tied a balloon to him in case he got lost. We called him our future husband.If you dont believe in love at Murphys Bleachers, we said, you dont believe in love.We texted a friend: F--- Kluber.The mood in the bar turned, a little menacing in a pocket or two but mostly just empty and hollow, like no one could remember what we felt in the 9 a.m. sunshine, when so many great things seemed not only possible but likely, and to some, even ordained. That feeling died quick and hard. We turned away from the television and said, Im not looking anymore.We signed our bar tabs when the Indians went up 7-1, then walked out into a chilly night, the blue Christmas lights on the Murphys trees now seeming a little sad. Three people left the bar during the seventh-inning stretch and sang along with the crowd.Its a shame, they sang in a loud voice at the end.The bars emptied during the last two innings. People walked quietly down Waveland.The whole point of coming to Wrigleyville was to find out how it feels, and we found a feeling all right, just not the one we wanted. That feeling remains unknown and elusive, still out of reach, after 108 years, after four games. We wore technicolor fedoras and $50 fitted New Era hats. The crowd waiting on the Red Line stretched out into Addison. A woman sat texting on a stoop in a Cubs jersey and Chuck Taylors. One stoop down, two guys were eating apples, watching the silent march of people heading away from Wrigley Field. ' ' '