Having a birthday in December has very few advantages if you dwell in a wintry climate, as I do. Most years, my birthday is a cold and miserable one, gloomy and dark and overshadowed by the holidays. And that’s fine; I am not a big birthday person, so I don’t mean to complain about that element.
But as a sports fan, I’ve always wanted to be able to celebrate my birthday in conjunction with one of my favorite teams. Baseball fans with summer birthdays have incredible good fortune in this regard; they have warm weather, the beautiful ballpark, lots of sunlight and all that goes with it. I, on the other hand, have my abusive spouse-like football team, the Chicago Bears, to torture me.
I thought back upon it, and I couldn’t recall if the Bears had ever won a game on my birthday. I remember a party on my golden birthday in 1990 where the Bears lost to the Washington Redskins. So I did some research, and discovered that, lo and behold, my favorite team had never gifted me a victory on my birthday. Not only that, in the four instances during my lifetime that they’ve played on December 9th, they’ve performed especially hideously on that date. Let’s have a look:
1984: my third birthday
The beloved achieved their highest offensive output in any of the December 9th games, scoring 14 points against the hated Green Bay Packers. Starting quarterback Rusty Lisch – nope, I’ve never heard of him either – threw no touchdowns and an interception in the 20-14 loss. But noteworthy was Hall of Fame running back Walter Payton’s touchdown pass to Matt Suhey, which was – disturbingly – the first of only two passing touchdowns the Bears have mustered on my birthday to date. That’s correct: four games, two passing touchdowns, one of which was by a running back. Wow.
1990: my ninth birthday
Quarterback Jim Harbaugh led an explosive Chicago scoring attack to three Kevin Butler field goals. Redskins quarterback Mark Rypien desperately attempted to gift myself and my Bears the victory by throwing a stunning five interceptions, but Harbaugh’s own pair of misfires ultimately sealed our fate in a 10-9 nail biter. Boy, that sucked.
2001: my twentieth birthday
It took eleven years for the calendar to align with the schedule and allow the Bears another crack at breaking the hex of my birthday. And let’s face it, if there was an appropriate decade in team history to skip, it was the 1990s. After all, they’d compiled a 70-98 record following the ‘90 game through the 2000 season, the odds were well stacked against me during those lean years.
But if ever there was a year they could do it, 2001 was it. They came into my 20th birthday with a record of 9-2, the surprise Cinderella team of the entire NFL (well, one of them… the other one had Tom Brady). The Bears had this incredible streak of luck. They won back to back games where safety Mike Brown returned interceptions for touchdowns in overtime. Hell, their quarterback had the same name as my best friend! How could this team let me down?
The game was a rematch against one of only two teams that had beaten the Bears that year, the loathsome Green Bay Packers. Quarterback Jim Miller threw for… an interception. The Bears lost to Brett Favre and the Packers, 17-7. The lone score came on a run by rookie running back Anthony Thomas. The Bears won their next four games that year and went into the playoffs at 13-3, where Donovan McNabb and the Philadelphia Eagles promptly disposed of them in the final game played in old Soldier Field. The bottle of Jack Daniels I followed that game with had no chance. Neither did the futon I reupholstered that night.
2002: my twenty-first birthday.
In retrospect, this would’ve been a good game to go to. A jaunt down to Miam in December for my 21st? Take in a Bears-Dolphins game? What could be bad about that? Nothing… except for the game itself. The Bears achieved what I thought was impossible that Monday night: putting on their worst performance my birthday had ever seen.
Chicago had three quarterbacks on the roster that day, and all three of them played… and played badly. Miller completed three passes for nine yards – and an interception – before being carted mercifully off the field with an injury. Chris Chandler heated it up for 86 yards on 7 completions, but blemished his Unitasian effort by throwing two interceptions of his own.
But wait, there’s more!
After Chandler proved his worth(lessness), coach Dick Jauron put in perhaps the most infamously inept quarterback in Chicago Bears history: Canadian Football League legend Henry Burris. ”Smilin’ Hank” completed one pass. Of course, that pass was the lone touchdown thrown by a Chicago Bears quarterback on any of my birthdays.
As you might imagine, the Bears lost to the Dolphins that Monday night, 27-9. (They were so bad they botched the extra point after Burris’ touchdown.) Chicago quarterbacks – dig this – completed just 11 of their 32 passes for 101 yards, a touchdown, and three interceptions.
Cumulatively, the Bears are 0-4 on my birthday, and their running backs have thrown as many touchdowns as their quarterbacks, who boast a 1-to-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
I can’t even imagine how this is possible.
I mean, it’s not as if they owe it to me to win on my birthday. But for God’s sake, it’s also the birthday of the greatest linebacker in history, Bears legend Dick Butkus! Surely if they don’t care for me, they must care for Number 51!
Ehh, maybe not… the day the team retired Butkus’ number 51, they lost 33-6 to Favre and the Packers.
Happy birthday, Mr. Butkus. Happy birthday to both of us.