108-year-old Cubs fan ready to see team win it all

Sarah Schulte Image
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Mabel Ball
A lifelong Cubs fan has waited and lived long enough to hopefully see her beloved Cubs win again.

NORTHBROOK, Ill. (WLS) -- Two months before the Cubs won the World Series in 1908, Mabel Ball was born. The lifelong Cubs fan has waited and lived long enough to hopefully see her beloved Cubs win again.

"As time goes and they begin to make an impression you keep hoping they'll do well and get to the top," she said.

Baseball was always part of Ball's life. Although, it took her until she was 90 before attending a game at Wrigley Field.

"I didn't go to the games, I just listened," she said.

"Vince Lloyd, Lou Boudreau, Jack Brickhouse all those names were familiar with me my whole life because Mom had the games on," Richard Ball, her son, said.

Ball's 75-year-old son said similar to many Chicago-area homes, listening to the Cubs on the radio was like background noise in their home growing up. Mabel Ball never thought the 1908 or 1945 World Series would become years so significant in Cubs history.

"Some of these things were important at the time and you enjoyed it but you didn't think of it being newsworthy it was just part of the day," she said.

Taking it one day at a time is how Ball lives her life. She lives at the Covenant Village in Northbrook, the 108-year-old knows she has beaten the odds. She hopes the Cubs do too.

"Go Cubs go, I'm going to root for you more than ever," she said.