Hi, everyone. This is Jon Weisman, normally of Dodger Thoughts, doing the Manic Monday switcheroo with your dependable leaders, Alex and Christian.

I jumped at the chance to write for The Cub Reporter because 1) it’s a great site and 2) the Cubs are my stepbrother team. The Dodgers come first, but I have a brotherhood with the Cubs that comes from my father’s first marriage with baseball - he lived in Chicago until the age of 16 and rooted for the Cubs from the start.

Interestingly, the Brooklyn Dodgers were Dad’s No. 2. He moved to Los Angeles in 1951 and the Dodgers followed in 1958, cementing his alternate rooting interest. Just today, when my father and I talked baseball, it was about the Dodgers not bringing Eric Gagne in during their eighth-inning crisis, not about the Cubs. But I was thinking today and realized that while I see Dad in a Cubs hat many a time, I can’t recall him wearing an LA cap.

So I root for the Cubs when it’s not in conflict with the Dodgers. There are other fans like me in Los Angeles - many more, I suspect, than there are Chicago fans that have a passing affinity for Los Angeles. That’s just the way it works out in a country of westward migration. But you know, if you can send a positive thought the Dodgers’ way in your spare time, we could use it.

Anyway, given this priceless opportunity to address The Cub Reporter legion directly, I thought I’d share the defining moments the Cubs have had in my life.

1) My father attended the last appearance by the Cubs in the World Series, as a 10-year-old in 1945. This simple fact does no less, I feel, than validate him as a human being. I can assure you I take no small pride in being only one degree of separation from a Fall Classic in Wrigley Field.

2) Cubs outfielder Rick Monday rescuing the American flag from being lit on fire by protesters in 1976. As a kid in that bicentennial year, I thought it was pretty awesome. Today, it's still quite something to ponder, though I have always wondered with sincere curiosity what it was those protesters were protesting.

This incident played some role, I believe, in the next ...

3) In January 1977 the Dodgers traded Bill Buckner and Ivan DeJesus to the Cubs for Monday and Mike Garman. I was nine years old and fairly new to the idea of trades, the idea that Dodgers weren’t Dodgers forever - although Joe Ferguson had been traded for Reggie Smith the year before. More significantly, this was the first time in my life that I had a bad feeling about a trade. Buckner, I already knew, was a heck of a hitter. And, despite Monday’s home run to win the 1981 National League Championship Series, I was right. I’m subconsciously reminded of that trade each day I hear Monday drone on as the weakest link of the Dodger broadcast team.

4) That 21-inning game played over two separate days in Wrigley Field in the summer of 1982, won by the Dodgers after Ron Cey was ejected in the 20th inning or so, forcing Fernando Valenzuela into the game as an outfielder. Jerry Reuss won on Day 2 with four innings in relief - then won a second game that same day with five innings as a starter.

5) In 1989, shortly after graduating college, I arranged to travel with various members of my family to several major league parks: Shea Stadium, Yankee Stadium, the Skydome, and in the end, a Sunday at Wrigley Field. While I have fond memories of my only visit to a ballgame in Chicago, they are inexorably intertwined with the dinner we had Saturday night, at which without a doubt the single ugliest fight my family ever had broke out.

6) Uh, didn’t you guys beat us 20-1 or something kinda recently. That was pretty memorable.

Anyway, none of this probably matters to those of you who are worried about more pressing matters - such as the upcoming series between your team and mine in Los Angeles beginning Tuesday. To compensate you for reading the above, you deserve some on-target analysis. So here it is: The Cubs are the Dodgers' most significant test of the season to date. That is the stature of your ballclub. You qualify for the litmus category, and you don’t even have Mark Prior back. You have all the romance of being the Chicago Cubs - plus all the promise of being a championship team. It’s a great time to be a Cubs fan.

Which means, from what I know about Cubs fans, that you must feel lousy right about now.

Thanks for letting me spend some time with you. Looking forward to a fun series this week.