This is great...

I stumbled upon this old article (July 2002) on a site called www.seattlepi.com. Extremely fitting, given my husband's Cubs obsession and our little one's future middle name... {grin}

Sammy, Kerry and Addison

Tricia Lepse might be the coolest wife in Seattle.

When she and husband Dan welcomed their first child five years ago, Dad, a Seattle native but an over-the-top Cubs fan, wanted to name the baby girl Sammy after outfielder Sammy Sosa. They agreed that her full name would be Samantha and her nickname would be Sammy.

Two years later came another baby girl. After wrestling with it, Tricia agreed to call her Kerry, after Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood. Today is Kerry's third birthday.

In January, the Lepses had a third child -- a girl, of course. Viable Cubs names for girls were running thin. This time Tricia came up with the name: Addison, after the street on the Wrigley perimeter that runs down the first-base line.

It might be best they haven't had a boy.

"He had really discussed Ernie (Banks) as a boy's name," Tricia said. "Ryne (Sandberg) I could even deal with, but Ernie I just couldn't get my head around."

Dan Lepse's mental condition began when, on his seventh birthday, he went to see the Tacoma Cubs, then Chicago's Class AAA farm team. A year after the Seattle Pilots left, he was looking for a favorite team. The next year his family went to a doubleheader at Wrigley Field, and there was no turning back.

So began 30 years of the glorious misery only the Cubs can provide.

"It's like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football," he said. "Lucy keeps pulling the ball away, but he keeps trying. With the Cubs you always know the inevitable is going to happen, but you keep going."

Little by little, he pulled Tricia into his futile obsession. Dan proposed on Opening Day 1993, dropping to one knee underneath the famous Wrigley Field sign at the home-plate corner of Addison and Clark. A Chicago TV crew captured the moment.

"I guess I realized at that point that (the team) was going to be the guiding force in our relationship," said Tricia.

They registered for their wedding with a request for anything red, white and blue. Their kitchen has a Cubs theme, with red and blue dishes, a framed Sandberg photo over the oven and replica street signs for Addison and Clark on the wall.

As you might have surmised by now, the Lepses will be in attendance at Safeco this weekend.

"I think the great fear is that one day you'll decide to bail on the Cubs or jump off the bandwagon, and that's the day they'll win," Dan said. "It's pride in loyalty. There are pockets of fans all over the country, so it's a shared thing. You meet somebody else who's a fan and you wink and you say, 'Wait till next year.'"