Everyone these days seems to have a Chicago Cubs story, so here's mine, and it all happened 31 years ago, about 2,050 miles away from Wrigley Field.

My dad's family had just moved back to San Juan, Puerto Rico, after spending a few years in Texas. The humid Houston heat I despised turned into the the most joyous summers days of my life back home on the island where I was born.

I was 16 years old, it was 1985 and my grandfather, Papito Juan, introduced me to Harry Caray and the Cubbies.

The introduction wasn't anything spectacular. It happened just an hour after my Abuela Lydia cooked a celebratory lunch for my return back home. Soon enough, Papito Juan heading over to his rocking chair, remote in hand, turned on the television to WGN.

The Cubs were on a 13-game losing streak, but they were playing at Wrigley that afternoon. And my Papito Juan had hope in his eyes.

"Maybe they'll finally win, Julito. Watch the game with me," he said in Spanish.

I had known about the Cubs. I mean, what baseball fan didn't, and the team's 1984 regular-season success and ultimate postseason failure only added to the franchise's goat-bitten history. That afternoon in Puerto Rico, I wasn't a Cubs fan. But my Papito Juan was the biggest Cubs fan I had ever known, and instead of heading over to my cousin's house to binge on MTV, I stayed to watch a baseball game with my grandfather.

It was a decision, to this day, I never regretted.

While Caray announced the game like a tipsy poet laureate against a sun-splashed ivy-wall background, my Papito Juan spent the next few hours yapping about baseball. When a batter got a hit into right field, he would tell me about the time a young Roberto Clemente would throw runners out at home with his eyes closed. When Chicago first baseman Leon Durham stepped up to the plate, my Papito Juan would tell me about Víctor Pellot, who once hit a grand slam so far in Caguas, Puerto Rico, in a winter league game, that people were still talking about it 30 years later.

And, my Papito Juan asked me, "Did you know that the first Puerto Rican to ever play in the majors was Hiram Bithorn, a pitcher who played with the Cubs?"

It didn't matter to me if Papito Juan repeated his stories three or four times that day. I was hooked. There was something about it all: the afternoon game, my grandfather happy to see me back home, me being back home, Caray getting through "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" and me seeing how much my abuelo loved the game.

The Cubs won that day to end their losing streak. When Papito Juan asked me if I would join him again to catch the next day's game, I didn't hesitate.

"Sí, abuelo, bendición," I told him.

"I'll see you tomorrow? Cubs are playing again," he asked.

"Of course," I said.

I returned the next day and any other time the Cubbies played in Wrigley that summer, while my grandfather kept sharing stories of Clemente, Pellot, Bithorn, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Montañez, Sixto Lezcano, Dickie Thon and so many other Puerto Rican baseball players. I even heard the tales of when Satchel Paige and Willie Mays played in Puerto Rico during the winter. After a while, the stories all sounded the same, but I didn't care. I loved when my abuelo told them, and I loved that he loved the Cubs.

So when the Cubs did well after that 1985 season, I always thought of Papito Juan. When Chicago lost in 1989 to the San Francisco Giants in the postseason, I called him from college. When Sammy Sosa ruled the North Side in the late 1990s, we shared some hope that maybe, just maybe, the Cubs would take it. Even after my abuelo got older and left this world, whenever the Cubs got close, I thought of that time in 1985, when I earned my degree in all things Puerto Rican baseball and Wrigley Field.

Which is why during this World Series, 31 years later, all I am thinking about is my Papito Juan. Whenever Javier Baez makes a spectacular play at second base, all I hear is my abuelo telling me why Javi is already the "Next Great Boricua Hope." He'd also tell me that even though he never liked the Cleveland Indians, how can you not love Francisco Lindor, a Caguas kid who plays with drive and passion? My abuelo would be salivating at the prospect of Baez and Lindor leading Puerto Rico to a World Baseball Classic championship, especially if Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta joins them.

I can only imagine the conversations we would be having now. Rooting for the Cubs and rooting for Puerto Rico.

Bendición, Papito Juan. Here's hoping your Cubbies finally win it for you.

Julio Ricardo Varela is the political editor for the Futuro Media Group (producers of Latino USA and In the Thick). He is also the founder of LatinoRebels.com.