Tinley Woman Gets Box Full Of Cubs Gear After 'W' Flag Complaint

TINLEY PARK, IL — At first, Cassie McDonald thought posting a copy of the letter she received from a frustrated neighbor regarding the flying of her Chicago Cubs ‘W’ flag in the Tinley Park Community Watch Facebook group would bring out more people asking her to take the flag down. After all, Tinley Park is one of the more Chicago White Sox-friendly suburbs of Chicago.

But not only did she receive support for her team loyalty (from Cubs and White Sox fans alike), the post went “viral,” she said. And one week later, McDonald became the recipient of a box filled with all sorts of Cubs memorabilia.

After the letter McDonald received about the ‘W’ flag was shared by local and national media, a leading maker of novelty and memorabilia decided to donate several Cubs-related items to McDonald.

“After this went viral, I got an email from Daniel from Rico Industries and I almost deleted it,” McDonald said. “They manufacture lots of sports memorabilia and he caught wind of the story and asked if he could bring by a car package.”

Soon after, McDonald found a “huge box” full of flags, window stickers, mardi gras beads, key chains and car magnets at her doorstep.

“He (Daniel) is a huge Cubs fan and saw how viral it went and wanted to make sure I had enough ‘W’s considering the Cubs just won the championship and all,” McDonald said. “I’m happy he wanted to support my fandom so much.”

McDonald is stunned at how big her sharing of the letter became. The letter, who she swears to this day is still unsure of who sent it, included a snarky request for McDonald to lose the “trashy” and “frat-house looking” ‘W’ flag that flies over her porch.

The letter read:

"After many conversations with our neighbors from across 167th Street, we are asking if you could please take down the "w" flag off of your porch and put it on a flag pole, where it should be hung. Hanging it off your front porch is very frat house looking and makes our area look bad - just like the run down apartments on the North Side of 167th Street just East of Harlem. If you haven't noticed how trashy they look with their flags hanging off their balconies, maybe you will now. Thanks."

READ MORE: Tinley Woman Asked To Take Down ‘W’ Flag

McDonald told Tinley Park Patch that she was in “disbelief” when she opened the letter, which was mailed to her but had no return address.

“We’ve been here five years and no one has ever complained,” she said. “The flag has been up for about a year.”

She thought “by posting it on the community watch page maybe people would agree with the letter, that I should take it (the flag) down.”

“But I actually got a ton of support and heard from a ton of Sox fans not to worry about it,” she said. “It was surprising to get so much support from fans of another team. The community has been nothing short of amazing. I’m very happy with the outcome and certainly didn’t expect this to reach this magnitude.”

McDonald - who surely knows many a White Sox fan having grown up in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood, attending Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School on the South Side and beginning her adult life in Tinley Park - traces her Cub fandom back about a dozen years when she lived in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the city’s North Side and worked for a pair of bosses who had Cubs season tickets and would occasionally offer them to her.

One day, her boss “told me to get out of the office and have fun."

“And over the course of the last 13 years I have grown to become a real fan,” she said.

Even as her White Sox fan friends were celebrating a world championship of their own in 2005, McDonald remained true to the Cubs.

“But I did celebrate the Sox that year,” she said. “If you are from Chicago, you should back up all of your teams.”

The new Cubs gear will come in handy for McDonald this year as the team fights for a spot in the playoffs and a chance to defend their 2016 World Series championship.

And although her friends want her to use the new gear to go all out with an even larger Cubs display on the front yard, she says she does not want “to make anyone mad.”

“We are still trying to figure out what to do with this box of goodies,” she said. “We might decorate our cars, put maybe one more flag out front but we don’t want any issues.”

One of the flags has already been put to use. It was draped over the family’s horse for a perfect photo opportunity.

McDonald said at first she was curious as to who wrote her the letter about her first ‘W’ flag, but now it’s not something she is thinking about.

“At this point, whoever wrote it would never admit to it anyway.”

Top photo: A look inside the box of Chicago Cubs memorabilia donated to Cassie McDonald by Rico Industries / Photo provided by Cassie McDonald