For Cubs Fans, Everlasting Hope With Dread to Match First baseman Anthony Rizzo at the Cubs" annual fan convention. Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press CHICAGO - A legion of die-hard Cubs fans converged here at a downtown hotel this weekend for the team's annual fan convention. They were children and adults, wearing blue-and-red jerseys, hats and face paint, armed with baseball cards, pennants and posters to be autographed. On Saturday, they crowded into a ballroom, stuffing bags of souvenirs under their seats, for question-and-answer sessions with team management. One session was with the owners Tom, Todd and Laura Ricketts; another was with members of the front office, including Theo Epstein, the team's president, and Jed Hoyer, the general manager. Since Epstein's arrival in Chicago from Boston two and a half years ago, the Cubs have lost 197 games, the most in back-to-back seasons in franchise history. The team's biggest move of the off-season would be the acquisition of the backup catcher George Kottaras, if not for the introduction last week of the mascot Clark the Cub, an anthropomorphic bear. A news release from the team described Clark as "young and friendly." Baseball Prospectus ranks the Cubs" farm system the second best in baseball, but this year's starting lineup for the major league club is expected to feature such luminaries as Donnie Murphy at third base and Justin Ruggiano in the outfield. Renovations of Wrigley Field, once scheduled to begin this winter, have not started. A new television deal with an accompanying influx in cash is in the works, too. The fans at the convention, eagerness in their eyes and perpetual hope in their hearts, alternated between wide-eyed optimism for the future Epstein has promised and apprehension over a 2014 season that will probably resemble the previous two. Georgia Leese, a 79-year-old fan wearing a Greg Maddux jersey, stepped to a microphone and told the Ricketts family that this was her 28th consecutive Cubs Convention. "I just hope we can hurry it up," she said to Tom Ricketts. Another fan said he had never had more difficulty writing a check than when he paid $11,000 for his season tickets this year. "What I'm paying for and what I'm seeing are two different things," he said. He was greeted with a round of applause. One day, the theory goes, it will all change. The farm system will produce young stars the way Epstein's Red Sox once did, players like Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester. A championship will follow, just as in Boston. Side by side with the bleak outlook for 2014 was a vision of the brighter days ahead. On Friday night, young men in designer suits and with gelled hair mingled with reporters. The group included Kris Bryant, 22, the third baseman the Cubs drafted second over all last year; Albert Almora, 19, the potential five-tool outfielder selected sixth in 2012; and Jorge Soler, 21, a slugging outfielder who defected from Cuba. In all, 16 players were in town last week for a rookie development camp. "The core," as Almora called them, participated in workouts, met their fellow prospects and received an introduction to life as a Cub. The players visited snow-blanketed Wrigley and went to a Blackhawks game. Bryant said he marveled at the fans who camped out in the hotel lobby seeking autographs, even before the convention had started. "Their passion makes you want to come through for them," he said. What remains a mystery, though, is when the Cubs will stop building and start winning. Their revenue ranks near the top among major league clubs, but their payroll is expected to again be closer to the bottom. A bold push for the Japanese free-agent pitcher Masahiro Tanaka - a hot topic over the weekend - would quiet some skeptics, but questions remain about the financial commitment of the ownership. Epstein pointed to investments in international players and new facilities in the Dominican Republic and at the Cubs" spring training home in Arizona, but he avoided answering the question of whether he had the resources he had expected when he took the job. He used the word "audibles" to describe the changing circumstances with stadium renovations and business operations. One woman told Epstein that her grandmother had not lived long enough to see the Cubs win a World Series. The woman needed a line to feed the next generation of Cubs fans in her family. When would they see a Series at Wrigley? "Tell your nieces and nephews they're fans of an organization with the second-best farm system in baseball," Epstein said. With a developing young core that's going to be here for a long time, that's going to be the heart of teams that are contending year in and year out; that if you were betting on any organization in baseball, over the long term, I would bet on the Cubs. The woman recorded the answer with her cellphone. As Epstein spoke, she nodded along, a smile on her face and a blank look in her eyes.