The Chris Moeller Archives

Five score and one

One of the flowers of my life is rooting for a baseball team whose chief rival hasn't won the World Series since before the death of Red Cloud. It leads to a general feeling of harmony with the natural world. But it doesn't mean that I take any comfort in the team's individual misfortunes or the pain felt by its fans. I've got friends over there, as White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen assured us on Sunday.

"It's Gonna Happen," fans were promised by the Chicago Cubs' marketing staff in 2008, and boy, they were right. The team delivered 97 regular-season wins, then seven walks by their starting pitcher in the first game of the postseason, 4 fielding errors in the second, and a 1 for 11 hitting performance with runners in scoring position in the concluding third. The club has now dropped nine straight post-season games dating back to 2003 and the game immediately preceeding the Bartman adventure.

If it makes Cubs fans feel any better (and their kind is always looking for sympathy from Cardinals fans), no one is laughing at you or your team. The rest of us are all too hung up in existential quandary right now to be laughing. Rationalists are recanting. (Has Bill Maher ever seen the Cubs play?) It's just too bizarre. I do feel a sense of relief with the championship drought intact and the world continuing to spin on its axis, but maybe in time I'll also find the humor in all of it.

Fans of the Small Bears can find solace though in the, uh... in the... in something, I'm sure. Oh yeah, they have good players signed to long-term deals, very long in some cases. And the team's about to be sold. Perhaps to one of the most flamboyant, committed executives in professional sports-- Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. Cubs fans in Des Moines and Central Iowa are especially fortunate in that they can look forward to seeing a lot of Kosuke Fukudome in person next summer. The outlook for the team is still potentially bright. Anybody can have an off-century. "Wait 'till next year" still applies. Like the one-for-14 slugger, Alfonso Soriano, said after the team's elimination Saturday night-- "Keep patient."

posted by CM @ 9:32 PM