Wednesday, October 07, 2015

The Cubs Are Playing Baseball Today!


"The one constant through all the years Ray has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again, but baseball has marked the time. This field, this game is a part of our past Ray. It reminds us of all once was good and could be again."-James Earl Jones as Terence Mann in "Field of Dreams."


Tonight the Chicago Cubs play in the National League Wild Card game.  The Cubs sort of snuck up on Chicago this year, distracted as we've been with the Blackhawks in the spring winning the Stanley Cup and the continued atrociousness of the Bears.  

Frankly the Cubs were a mediocre but improving team last year that progressed beyond most fan's wildest expectations in 2015.  Most, including myself, thought the Cubs would be a year away from being a playoff contender.  Instead they play a one game shot in Pittsburgh tonight.

The Cubs, being the Cubs, a part of me wouldn't be surprised to see Chicago's hearts broken by a late inning play.  A walk off Pittsburgh homer or a bases loaded walk would be par for the course.  A Bartman sort of freaky event wouldn't surprise me either, so I try not to hope too much.  

Just as markets have a way of doing what they have to do to prove the most amount of people wrong, the Cubs somehow winning the World Series in a year like this would be one for the ages.  With apologies to all White Sox fans {who won a World Series in 2005}, it would likely be the greatest Chicago sports story in the 30 years I've lived here.  The Cubs have a larger national fan base than the  Sox and a more glorious history of losing.  Yes I use the word glorious because you only have to consider their past to understand that comment.  If you don't know what I mean then go look it up.

Nobody with the exception of school boys and their most ardent fans expected the Cubs to do much when the season started.  Most of us, deep down, probably thought maybe something better than a .500 record would be progress.  That's why if it ever was to happen, then it wouldn't surprise me if it occurred in an unlooked for year.   A year where all the sports hype was somewhere else when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup and the Bulls were in playoff contention.   

The odds are long for the Cubs to win tonight and then survive three more series.  More likely at some point we'll be singing the old "Cubbie" song "Wait Till Next Year".  But...Oh boy....just if.....what if....?

Baseball is a game that starts with the promise of spring and ends for one team with an autumn crown.  Every April hope arises in all fans of the sport, but perhaps no more so than those that call the corner of Sheffield and Waveland Avenues home turf.  Most years for Cubs fans those hopes are dashed usually before the kids go back to school.  But sometimes something like this happens and you just have to sit back and savor the experience.  

So here we go tonight.  All in, one game for the chance to march down the road to Chicago sports immortality.  Here's to the Consigliere and the Patrician and all the Cubs fans who've lived full lives, never having seen a World Series crowning here on the Northside.  May this be our year!  As Harry would say, {because I'm sure he, Ron and Jack are up in heaven calling the game}, "This Bud's For You"!

We'll be back Friday win or lose.