Funeral for a friend

Here lie the 2008 Chicago Cubs, the best Cubs team I have ever seen.

A team that won 97 games in the regular season, including 55 at home. A team that was in first place every day from May 10 to the end of the season. A team that sent eight players to the All-Star game, that produced the should-be NL Rookie of the Year and should-be Manager of the Year. A team that had a run differential of +184 in the regular season, by far the best in all of baseball. A team that had a potent lineup one through eight (and some days, through nine). A team that had five starting pitchers that gave their team a good chance to win every day. A team that somehow wasn’t seriously bitten by the injury bug, that was able to get above-average play from guys they picked up off the scrap heap (Reed Johnson & Jim Edmonds), guys they got from trades (Rich Harden) and guys brought up from the minors (Geo Soto and Jeff Samardizja). A team that was fun to watch, because you never knew when their offense would explode and put up a big crooked-number on the board. A team that knew how to give their fans panic attacks but then turn around and have a come-from-behind win. A team that won games they should win and often won games they shouldn’t have. A team that produced the best pitching performance I’ve ever seen from start-to-finish (Z’s no-no). And in the end, a team that completely folded in the playoffs.

The thing that separates baseball from the other sports in America is the time. A hardcore fan of a baseball team will watch as many games as he possibly can, lets say 150 of the 162. Three hours a game, and that’s 450 hours a season. Add to that about an hour a day, every day of the season, either thinking about, talking about, reading about or analyzing the team or their opponents. That’s another 180 hours. Totaled, that comes out to about 630 hours a year with your baseball team, or 26.25 days, or to go even more in depth, one full day every two weeks of the year. I’m guessing outside of sleep, and working, following a baseball team is the most time-consuming thing many Americans do. And for us Cubs fans, the whole year is done in a span of 28 hours.

Yes, I know, there’s (at least) one more game. Harden pitches on Saturday night, trying to save the season. If the first two games of the series are any indication, he’ll pitch fine for a few innings, then let LA to score five, and that will be that. The Cubs offense won’t do a damn thing the entire game, except for fail to make adjustments at the plate and then ground into a couple of aggravating double plays. The defense won’t be any help, as they’ll either botch easy ground balls or play too shallow in the outfield and let fly balls get over their head. And the bullpen won’t provide any relief at all. So yeah, I’d say 2008 is done for the Cubs.

But the aggravating part, at least one of them, is that the Cubs are better than the Dodgers. Our lineup is better, our pitching is better, and our depth is better. We should be winning this series, or at least tied. But for some reason, the breaks haven’t gone our way. Zambrano pitched well enough to win Thursday nights game, but a couple of errors by DeRosa and D-Lee, and a painfully obvious bases-clearing, three-run double by Dodgers catcher Russell Martin broke the game open in the second inning. (Seriously, when was the last time that Lee got eaten up by a ground ball? As for that double, I absolutely knew that was going to happen. You don’t give a playoff team two extra outs in an inning and not expect to pay for it.) Add to that no clutch hitting and no patience at the plate (the only two walks in the game for the Cubs were by Zambrano and pinch-hitter Felix Pie), and it’s not a shock were down two-oh going west.

So it’s wait till next year, version 101. Next year should bring some changes, but also hopefully some more of the same. Because the 2008 Cubs were a blast to watch, talk and think about 26.25 full days this year. But we need to get over this hump eventually, because I for one am not sure how many more years I can keep putting up with this kind of heartbreak.




I’ll be out of town for the weekend, unable to post immediately after game three on Saturday night. Hopefully that column (as well as a game four column if were in the hoping mood) will be up by Sunday evening, but I can’t make any promises. Anyways, here are my winning teams for week five of the NFL:

San Diego, Houston, New York Giants, Washington, Carolina, Chicago, Green Bay, Tennessee, Denver, Buffalo, Dallas, New England, Jacksonville, and New Orleans

Last week: 7-6
Season to date: 31-29