Sunday, October 05, 2003
I'm honestly amazed at my emotional investment in this year's Cubs, despite the obvious supporting evidence that's appeared here and elsewhere to those who know me. My pulse rate after the eigth inning of Tuesday's NLDS Game 1: 120.
So my beloved Cubs enter this evening's game in Atlanta needing a victory to advance; a loss will send them back to another long offseason of restless anticipation about next year. Not to overstate it, but this is probably the best opportunity the Cubs are going to have to win the World Series in my lifetime. There is no clear favorite among the seven remaining playoff teams; even the normally dominant Yankees have looked vulnerable at times and have already been beaten by the Cubs in 2 out of 3 games earlier this year. The Braves are slight favorites to take the National League, but they enter tonight's game sharing the Cubs' fate: win and advance, or lose and go home. The Cubs' lineup, stacked with dominant pitching, gives them a favorable matchup against any team they'll face, and the hitting is as good as it's been since I started seriously watching them in the late eighties. (Consider that Sammy Sosa, twice RBI king of the National League and holder of the single-season record for highest percentage of runs produced on a team, is this year not even the Cubs' RBI-leader.) Considering the relative mediocrity of the rest of the league, and combined with the fact that the Cubs are unlikely to be this good again in the forseeable future, the obvious conclusion emerges: if the Cubs are to win it all, they need to do so now.
A fan of just about any other team could not rationally make the argument I've just made. Consider the Florida Marlins, a team that has twice in the past six years done what the Cubs have never done: advance to the next round of the playoffs. The Marlins have been very bad in most of the intervening years, but they do not have the history of consistent failure that defines the Cubs. I can't anticipate a radical shift in the Cubs' fortunes--Dusty Baker's recent efforts notwithstanding--because the historical data obviously fail to support this conclusion. But a Marlins fan can likely rest assured that, once in awhile, their team will be pretty darn good, at least good enough to win a playoff series once a decade or so. The Cubs, by contrast, have not won a playoff series since 1908.
It's against this backdrop of high hopes and historical failure that the drama of tonight's game fully emerges. It is the most meaningful Cubs game since they lost Game Five of the LCS in 1984. Before then, they had not made the playoffs since 1945. I'm not enthused about the possibility of waiting until I'm 62 to see the Cubs near the Series again.
I am enthused that the man with the most direct control over the destiny of this team is Kerry Wood, the first glimmer (along with Sammy Sosa) of true Cubs greatness since the heartbreaking teams of the late '60s. Since his 20-strikeout game in 1998, and especially since his great performance in Game 1 of this year's series vs. the Braves, Wood has been the man to whom Cubs fans pin their highest hopes. Tonight, we find ourselves faced with the delightful and unique possibility that we were right about him. Wood will bring heat, Sammy will bring lumber, and the Cubs will, tonight, bring their fans their first playoff series crown in 95 years. GO CUBS!
So my beloved Cubs enter this evening's game in Atlanta needing a victory to advance; a loss will send them back to another long offseason of restless anticipation about next year. Not to overstate it, but this is probably the best opportunity the Cubs are going to have to win the World Series in my lifetime. There is no clear favorite among the seven remaining playoff teams; even the normally dominant Yankees have looked vulnerable at times and have already been beaten by the Cubs in 2 out of 3 games earlier this year. The Braves are slight favorites to take the National League, but they enter tonight's game sharing the Cubs' fate: win and advance, or lose and go home. The Cubs' lineup, stacked with dominant pitching, gives them a favorable matchup against any team they'll face, and the hitting is as good as it's been since I started seriously watching them in the late eighties. (Consider that Sammy Sosa, twice RBI king of the National League and holder of the single-season record for highest percentage of runs produced on a team, is this year not even the Cubs' RBI-leader.) Considering the relative mediocrity of the rest of the league, and combined with the fact that the Cubs are unlikely to be this good again in the forseeable future, the obvious conclusion emerges: if the Cubs are to win it all, they need to do so now.
A fan of just about any other team could not rationally make the argument I've just made. Consider the Florida Marlins, a team that has twice in the past six years done what the Cubs have never done: advance to the next round of the playoffs. The Marlins have been very bad in most of the intervening years, but they do not have the history of consistent failure that defines the Cubs. I can't anticipate a radical shift in the Cubs' fortunes--Dusty Baker's recent efforts notwithstanding--because the historical data obviously fail to support this conclusion. But a Marlins fan can likely rest assured that, once in awhile, their team will be pretty darn good, at least good enough to win a playoff series once a decade or so. The Cubs, by contrast, have not won a playoff series since 1908.
It's against this backdrop of high hopes and historical failure that the drama of tonight's game fully emerges. It is the most meaningful Cubs game since they lost Game Five of the LCS in 1984. Before then, they had not made the playoffs since 1945. I'm not enthused about the possibility of waiting until I'm 62 to see the Cubs near the Series again.
I am enthused that the man with the most direct control over the destiny of this team is Kerry Wood, the first glimmer (along with Sammy Sosa) of true Cubs greatness since the heartbreaking teams of the late '60s. Since his 20-strikeout game in 1998, and especially since his great performance in Game 1 of this year's series vs. the Braves, Wood has been the man to whom Cubs fans pin their highest hopes. Tonight, we find ourselves faced with the delightful and unique possibility that we were right about him. Wood will bring heat, Sammy will bring lumber, and the Cubs will, tonight, bring their fans their first playoff series crown in 95 years. GO CUBS!
