September 29, 2007 - Saturday

’84 ’89 ’98 ’03 ’07

This was the year the Cubs were supposed to go for broke. They spent all that money in the offseason, hired the "perfect" manager, and turned him loose. The 100 year mark is approaching, and so the panic button was pushed.

The dynamics of this season have been unreal. A bad division, a bad start, injuries, team fights, suspensions, game postponements due to opposing players' death, and a very up and down record.

I am the first to say that sports should never have anything to do with real life. Sport is simply a diversion...a momentary distraction from things that matter. Sports should never matter. However, I do happen to take Cub baseball and Bradley basketball fairly seriously in the heat of the moment. And 2007 will likely be remembered (by me at least) as the year the Cubs were able to kind of shift my focus in the middle of a crappy-to-fairly-crappy summer.

As I mentioned, the season started roughly for the Cubs. Some friends of mine and I had tickets for the Sunday, June 3rd game...but as that date drew nigh, it almost seemed like it would already be an irrelevant game. They started off 7-13, battled back to 20-21, but then had lost six games in a row (and 10 of 12) but the time I made it to Wrigley on June 3rd. What's more...two days earlier Carlos Zambrano and Michael Barrett had engaged in a public fight in the dugout during the game. This was very bad. And the previous day Lou Piniella had kicked dirt on the third base umpire after Angel Pagan was called out on a boneheaded baserunning decision. He was supsended. The team was a complete mess. They were a season-worst NINE games under .500, and had fallen seven and a half games back of first place.

But that Sunday afternoon at Wrigley things turned around. The Cubs became a good baseball team in one day. Mark DeRosa hit a first inning grand slam, and the Cubs beat the Braves 10-1. The next day I moved to Indiana and started listening to almost every game on Gold 95.9 FM. It was suddenly a different season. And it couldn't have come at a better time for me personally. The Cubs provided a three hour hiatus from reality every night, and they were playing good baseball to boot.

Since I saw them that day in early June, they have gone 62-45. Immediately they ran off nine of 13 (and 17 of 25). That included a seven game winning streak at the end of June. They began to win most series, and their longest losing streak the rest of the way would be four. In my mind, the season is broken up very succinctly into pre-Wrigley Field visit, and post-Wrigley visit.

Eighty six. That's the number I've targeted for a while. Certainly 84. The Cardinals won the division with 83 wins last year. And I made a lot of fun of them. I thought that was weak and undeserving. So when the Cubs started to make their push, it was apparent that the division-winning team would not have a very impressive record. I wanted 84 wins at the very least, and 86 for good measure. Remember, the Cubs only won 88 games in 2003 when they last won the division (they actually won more the following year when they missed out on the playoffs). There is an asterisk in my mind next to the 2006 Cardinals' world championship. I don't want that to be the case should the Cubs do something special this year.

I've always made a big deal about teams not backing into championships. I was so pleased that the Bears and Colts both made it to the Super Bowl last season because they were the best team from each conference. I've often said that when the Cubs ever do win the World Series, I hope it's not a cheap back-in job where they sneak in the Wild Card and draw some weak opponents in the playoffs. I want to be able to look back at that season and remember that the Cubs were dominant. The Cubs haven't been dominant this year, but it's been an extremely memorable and thrilling season, and one that would certainly serve as a nice backdrop for a championship.

Last week, the Cubs reached 10 games over .500 for the first time all year. They had won 10 of their 12 to go 83-73 for the year. It was almost beginning to look like a first place record. And so for the first time in a while, I wasn't ashamed of the Central Division as a whole. But then the Cubs got swept at Florida this week. Oh well...it still might be enough.

I remember 2003 so well. I had just moved to Texas, but was immediately consumed by the midwest baseball team I had always loved. Right off the bat I had made two new good friends--both liked the Cubs every bit as much as I did. I didn't really have a job job. I was working for Baylor Dining Services and as a research assistant at Baylor. But I had all my evenings free. And we had those guys over to watch the game. Every game. It was what we did that October.

The first playoff game at Atlanta, Dr. Carbonara opened up the lecture hall to show the game on the big screen. It felt so epic. Much larger than the baseball playoffs had ever felt before. And the Cubs played like a different team. All of a sudden all the frustrations of the regular season seemed so far away. These were the playoff Cubs.

And so it was. Clutch. Randall Simon. Doug Glanville. Mark Prior. Kerry Wood. Kenny Lofton. All these guys seemed to become larger than life in the playoffs. My life got put on hold. Later people asked me if I was OK recently. I realized no one had heard from me. I was in my first semester of grad school, but studying seemed to be a non-issue for about a month. I was listening to Extended Post Game on WGN radio with David Kaplan last night. He implored the listeners, "Enjoy the ride. No matter what happens, you're going to enjoy it. You're going to enjoy not getting a lot of sleep. You're going to enjoy not returning many phone calls." And immediately I was transported back to 2003. He was right. Time stood still while the Cubs were in the playoffs.

This time? I'm much too busy for all that. I'm just hoping I get to see and/or listen to most of the Cubs' playoff games. Then again, there may be only three. I'm prepared for that. The Cubs already did their job for me personally this year. They got me through the summer. Now I want to see them win it. But I don't need it. I handled the Steve Bartman game alrightly, I think I'll be fine no matter what happens here.