Thursday, October 1, 2009

At Least The Cubs Are Dependable

It's official -- the Chicago Cubs have RSVP'd to post-season play. They will not be attending.

Let the expected mumbling and grumbling of the entire North Side commence. Good thing I'm not there, I wouldn't be able to handle the whining.

Look at this way: at least the Cubs are dependable. You know what they're going to do. It's been boiled down to a science.

  1. Pick up a semi-big name of a free agent during the off-season and propose that this is the exact change needed to make it all the way this year.
  2. Report to spring training refreshed because this means a new season is under way. That means you know reassure your fans and your players that the clean slate is upon us.
  3. After a spring training full of mixed results, Opening Day comes and goes -- sometimes it's a win, sometimes it's a loss, either way it's not that bad because there are still 161 games left to play.
  4. April's slow. It always is.
  5. May has a decent slew of wins but also injuries.
  6. June/July = More injuries, some wins, the All-Star Break ... at this point, if wins to losses isn't above .500 then the rest of the season ain't gonna be pretty.
  7. August is the last chance to prove the Cubs can hack it. September is always a weak month, no matter what. If the Cubs can't get anything done in August, it's time to pack up the bags and call it quits.
  8. Play-offs or no play-offs ... the choke comes. And that's that. The cycle starts again.
I'm okay with the fact that the Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. I love the team that much. They're always around when you need them. Even in the off-season. They're here all year.

There is no other story in baseball history like the Cubs. The Redsox claim they "understand our woes". They're lying. They don't. They could never understand what it's like to wear a Cubs uniform or be a Cubs fan. Not a chance. Let me tell you why.

It's not all about the World Series drought or the Curse. It's not about wins and loses. It's not about holding grudges against our biggest enemies on the field. It's about the love of all things Cubs baseball.

The Cubs are ours. We've been through everything together. It's just like having the same best friend since you were 4-years-old. You grew up together. You know each others faults but understand that you're working on fixing them, because at the end of the day -- you're still just human. We've studied our "family" history as if it were a religion. The in's and out's of every step our people have ever taken have been documented, analyzed, and reviewed to attempt and prevent history repeating itself. But like the rest of the people surrounding us, history does continue to repeat itself and we live with that.

And ... why do we live with that? Because we love the Cubs.

I mean, hell. It could be worse. We could be the Nationals.

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