Yes, Virginia: There IS No Cubs World Series

(the following was also posted at Where Have You Gone, Johnny Grubb?)

“Billy Goat” Sianis isn’t dead after all. Black cats are still prowling around. Steve Bartman’s invasive, sticky fingers are still leaving prints.

The futility of Steve Swisher and Ernie Broglio and Larry Biittner have returned.

Charlie Brown still can’t kick the football. Wile E. Coyote just fell off another cliff. The Italian Army still stinks. And so do the Cubs.

The Chicago “97 Wins” Cubs. The Chicago “Going to end the 100-year drought” Cubs. The Chicago “This is the year” Cubs.

No, The Same Old Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs are on the verge, again, of disappointing in the post-season. Check that. They’ve past the verge and are falling down an endless flight of stairs. I haven’t seen a town’s hopes dashed so quickly since the Redskins hired Steve Spurrier.

The Cubs are down 0-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first round of the National League playoffs, also known as the NLDS — which up to this point had stood for No LA Dodgers Success. Not only are the Cubs down 0-2, they’re down 0-2 in bombastic fashion. They’ve laid ostrich-sized eggs two nights in a row in front of their tormented faithful: 7-2 and 10-3. This isn’t a playoff series, it’s a wake.

Oh, this wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? Weren’t the Cubs, those lovable losers, supposed to be shedding that label in 2008? Wasn’t this group supposed to be different from all the other Cubs teams?

97 wins!

The best record in the National League. By far. Steamrolled to the Central Division title. The esteemed and battle-tested Lou Piniella as their manager.

Oops! Wait a minute.

About Piniella: wasn’t he the skipper of the 2001 Seattle Mariners who won 116 games in the regular season and went poof in five games in the ALCS to the Yankees, who won but 95 — and only after the M’s squeaked by the Indians in the ALDS, who won just 91?

Yep, that’s him.

The Cubs ended the regular season by clinching their division with more than a week to play. Piniella had all that time to get everything just the way he wanted it, from the pitching rotation to the lineup. And did I mention that the Dodgers won all of 84 games this season? See a trend here with Sweet Lou?

Now, I know Piniella didn’t boot the ball around Wrigley Field, or throw all those gopher balls in Games 1 and 2. But, hey, who said life is fair? Lou won the 1990 World Series in upset fashion as manager of the Reds, and that’s been his last hurrah in the dugout.

The Cubs are going down. Again. No World Series. Again. The championship-less drought starts a new century — 101 years and counting.

Didn’t they learn anything from the 2004 Boston Red Sox when it comes to smashing history into pieces?

I saw some images on the Internet of the looks of shock and sadness on the faces of Cubs fans in Wrigley from the past couple of nights. Shades of 2003. And of 1989, and 1984, and 1969. And might as well include 1945 and 1935 in there as well — even though the Cubbies actually made it to the WS in those two years.

October, 1908 — the Cubs’ last WS victory.

Roosevelt was president — Teddy Roosevelt. The first Model T had its last screw tightened just a couple weeks earlier. There wasn’t even a World War I yet. Civil War vets were still living. Baseball fans would have included folks who remembered when Lincoln was president.

Just remember that, Lions fans — next time you bellyache about not having an NFL champion since 1957. The Cubs’ streak of futility makes the Lions’ look like a two-week vacation in the Bahamas.

So the 2008 Cubs will soon be no more. It might happen tomorrow night in Game 3, or the next night in Game 4. Or, to REALLY put the icing on the cake, maybe the Cubs will fail miserably by WINNING Games 3 and 4 and succumbing in Game 5 in front of their straitjacket-ready fans.

So Lucy gets to keep pulling the ball away. The Roadrunner gets to keep “beep-beeping” and leaving the Coyote in the dust. And the Italian Army still stinks.

Cubs Lose! Cubs Lose!

This’ll Get Billy’s Goat: 2008 Might Be The Cubs’ Year

Check the calendar for a month of Sundays. See if Hell is forming ice crystals. Look into those rumors that the Pope isn’t Catholic. The million-to-one shot is looking like a winner.

The Chicago Cubs are disturbing our world order.

The Chicago Cubs, non-participants in the World Series since 1945. Non-winners of the whole enchilada since 1908 – one hundred years of losing, and in all different shapes and sizes. They’ve been laughable, lovable, and tragic. Pretenders, contenders, and stuck in the starting gate. Cursed, jinxed, and mocked. Close, but never cigar puffers. They’ve been eliminated from the race in some years after Labor Day, and others before Easter.

This is one of the years where they have teased the faithful on the city’s North side. It’s well into August now, and the Cubbies are either setting their fans up for another heartbreak, or about to obliterate the city’s other century-long dry spell, following by three years the cross-town White Sox World Series title of 2005, which ended nearly a hundred years of thirst on the South side.

Have you looked at the standings?

Take a break from gnashing your teeth over the Tigers’ travails, and take a peek at the National League Central race. Only it’s not so much of a race right now, for the Cubbies are starting to scamper away with things. They are a full five games ahead of the second-place Milwaukee Brewers (another franchise that’s been awash with failure) – and that margin was secured a couple weeks ago, when the Cubbies went into Milwaukee for a four-game series. They landed in Milwaukee with a one-game lead, and left with the five-gamer, thanks to a cold and calculating four-game sweep – the kind that the Cubs have been on the receiving end of when the chips have been down.

But it’s still only the first week or so of August, and there are still about 50 games to be played, and these are still the Cubs. Which means there is still the Curse of the Billy Goat.

It’s a story, apparently not apocryphal, and it’s been told and re-told, but there may be some of you who don’t know.

1945 World Series. Local tavern owner Billy Sianis, who used to bring his pet goat – hey, this was the ‘40s, pets were different, OK? – to Wrigley Field during the regular season, is told that, since it’s the World Series, the goat wouldn’t be allowed in. Sianis is furious, and places a hex on the Cubs, saying they’ll never return to the World Series. It’s been 62 years and counting. The Billy Goat Curse lives, for now.

Sianis and his goat

It’s 1969 and the Cubs, after another couple of decades of wretched baseball, are actually leading the newly-formed East Division of the National League. Their closest challengers are the Miracle Mets from New York, themselves poster children for baseball comedy. But as the summer progresses, the Cubbies are losing their toehold on things. It comes to a head one evening, when, from out of nowhere, a black cat scurries in front of the Cubs dugout during a game in New York. It’s joked that the black cat is a harbinger of bad things to come. The joking is prophetic, for the Cubs go into the tank, the Mets catch fire, and hearts are again broken on the North side.

It’s 1984 and the Cubs are in the playoffs. It’s best-of-five back then, and they take the first two games over the San Diego Padres in Chicago. The Tigers are romping over the Royals in the American League, and so folks get dreamy over a potential Tigers-Cubs World Series, just like in the Billy Goat Year of 1945. But Leon “Bull” Durham, the Cubs first baseman, lets a routine grounder go thru his legs in Game 5 in San Diego, the Padres go on to win, and they take three straight from the Cubbies. No I-94 World Series, after all.

It’s 2003 and the Cubs are as close as they’ve been to the Fall Classic as anytime since 1984. They lead the Florida Marlins, three games to two, and are leading the Marlins, 3-0, heading into the 8^th inning at Wrigley Field. A foul fly is hit toward the left field line, right next to the stands. Cubs left fielder Moises Alou drifts under it, only he’s unable to try his hand at a catch because fan Steve Bartman tries for it instead. Bartman deflects the ball as Alou reacts animatedly. The Wrigley fans, once they realize what has happened, boo Bartman, one of their own, mercilessly. He is escorted from the ballpark, his safety threatened. Bartman’s try for the baseball extends the Marlins inning, and they go on to score eight times, capturing Game 6. They then win Game 7 and advance to the World Series.

The above incidents from ’69, ’84, and ’03 are all chalked up to the Billy Goat Curse, along with just about any other malfeasance the Cubs franchise has suffered over the past 63 years.

But you look at the calendar, and you look at the Cubs’ five-game lead, and you look at their manager, Lou Piniella – who played on the Yankees team of 1978 that overcame a 14-game deficit to overtake the Red Sox – and you start to wonder, once again. Is THIS the year they call Billy Goat’s bluff?

I have been waiting, as I’m sure millions of others have along with me, for the Cubs to collapse, or fade, or at least give their fans collective heart attacks, even if they should hold on to win the division. Because wining the division is hardly a meal ticket into the World Series. There are still a couple rounds of playoffs through which to navigate – in other words, plenty of time for something to go wrong, and for the Billy Goat to triumph.

Yet the Red Sox (2004) and the White Sox have erased decades-long demons in recent years. Even our own Tigers broke a 19-year mini-drought of playoff-less seasons, back in 2006. So there’s still hope for the Cubbies. There’s always been that, even when there hasn’t been much else.