I’m a Cub fan. It’s August. Flashback. I was 13 in 1969. The Cubs led the New York Mets by 10 games in August. It looked good for the Cubs. They might win their first pennant since 1945. But, as every Cub fan knows, they collapsed; the Mets caught up and went on to win the World Series. The agony of that summer has stayed with me all these years. August. I’ve tried to do therapy on this. My therapist just laughs. He hates baseball.
So now it’s August again. The 1969 collapse has been repeated over the years, although in less dramatic fashion. Today, the Cubs are a half game behind the Brewers in their division. The Brewers have pretty much sucked for the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the Cubs have pretty much sucked for the last couple of weeks, too, so they haven’t been able to catch them. Earlier this week, the Cubs lost all three games in Houston, scoring a total of three runs. Cub fans everywhere felt the pain. The curse. Waking up at night in cold sweats. Increasing the Zoloft. All to ward off what has been inevitable for Cub fans over the years: the August crash..
Then the Cubs went to Denver, home of the Colorado Rockies. The Cub bats came alive in the first game, scoring ten runs and winning easily. You could almost hear the sigh of relief from Cub fans all over the nation. But even a 10 to 0 lead is no sure thing for the Cubs. But they held on to win, 10 to 2. Then last night, they beat the Rockies 6 to 2. Cub fans started to feel a pulse. Maybe there won’t be an August collapse. Or a September collapse. But we know the Cubs are able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory any time.
One small dose of comfort this season for Cub fans: the Philadelphia Phillies lost game number 10,000, which gives them the most losses of any team in baseball. My heart goes out to all Phillies fans. I feel your pain.
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5 comments:
Is it quakerly to say that a person, or group of people, "sucked?" Unless you mean to say that they fellated someone, I wonder if it might not be more quakerly to phrase it differently. How about "they didn't play very well" or "the other team played better" or "the gods of baseball did not smile upon them?" Just wondering.
Ed, after 45 years of bitterness, not even being a Quaker can soften the pain or the rhetoric. I'm sorry. I feel I have fallen in your estimation.......the gods of baseball never smile on the Cubs, they merely laugh...
Ok, Ed, the Cubs are losing 15 to 2 tonight. They're not playing very well. There! Satisfied? bwahahaha Notice I didn't say they "sucked" but I must confess, I'm thinking that right now. Does that make me a bad person, ED?
No, PoodleDoc. Use of the word sucked will not cause you to fall in my esteem. And it doesn't make you a bad person, either. As a long-time Packer fan, I think I can sympathize a bit. I was a Packer fan through the long, long 70s and 80s. The Packer fan's mantra was "NEXT year, things will be different."
Regarding the word "suck," I recently attended a Brewer game as chaperone for my youngest's school field trip and I had the misfortune of sitting next to some middle-school boys from another school. Several of them took pleasure in repeatedly shouting "the Brewers suck!" Admittedly, they weren't playing very well. I'm not even a Brewers fan and I didn't particularly care who won the game, nor do I have a great deal of respect for professional athletes these days; they strike me as a bunch of rich, spoiled brats. However, I found the antics of these boys to be rude and disrespectful. Eventually, I could restrain myself no more, so I asked them if they knew what the word meant. Of course, they feigned ignorance, so I suggested that, while I didn't feel it was my place to educate them on this matter, maybe they should go home and ask their mothers what the word meant before bandying it about so loosely. I guess I'm just old-fashioned that way. I like to think that people think about what it is that they're actually saying. There is a big difference between shouting it at people and using it as a description of one's level of frustration, though. I hope I have not caused offense.
No offense taken, Ed.....thanks for your thoughtful comments. I'm impressed that you did that at the Brewer's game.
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