Of Cubs And Kismet

 

Submitted for your perusal: A chilly, breezy November night in Wrigley Field, game seven of the World Series. It's the top of the 9th and the Chicago Cubs are clinging to a one-run lead. The American League champions have the bases loaded, two outs and the count is full on their best hitter. There's no place to put him. It's bedlam in the Friendly Confines as everyone is on their feet screaming (or praying, as the case may be) and fans all over town are already dealing with Cubs-PTSD. More than 700 million people all over the world are watching on TV or listening to the radio broadcasts and the media is all set for an unprecedented worldwide blitz.  As the entire planet waits with bated breath for the next pitch, it has all come down to this. Will the Cubs finally make it to the promised land after wandering in the baseball desert for 108 years? Or will lightning strike and fate spear the Cubs' faithful in the heart again in the most sadistic way yet?

It's the mother of all do-or-die situations (to be doubly proverbial). For the Chicago pitcher, standing all alone,  marooned on the mound, it feels like the fate of the whole universe rests on his pitching arm. The pressure will be beyond inhumane because if he fails with this much at stake and the Cubs end up losing he will be harassed, threatened and publicly disgraced by media and fans alike and given an immediate armored car ride out of Dodge and into the Witness Protection Program while the Chicago Police Department dispatches units to Willis Tower to disperse and prevent suicide leapers. And what would become of the poor Cub who commits a Buckner that changes the course of the game or the series? Or - dare we even think - Bartman II? (Okay, okay, forget I mentioned that one.)

The flip side, of course, is if the pitcher gets the final out he's the Emperor of Earth all winter long and a baseball legend for life (or at least until his first loss next year), the Cubs become the biggest feel-good story of the 21st century and the 24/7 partying will carry on all the way to Spring Training.

With the 2016 baseball season about to start and so many sportswriters, radio talking heads and their many loyal minions jumping aboard the Chicago Cubs Bandwagon Express, a little real-time reality is in order. The Cubs have a very good shot at going all the way this year and while that extreme 9th inning scenario is as about as likely as finding a living witness to their last World Championship, the pressure to get that last out will be tremendous even if the Cubs have a 10-run lead. You don't have to be a Doctor of Psychology to understand that during the course of repeated attempts to achieve, the longer it takes the harder it gets and hence, the worse the pressure will be. It doesn't matter if the Cubs are good or bad. Invariably during every season the media and opposing fans will bring up 1908 right up to that do-or-die game, even if it's just a regular season elimination. It's unavoidable.

That said, Cub fans and their rabid devotion to a team that hasn't won a World Series in over a century are unparalleled in sports. Be it in their living rooms, the bars, at the ballpark or on the rooftops across the street on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues, they are preposterously loyal masochists beyond hope who love their Cubbies, win or lose, and are damn proud of it. That, along with plenty of emotional scar tissue, is what it takes to be a baseball fan in the north side of Chicago.