Just wait 'til next year!

Today is the day that all true Chicago Cubs fans dread...today is the day that our beloved Cubbies were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs (worst of all, by the hated Cardinals). Today is the day that the season officially ends for all true Northsiders (even if there are still 8 games remaining in the season).

Yes, it is true that the Cubs still have an outside chance at the National League wild card, and yes the remainder of the season schedule is pretty soft, but for a team that came off the 2008 campaign touted as the best team in the National League, 2009 has been nothing but an abysmal disappointment. But why am I disappointed? Am I really disappointed? I mean for the last 40 years, I have felt the same pain, and endured the same taunts from Dirtybird fans come October. Is 2009 so different from all of those other seasons?

Now that the season is (nearly) over, I find myself going through my annual ritual of second-guessing my pre-season optimism and trying to answer Skyler Fishhawk's question (with all do respect to Jeff MacNelly, who penned the comic Shoe).

First off, was this year any different? No, not really, I go into every season expecting the Cubs to win it all. Yes, the Cubs won the NL Central title the last two years and so there was some expectation on my part that they'd repeat this year as well, but really history wouldn't bear that out, and even the Yankees and Braves have had some poor seasons in the midst of good runs... Besides, I really can't remember three years in a row where the Cubs had a winning record (so 2007-2008-2009 are good from that perspective).

But from the beginning, personnel issues were clearly going to dominate the 2009 season, and not in a good way. First was the team's decision to trade DeRosa, and then the decision to pick up the mercurial free-agent Milton Bradley. By the way, to everyone who told me that the Milton Bradley acquisition was going to end badly, you have been vindicated (and I'll be the first to admit that I was too Pollyannaish about him), then the whole where do you bat Soriano fiasco. Adding to those sagas were injuries to Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly, Giovani Soto and Alfonso Soriano and you have the makings of a sub-par season (which would be "normal" for us true die-hards). The fact that Lou (as in Pinella) has been a kinder, gentler version of himself, at least in public, is also of some concern.

But still I remain optimistically disappointed...

The drama around Cubs ownership also weighed heavily at the start of the season. Others have compared Sam Zell (current Tribune Co. Chairman, and Cubs owner) to Henry F. Potter, the Lionel Barrymore character in It's a Wonderful Life and I am starting to believe them. If ever there was a question about why the MLB owners get to screen and approve new potential team owners, Sam Zell has to be the answer. So, like most die-hards I crossed my fingers that the sale would be accomplished quickly -- to whom was irrelevant -- practically anyone would be better. But as the bidding dragged on, and the team entered the season with Zell still at the helm (and all of the drama about selling Wrigley Field), I should have realized that things would be the same. Still, I remained confident that this year, 2009, was going to be our year.

With the perspective of 20-20 hindsight, I can see that I had no reason to be optimistic: The facts show that the past off season was perhaps the worst in Cubs history (or at least in my memory) and that the Cubs current ownership is among the worst in baseball. But that wouldn't have deterred me in any case.

I have many fond, albeit bittersweet, summer memories that recall the Cubs failing to live up to my (our) expectations. As a matter of fact, twenty years ago today, I was glued to the television watching the Cubs clinch their last NL East title (during the 1989 campaign). That post season series ended up being dominated by the Giants (and then the World Series by the Loma Prieta earthquake). But the late September days of 1989 were heady times, as have been the late days of the last two seasons (and 1984, and 1998, and 2003...).

Twenty years ago next week, during that fateful series against the Giants, Mike Royko typed his famous column: Sins of the Fathers. The column expresses the life-long, and even generations-long, suffering of Cubs fans everywhere and how our "optimistic pessimism" is passed from parent to child. Royko implores fathers not pass on the disease of "optimistic pessimism" to our sons, but it is too late for me. I am the Dad telling his son that tomorrow is a new day. And I do believe that there is always next year, and I always will. Royko, and Cardinals fans, may call me a sucker (Royko wouldn't really mean it) but I do have faith that the 2010 season is going to be the Cubbies year.

I am painfully aware that legions of die-hard Cub fans, including Mr. Royko, Mr. MacNelly, and my great-grandmother, have passed from this earth without seeing the Cubs win a world series... and tonight, I find myself disappointed that, once again, my Cubbies won't play into the depths of October.

But, to answer your question Skyler... As painful as it sounds, there is always another next year. For us die-hard Cubs fans, our "next year" starts tomorrow, September 27, 2009. That is the day I will start to dream about April 2010 and the chances for the Cubs to win a World Series after 102 years of drought...

P.S. Oh, and if Tom Ricketts happens to read this, I'd love to help you re-build the team!

2009 Station Fire

This week has been a doozy in the foothills North of Los Angeles, where I live. A wildfire dubbed the "Station Fire" has been burning, for over a week, in the Angeles National Forest. The fire started as a relatively small event, isolated in the foothills above La Cañada Flintridge, off the Angeles Crest Highway (State Route 2) on August 26th. However, the fire, fueled by over 60 years of unfettered growth on the mountain, expanded uncontrollably on August 29/30th -- septupling in size. The unchecked fire growth forced evacuations in my La Crescenta neighborhood and La Cañada Flintridge. Then, later in the week, the communities of Acton, Altadena, Sunland, and Tujunga also faced mandatory evacuations, and the fire raced up Mount Wilson, threatening the observatory and most of the telecommunications infrastructure in the Los Angeles basin).

Fortunately, my home was just South of the mandatory evacuation area. Still, a firefighter told me that because there is a 180+ foot tall pine tree in my front yard, I should be prepared to leave immediately because if the tree caught fire, our whole cul-de-sac would go up! Not comforting news, but important to know all the same...

I am very appreciative of all of the firefighters who defended our homes, as well as the Cal Fire crews who worked on the fire proper. They did a great job protecting our Foothill communities, and everyone living here is grateful.

During this very long week, I took a bunch of photos from around my house; below is my Flickr slide show documenting the fire and all of the action I could see (click on a picture to see the caption):



Also, be sure to check out other Flickr images of the fire.

As a postscript, the fire burned for over 6 weeks (finally being declared "out" on October 16th). It resulted in some spectacular pyrocumulus clouds, destroyed almost 100 homes, and was responsible for the death of 2 firefighters. On September 3rd, authorities confirmed what most of my neighbors and I had already surmised; the fire was set deliberately, and an arson investigation had been initiated...