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 due 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 offseason 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 postseason 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 lifelong, and even generations-long, suffering of Cubs fans everywhere and how our "optimistic pessimism" is passed from parent to child. Royko implores fathers not to 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 rebuild the team!

Sins of the Fathers Makes Fans Suffer

© Mike Royko - October 6, 1989

photo credit: benihana03 ©2006

They were walking about 20 feet ahead of me, a youngish father holding the hand of his son. The boy was about 8. Both wore Cubs caps. They had just left Wrigley Field after the first-game slaughter.

We were several blocks from the ballpark and the crowd had scattered, so there were few others on the quiet street.

Suddenly the father and son stopped. The boy had his head down and a hand over his eyes. As I caught up with them, I could see that he was sobbing.

The father dropped to one knee, put his arm around his son's shoulders, and said: "Hey, it's okay. Come on, it's not over yet. They can come back tomorrow. It's just one game. You watch, they can do it."

For a moment, I considered stopping and saying something. Then I decided not to intrude on so private a moment, and I kept walking toward the neighborhood corner bar.

Over a cold one, I thought about what I might have said if I had stopped. Not to the boy, but to the father. I would have told him: “What kind of father are you, lying to your son? For that matter, why did you bring him here in the first place, causing him to suffer?

“You should be prosecuted for abuse and neglect and jailed for inflicting what will probably be a lifetime of suffering, depression and disappointment on a helpless child.

“For shame! You are no better than a drug pusher. And you must forever bear the guilt of having placed the terrible Cubs monkey on that innocent lad’s frail back.”

Of course, the father might not be entirely to blame. Chances are that his father did the same thing to him. This type of cruelty is usually passed along, from generation to generation.

Take my late father. He was not without vices. He sometimes drank, gambled, brawled and had an eye for a shapely leg. I could forgive him these minor character flaws.

But to this day, I cannot forgive him for taking me to Cub games at an impressionable age, hooking me on Herman, Hack, Jurges, Nicholson and Cavarretta. And telling me tales of Grimm, Hornsby, Wilson, Stephenson and other earlier heroes.

He didn’t tell me that I was going to have to live through Smalley, Jeffcoat, Miksis, Chiti, Dave Ding Dong, ‘69 and ‘84.

That’s why, while I made mistakes as a parent, I did one thing right. I didn’t raise my kids to be Cub fans. When they were tiny, I would point at the TV and say: “See those vines on the outfield wall? You know what’s in those vines? Big, black, mean spiders and other crawly things.”

So today, as young adults, they wouldn’t dream of skipping a Beethoven concert or an Eric Clapton performance for a Cub game. What the heck, Beethoven is already dead, so what’s there to cry about?

Oh, they have a casual interest. But when this season ends, they will not have shed a tear or lost a night’s sleep over a ball game.

Some might say I deprived them of the thrills, excitement and suspense of a baseball season. Maybe. But unlike hundreds of thousands of other Chicagoans, when they awoke Thursday morning, they weren’t suffering from melancholia, mumbling about Will Clark, or praying for a West Coast earthquake.

No, that man was not doing his sobbing kid any favor. And if he happens to read this, I suggest he heed this song (with apologies to Willie Nelson):

Daddies, don’t let your babies grow up to be Cub fans.
Don’t let them get snared into lifelong nightmares,
Let them play guitars, go bowling or such.

Daddies, don’t let your babies grow up to be Cub fans,
‘Cause they’ll never lose hope and it’s worse than most dope, even with one out to go.

So I say to that young father and to others like him: It’s probably too late for you. But it isn’t too late for your kids. Wean them away or don’t let them get started. When they grow up, they’ll be grateful.

I know it isn’t easy. But isn’t it better than seeing a small boy standing there, heartbroken and crying?

For that matter, as the bartender said as he dabbed my nose with a bar rag: “It ain’t easy seeing a grown man cry.” He also said: “Hey, there’s still time. They can do it.”

The fool. Of course, if Dawson gets hot, and Sutcliffe comes through, and...

Pa, see what you did to me?

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 view the slide show):
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...