Are We Still Here?

It's over.

What a game it has been. It had everything including a rain delay.

Either team could have won tonight. Joe Maddon would have been second-guessed for years had they lost.

The long wait of 108 years is now history.

I assume that if you are reading this, Jesus hasn't come back, the world is still here, although I have a hunch that Cubs fans have been raptured.

Steve Goodman's Dying Cub Fan's Last Request will now be simply an interesting artifact of our American love of baseball.

What else is there to say tonight?

Next year, the Twins? After this year, anything is possible.

Congratulations, Cubs! You deserve it!!

Is it Possible?

Tonight.

Game 7.

Can the Cubs really do it?

Will the Indians bring it all together?

Or will what I posted on September 18 come true?

Long time friends of these wanderings will recognize ... my scenario for the hapless, World Series Championship-less Chicago Cubs.

• It's the bottom of the ninth in game 7 of the World Series.
• The Cubs are leading and on the verge of their first championship in over a century.
• It's two outs, no one on base for the American League opponent.
• Then, as the Cubs pitcher winds up for the final strike-

• Jesus returns.

You heard it here.

How the Experts Figured It

It's a travel day in the World Series. It's still a long road, the Cubs can't lose a game. But it could be an interesting two games?

I wondered what the experts had thought way back when the season began. In April ESPN asked 31 experts for their end of the baseball season predictions. (Link)

• 1 of the 31 predicted that Cleveland would be in the World Series.
• He picked the Giants for the NL champs- and winner.
• 19 predicted the Cubs would be there.
• 14 of those 19 picked the Cubs to win it all.

We will see what we will see. Or, as Yogi once said:

It ain't over till it's over.

1908

That's a long time ago! Wikipedia has a list of 41 people who are 110 years old or older. The oldest was just shy of 6 years old when the Cubs last won a Series. (My dad was just short of age 3.)

The World Series continues with game 3 tonight with the Series tied at 1 win apiece. It will be the first game in Chicago in 71 years. That means that after tonight we can stop all this craziness of first times until one of them wins. Which will happen.

The 1908 Cubs had four future Hall of Famers:

• Mordecai Brown, Pitcher
• Frank Chance, 1B and manager
• Johnny Evers, 2B
• Joe Tinker, SS

The last three in reverse order are the most famous double play combination in history. They were immortalized in a poem in 1910, by writer Franklin Pierce Adams, known as Baseball's Sad Lexicon. He was bemoaning the skill of these three infielders against his New York Giants.

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double-
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."

The trio played together at Chicago from 1902, including four National League pennants from 1906 to 1910. Some credit the poem for their election to the Hall of Fame.

1908 was the year of the infamous "Merkle's Boner" play that allowed the Chicago Cubs to reach the World Series after beating the New York Giants... in a one-game "playoff", actually the makeup game for the tie that the Merkle play had caused. -Wikipedia

Merkle's Boner refers to the notorious base running mistake committed by rookie Fred Merkle of the New York Giants in a game against the Chicago Cubs in 1908. Merkle's failure to advance to second base on what should have been a game-winning hit led instead to a forceout at second and a tied game. The Cubs later won the makeup game, which proved decisive as they beat the Giants by one game to win the National League pennant in 1908. It has been described as "the most controversial game in baseball history." -Wikipedia

Some credit that for the curse that would keep the Cubs winless in the World Series for at least the next 107 years. After all, the Cubs would appear in seven more World Series- 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938, and 1945, but, as we know, lost them all.

This was the least attended World Series in history as the Cubs beat Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in five games.

1945 and 1997- Former "Last Times"

I am pumped by this year's World Series! As a life-long baseball fan to have a "historic" Series like this does not happen often. My personal greatest was the 1980 World Series where my Phillies won their first ever Series after two earlier widely separated tries. I was there for the first game at Veterans' Stadium- which was the first post season game they had ever won.

Anyway, that is why this year could be quite a time. If both teams live up to their season-long exhibition of skill, it may rank as one of the greats. Only time will tell if either- or both- fizzle and turn it into "ho-hum" baseball in spite of the hype.

I went back and did a little research into the "last time" these teams were in the World Series. For the Cubs it was 1945, as we have heard so often. Seventy-one years.

1945 Cubs

• Charlie Grimm was their manager
• There were no future Hall of Fame players on the team. That should be no surprise since it was the end of World War II and many of the top players had been drafted or enlisted.   
• They lost to the Detroit Tigers in seven games.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Series:

Warren Brown, author of a history of the Cubs in 1946, commented on this [lack of stars due to WW II] by titling one chapter "World's Worst Series". He also cited a famous quote of his, referencing himself anonymously and in the third person. When asked who he liked in the Series, he answered, "I don't think either one of them can win it."

In a similar vein, Frank Graham jokingly called this Series "the fat men versus the tall men at the office picnic."

One player decidedly not fitting that description was the Tigers' slugger Hank Greenberg, who had been discharged from military service early. He hit the only two Tigers homers in the Series, and scored seven runs overall and also drove in seven.

More recently, merely 19 years ago, we have:

1997 Indians

• Mike Hargrove was the manager
• No one from that team has yet been elected to the Hall of Fame, but a number of them are clear contenders including former Twins favorite, Jim Thome.
• Lost to Florida Marlins in seven games. The Marlins were only in their fifth season as a MLB franchise- a record.

Wikipedia reports:

The Marlins, who were underdogs, capped a stunning season. They [won] their first World Series championship, making them the first wild card team to ever win the World Series.

This was also the third (and most recent) time where Game 7 of the World Series went into extra innings, after 1924 and 1991 both of whom involved the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins franchise.

So it begins tonight. More sports, more baseball, more of the Fall Classic- # 112. I hope it lives up to- and even exceeds- the hype.

With all the pain we have been through in this election cycle, we need something extraordinary!

A Now Outdated Song

Steve Goodman was Chicago through and through. In his own wondrous way he captured the plight of the hapless Cubs in his 1981 song, A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request. In 1984 Steve wrote the song played after each win, Go Cubs, Go (as heard last night). Steve died of Leukemia at age 36 in 1984. After last night this song is outdated. Still a fun song, here is one last time before retirement.

One for the Record History Books

What a World Series awaits us! 

More than setting records, it will, 

one way or another,

make history.

 

Chicago has already made history. It is the first time since the troops  returned home from World War II that they have been in the World Series. In fact my dad was on a troop ship in the Atlantic heading home when they were in that Series.	If Cleveland wins it will be the first time since 1948. (To show you how old I am-  I was 2 months old!)
Let me tell you the top news from the last time the Cubs WON the World Series: Petroleum production begins in Middle East Henry Ford develops the first Model T automobile, which sells for $850. Baden Powell Starts the Boy Scouts, Billy Murray hits the charts with "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" The Gideons put the first Bibles in hotel rooms William Howard Taft elected president Oh- and that veteran returning home from Europe after World War II was only 3 years old.

Let's Not Forget Steve Goodman

I posted the Steve Goodman song (below). Who is Steve? Why do they sing another of his songs at Wrigley?
Here from a Today show piece from a few years ago, is the answer to all (or at least some) of your Steve Goodman questions.

Another Year Without the Cubs

The World Series begins tomorrow. Two teams that have been also-rans for a number of hours will be vying for the championship this year. The National League Mets haven't won the World Series since 1986; the American League Royals haven't been the champs since 1985. The Mets were last in the Series 15 years ago while the Royals were there last year.

But the missing team, as has been the case since 1945(!!!) at the end of World War II, is the luckless Chicago Cubs. (They last won the Series in 1907!)

Many were hoping that the Back to the Future II movie would prove to be prophetic. No such luck. The curse, or whatever it is, continues.

Actually, I continue to contend that maybe we should all be glad. I have a hunch that the true sign of the end of the world will be when the Cubs take the championship trophy. All will then have been accomplished. (As an old fan of the Brewers, I have to point out that they (and five other teams) have never won. And Mariners and Nationals fans would note that their teams have never made it to the Series at all.)

But the ultimate in lucklessness continues to be the Cubs. They still play the blues in Chicago, not just for baseball season, but at World Series time as well.

Maybe next year.

So, in loving honor of the "doormat of the National League" here is Steve Goodman's immortal love song to them, A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request.

We've Been Here Before, Haven't We?

October 21, 2015

We were here nearly 30 years ago riding hover boards, cheering the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series, making video phone calls, holographic movies.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Yes, I am kind of jumping on the cultural bandwagon of Back to the Future Part II. Today is the day Marty McFly and the crazy doctor landed in the future. I could get all philosophical and say that it is now no longer back to the future, but back to what used to be the future. Kind of like after 1984, 1984 isn't futuristic any more.

Like I used to try to confuse my daughter saying, "You know we aren't there, yet, because we can never get there. Once we are there, it's no longer there, but here."

(She didn't care for it that much, either.)

In any case, here we are and people are going crazy about what they got right and what they got wrong. We are searching for how the future of today is so different from the future of yesterday.

Let's just stop. It was a movie, people. It wasn't supposed to be future-telling. It was imagination. It was fun. Let's not take it too seriously. Let's just enjoy it.

So if you see Marty McFly today, ignore him. He's not there. Neither is that DeLorean dropping out of nowhere. It's all in your head. It's not happening.

But watch out for the Cubs. I hope THEY are real. (But it will now take a miracle.)

In Memoriam: Mr. Cub- Ernie Banks

Ernie Banks
(January 31, 1931 – January 23, 2015)

“There’s sunshine, fresh air, and the team’s behind us. Let’s play two.”