Cubs Eulogizing
Another year of Cubs optimism turned sour
If this young fall season has reiterated anything to us as sports fans, it is the utter hell that is the existence of a Cubs fan. Another year, another tease. Another year started off in spring with bitter cynicism, melted by humid summer months of good play, then refrozen by a fall collapse.
And I get to do it all again next year. Hello, I am a Cubs fan, and this is my plight. Gather round all you Cardinals, Astros and White Sox fans, gather around and bask in our misery. It's bad enough that Cubs fans have to endure season after season of promising futility, two of the three rivals of the team have won a championship the last five years.
So how to go about eulogizing this Cubs season, the most promising since the Bartman-fueled debacle of 2003? It certainly wasn't one that started with much hope. If most Cubs fans are like me we were hopeful about Mark Cuban buying the team before the season started, with dreams of lavish free agent spending and an owner's passion to win that makes Steinbrenner look ambivalent and nonchalant. Of course, the hope is still there that Cubes will get ownership and reverse the tightwad spending of the Tribune company, but it's hard for Cubs fans to dare to hope. We've been burned too many times before.
Of course, there are similarities here to the 2003 debacle. Namely that the Cubs were bounced both times by relatively new expansion teams with relatively small fanbases. Not to use it as a measure of what teams deserve success but let's face it, the 2003 Marlins brought that championship home to roughly 25 fans. The next year, the stands were still empty. They didn't deserve it. Cubs fans do. Diamonback fans, I hope you enjoy it more than they did.
I never thought I would be more teased by the Cubs than I was in 2003, though. To be fair, pound for pound, that 2003 was far more talented than the 2007 team. So in a way, the 2003 season should have been more disappointing, correct? Wrong. This season seemed like destiny. It was that "magic in the air" feeling that swept over us following the rise from last to first in the division from April 20th to August 2nd, a ride peppered with ups and downs but always hopefully, steadily climbing up. Which they did.
It was a season that teased us with Prior's return and then his re-exiting. Oh, Prior, where art thou? You were so good. One of the most promising rookie pitchers I'd ever seen. Please come back to stay. At least Kerry Wood came back, and at least that stuck, even as a closer.
If there is one upside to this season over the crushing crash of the 2003 collapse it is that it leaves more promise in it's wake. The end of the 2003 season felt like a death knell, the players and fans mentally and physically defeated by the event. (Although, it certainly looks right now like Lofton has recovered just fine.) Year of the Bartman closed like the final act of a sad movie: the fans and organization knew the skipper had to go, Sosa was at the end of his effectiveness, free-agents were leaving, and the two star pitchers were about to go down a long road of injuries. Looking back with in retrospection, it was one of the saddest moments in my life as a sports fan. Unbridled promise had given way to spectacular failure and despressing storylines.
This time, at least, there is the tricky position of the Cubs fan to still be hopeful, a position we are quite uncomfortable with. We still have Zambrano (please don't get hurt.) Piniella worked out better than anyone thought it would. We still have Soriano, Lee, and some very interesting young players who now have pennant-chase and playoff experience.
It may be small comfort in the face of another long offseason of reflection, and another year to get up for next year. But we will do it all over again and hope for the best. We are Cubs fans. Just don't break our hearts again. I don't know how many more we can take.Kenneth England, Cubs, Soriano, 2007, Chicago, season, Piniella, Prior, Wood, collapse
