While I’m shocked that the Cubs made such an early exit, I’m relieved that the Apocalypse has been put off. I was convinced that the Cubs would win this year – in a “subway” series no less! And pretty convinced that this would precipitate the End of Days.
Like any true Cubs fan, I’m already thinking of next year and on this front, purely at the level of self-interest, I’m hopeful of an immediate positive development, viz., enough people falling off the bandwagon that it will be easier to get tickets. This past season I got on the internet service about 5 hour after tickets went on sale and could find no pairs left in July or August.
The hand-wringing that we’re seeing in some media and blogging is not, I assert, the Cubs way. Yes, we want the Cubs to win but in a certain indefinable sense the Cubs are a transcendent entity. Partly it’s the timeless beauty of Wrigley Field, partly the futility and partly history. When you go to Wrigley you’re entering a little time-bubble; how rare is that? The trappings are different but the simple game is essentially the same, even down to its small rituals, like the starting pitchers’ warmups. Now that Yankee Stadium is gone and Fenway is not likely to exist much longer, this is all the more precious.
Baseball is the most quintessentially stochastic of sports. As much as people don’t want to accept it, it’s inherent in the game that the team with the best record over 161 games can lose three in a row. Derek Lee, Carlos Zambrano and mates are not “chokers”; their numbers just didn’t come up. A pretty low probability result, it’s true but nothing out of line from baseball’s remorselessly statistical nature.
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