Go Cubs ... Nooooooo!
I'm slowing coming out of hiding after by beloved hometown baseball team decided to torture me these past two days. It shouldn't surprise me. In fact, I sort of predicted it - not because of any so-called Cubs curse, but because it was a team capable of going into deep funks at various points in the season. Now we're faced with the nearly impossible task of taking the next three from your Dodgers.
It could happen, I suppose. In 1984, the Cubs first postseason appearance in like 387 years, they won the first two, only to be swept by the Padres and their ghastly yellow uniforms. And just a few years back, the Red Sox lost the first three to the Yankees in the League Championship Series before taking four in a row en route to their first modern-day World Series.
Why do we do this to ourselves, clinging to some desperate sense of hope?
Former deputy editor Jeff Keating, also an LFC (lifelong Cubs fan), sent me this email earlier today:
This is like watching the last five minutes of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" 50 times, praying they'll somehow survive the Bolivian shootout.
That, or the Zapruder film.
I'm not sure what would be better - winning the next game, or being put out of our misery now?