The Chicago Sun-Times Rick Morrissey has a humorous column today, where he writes: (emphasis added)
... any story about hope and the Cubs is a story about a historical record that recommends proceeding in an orderly fashion to the lifeboats.... Do you think the Cubs will win a World Series in your lifetime or anybody else's?
If you answered yes, the natural companion question is: Why in the world would you think that?
...
[Cub fans] don't have anything but hope, which makes you like fans of most other teams. But many of those fans at least can point to a championship team somewhere in their past and say: ''There. That's why I believe. I know what it takes for my team to win. I've witnessed it or my parents witnessed it. It can be done again.''
A Cubs fan only can tell you how it feels to pick at scabs.
...
Asking a Cubs fan why he continues to support the team is like asking a table leg why it supports the table. It just does.
Yesterday's 6-0 Chicago Cubs' win over the Pirates was the team's 82nd "W" of the 2009 campaign, ensuring a winning season for just the 18th time since 1960 for the North Siders.
The Cubs finished over .500 for the season in 1963, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1984, 1989, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, and 2009 (in 1977, they finished 81-81).
It is the 10th plus-.500 record for the ball club since 1989, and the seventh in the last 11 years. The last time the Cubs were on a streak like this was when they had seven plus-.500 seasons for the ten seasons between 1963-1972.
"My dad took myself and my younger brother to a game in the bleachers (I was 22 and my brother was a naïve 13 year old at the time). About three innings into the game the woman in the row next to us passes out then wakes up abruptly and throws up all over the guy in front of her, I'm talking an explosion that would make the Catalina wine mixer clear out. The woman gets ejected and as she's being dragged out starts slurring "Don't eat the hot dogs! Let me go its your hot dogs that made the throw up! I buy this stadium every game!" The crowd spends most of the inning watching this. One inning later another intoxicated gentleman arrives searching for a seat, he notices the two vomit soaked benches in front of him being the only open seats in the section so of course he should turn away and look elsewhere. Of course not, the guy disinfects the seat with some beer and wipes off the romance with his bare hand, sits down and spends the rest of the afternoon soaking it all in."
New York Yankees club co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner, huffing and puffing about the National League's horribly archaic, cruelly antediluvian practice of making Major League pitchers bat and -- good God! -- run the bases, after his pitching ace, Chien-Ming Wang, injured his foot running on the basepaths:
"My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century," Steinbrenner said in Tampa, Fla. "They need to grow up and join the 21st century.
"Am I [mad] about it? Yes," Steinbrenner added. "I've got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He's going to be out. I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."
...
"This is always a concern of American League teams when their pitchers have to run the bases and they're not used to doing it," Steinbrenner said. "It's not just us. It's everybody. It probably should be a concern for National League owners, general managers and managers when their pitchers run the bases. Pitchers have enough to do without having to do that."
In an article on former Cubs' pitcher and Cy Young Award winner Rick Sutcliffe, the Kansas City Star's Bill Reiter recounts the story of Sutcliffe's first career stolen base -- which resulted when a fan yelled to Sutcliffe from the stands that Bill Murray, substituting for the ailing Harry Caray on WGN's broadcast of the game, had just bet Steve Stone a case of beer that Sutcliffe would steal second base.
It was 1987, Harry Caray had suffered a stroke, and fellow Cubs broadcaster Steve Stone often invited guest commentators into the booth. Bill Murray decided to make his appearance on a day Sutcliffe was pitching.
“Robin will tell you, she used to piss me off before I’d leave, because the madder I was, usually the better I’d pitch,” he said. “I come out to go to my locker to get my uniform and Murray’s sitting in my chair right in front of my locker.”
This was not cool.
“He’s got like 10 guys around him, he’s telling stories and jokes and everybody’s going nuts, and I gotta admit I look and I see Murray there and I go in my mind, ‘Wow, that’s Bill Murray!’ Then I go, no, you gotta pitch, you gotta get your game face on.”
Sutcliffe shook Murray’s hand, left the clubhouse and took the mound. The game started and he pitched well. In the third inning, Sutcliffe singled in Jody Davis, who scored on a close play at the plate. The pitcher for the Montreal Expos got ejected after arguing the call.
Sitting in the booth, Stone and Murray had to stall while a new pitcher warmed up. Murray looked at Stone and said, “I betcha a case of beer Sutcliffe steals second.”
Stone laughed and pointed out Sutcliffe had never even attempted to steal a base. He pointed out Sutcliffe had a bad hamstring. He pointed out Sutcliffe was not exactly the world’s fastest human being.
“But,” Sutcliffe remembered Stone saying, “I’ll take the bet because I’d like to win a case of beer from you.”
The pitcher was still warming up when word spreads and a fan yelled, “Hey Sut, Murray just bet Steve Stone a case of beer you’ll steal second!”
Standing on first base, Sutcliffe decided: Screw it. I’m going.
“All of a sudden the pitcher comes down and I tell my mind to go but my body won’t move and I literally almost fell down,” he said.
Then Expos manager Buck Rodgers yelled to first baseman Andres Galarraga, ‘Play behind him, he ain’t frickin’ going anywhere!’ ”
Sutcliffe took off running. All 6-7 of the Red Baron hauling ass for second base just to mess with Cubs announcer Steve Stone.
“I am gone,” Sutcliffe said. “He comes down and looks over. Well I’m halfway to second. I’m going, ‘Ah, he got me.’ Well the dummy goes to home so now I’ve got to get going again. But there’s still a play. That’s how slow I am.”
The throw. The slide. He’s safe.
“I look up into the booth and Murray’s going crazy and I kind of gave him a little whatever,” Sutcliffe said, reenacting a manly head bob. “I throw a shutout, I steal a base, and we were locked for life.”
