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September arrives and Chicagoans shift their sports attention to football, the Bears, Northwestern and Notre Dame. But something is amiss this year. We are still watching and paying attention to baseball. Somehow, the Chicago Cubs have found themselves in a pennant race.
I'm not sure how this happened. At the beginning of the season, this team just looked like a bunch of placeholders awaiting the arrival of the promising prospects paying their dues in the minor leagues, and a bunch of pitchers coming back from arm surgery. Then something odd happened. The somewhat solid starting pitching rotation gained a reliable closing staff. All those injured arms healed. Now, this is strange. The Cubs have never in my lifetime had decent pitching. They have always had good fielding, respectable hitting, but the pitching has been poor. The pitchers were winning games. First base on the road to insanity.
The Cubs have always been blessed with a few good hitters. Unfortunately, they had the tendency to strike out far too often. I remember watching Dave Kingman come to bat and thinking he's either going to strike out or hit a homerun. There seemed to be no in between. In my mind, Sammy Sosa fits right in with the Cubs big swingers. Usually, there were plenty of other guys to get the singles and doubles to score some runs during the season. This season the Cubs are lucky to score three runs a game. Nobody is hitting, even the guys we added to the team because of their hitting prowess. Of course, Sammy is consistent and is still hitting home runs. Second base on the road to insanity.
In 1998, the Cubs played in a playoff for the Wild Card team. They sort of unexpectedly ended up there. It was a combination of other teams losing and the Cubs winning a few games. This year is different. For quite sometime the Cubs actually led the National League Central Division. Of course, in typical Cub fashion, they couldn't keep the lead, but they have no experience keeping a lead. Third base on the road to insanity.
Finally, even though the Cubs are no longer leading the division, they really do have a chance to win. If they don't win they have a strong chance to gain the Wild Card entry to the playoffs. This isn't suppose to be. The Cubs are suppose to be sweeping up the cellar. That's the way it has been for nearly one hundred years. Home Run.
So, now we watch the Cubs intently. We groan when they leave men stranded on base. We wait for the pitching to collapse. We wonder outload when the hitting will begin. We watch the lead slip away. We wonder if sanity is around the corner. Will we soon be out of this playoff race and normalcy returns? As long as their is a glimmer of hope, we continue our insane belief that maybe, just maybe, this is THE YEAR.
September 7, 2001 |
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