Cubs Win, so

I stayed up too late and watched the World Series game last night, so I grabbed some extra sleep and don't have time for anything more than a pro forma blog post. Briefly:

• If Team Clinton has anything more about Trump to dump, expect to see it today. 
• I would expect another dump on Hillary as well -- a lot of things are swirling around at the moment and I could see a Lawrence Walsh-style announcement from somewhere about criminal charges being filed against someone in her orbit.
• Early voting is pernicious. There will be a lot of people who voted early who will come to regret their votes, especially as new information comes to light about these dumpster fire candidates.
• Then again, just about every possible vote a person can make in this presidential election will be cause for regret.
• Pay attention to the local races; we need better politicians than the ones we have now and it's possible you will have a chance to pull the lever for someone who might change things for the better. I know, crazy talk, but hope springs eternal.
• Congratulations to the Cubs. I know many people who really do love them and I'm delighted those fans are having this moment. Come April, it's back to the Twins and the True Blue Brew Crew for me.

The W

I've followed baseball for a long time, nearly all of my life. My father was a Cubs fan. When I was very young, probably 6 or maybe 7, he took the family to Chicago for a weekend. One of the events he had planned for us was to see a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. The day of the game, a tremendous line of thunderstorms swept through Chicago and the game was rained out, so instead of going to Wrigley, we ended up sitting in our hotel room. This would have been around 1970 or thereabouts; the Cubs of that era were a good team, with Hall of Famers like Ferguson Jenkins, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo on the roster. I remember Dan being very disappointed about the rainout, especially as the storms broke later that afternoon.

Later on the 1970s, one of the local television stations in Green Bay would broadcast Cubs games on Sunday afternoons during the summer. It was appointment television for my Dad, who would faithfully watch the Bill Madlock-era Cubs get their butts handed to them. Sometimes I would watch the game with him, but most of the time I'd find other things to do. Dad would still watch the games.

In the late 1970s, we got cable television. The games weren't ubiquitous on television then; even when you had ESPN, it was more likely to have Australian Rules football on. But we did have WGN and so we watched the Cubs. You'd get occasional excitement, especially on a day when Dave Kingman was playing and the wind was out of the southwest, but for the most part those Cubs teams weren't very good, either.

By the late 1980s, I had moved to Chicago and the Cubs were up and down, but mostly down. Getting a ticket to Wrigley was now fairly difficult, but I did go maybe a dozen times over the course of the five years I lived there. My dad passed away in 1990, a year that the Cubs were 77-85, a quintessential Cubs season. As it happened, that team had three Hall of Famers on the roster as well -- Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, and Greg Maddux. But they also had Marvell Wynne and Doug Dascenzo. It wasn't enough. It never was.

Cubs Win! A sight seldom seen in many seasons

My dad, like a lot of Cubs fans, was loyal but fatalistic about his allegiance. The Cubs always seemed to be at least a player or two short of really getting there. There were magical seasons along the way, but they never could get it done. Now, in 2016, we see a fully operational juggernaut dressed in bright blue caps with the simple red C. The uniforms say Chicago across the front, but the men wearing them don't look like Larry Biittner or Mike Bielecki. I don't know if the Cubs are going to finally break through, after over 100 years, but I do wish my dad could have seen this team. The Cubs attract a lot of bandwagon fans, but the one Cubs fan I loved wasn't one of them. And as this season progresses, I'm thinking about him.

The dilemma of the Cubs

Cubs win! Cubs win! Well, they did last night at least, defeating the Pirates 4-0 in a game that included some outstanding pitching by Jake Arietta and an ineffectual bench clearing brawl.

So now the Cubs are in the NLDS, facing the St. Louis Cardinals. I'm reminded of the quote often attributed to Henry Kissinger concerning the Iran/Iraq war -- it's a pity they can't both lose.

The Cubs are a love/hate thing for me. My dad was a Cubs fan and I remember him watching the Sunday afternoon Cubs games that would run in the summertime on one of the Green Bay television stations in the mid 70s. Once we got cable television we could see the Cubs most days on WGN and it was easy to follow them. I enjoyed listening to the courtly but enthusiastic Jack Brickhouse and, later on, the always exuberant but usually sloshed Harry Caray. And their near miss in 1984 was a lot of fun.

The problem for me is, beyond the rivalry with my beloved Brewers, the whole scene around the Cubs creeps me out a bit. It's a little too precious and definitely too corporate. And the "lovable loser" shtick has always struck me as an excuse for incompetence. And while it may be venerable, Wrigley Field is a dump, with a lot of obstructed view seats. I know, because I've sat in them.

I've always been fond of Steve Goodman's song, "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request," which has added resonance since he was, at the time this was recorded, actually a dying Cubs fan himself:

The chorus sums it up well:

 Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League

I suspect this modern version of the Cubs is going to be a powerhouse for a while. After 107 years of losing, they have competent management and, it would appear, a lot of money. And they have a lot of excellent young talent. These are not the nickel and dime Cubs of yore. This is a gleaming superstructure. There's little chance of this scenario, also from Goodman's song:

Have the Cubbies run right out into the middle of the field,
Have Keith Moreland drop a routine fly
Give everybody two bags of peanuts and a frosty malt
And I'll be ready to die

Or this:

Or this:

Maybe this is the year. In the meantime, I'll be rooting for the Royals.