Cubs Lose, Cubs Lose

I don't make to many posts regarding baseball because I think baseball is very poorly run...essentially allowing any team to spend as much money as they want to buy a championship or, at the very least, pay to be competitive...

But I do get sucked into watching the playoffs and I have several friends that are 'diehard' Cubs fans...and when I say diehard I mean the non-bandwagon Cubs fans...I've known they have been Cubs fans for more than a decade which really had me surprised this year...

Why are they so surprised they have been eliminated from the playoffs? Is it because nothing bizarre or odd happened to continue to perpetuate the 'curse' hypothesis? Or was it because they had the World Series won before they even played in it? I think it is a little of both...

First, the Cubs got beaten, fair and square...no goats, no Bartman, no controversies at all...the longtime Cubs fan has to feel almost cheated that they can not sit and stew over how the Cubs got fucked over this year because of some wierd happening...what good is a curse if it isn't going to work all the time?

And then you have several of the Cubs fans...especially some of the younger/newer ones...or bandwagon as I typically refer to them, but there were also longtime, hardcore Cubs fans too...that essentially had the Cubs winning it all this year. They steamrolled through the regular season and had several games where the Cubs rallied in late innings to win games that seemed they were certainly destined to lose. And then since many media outlets had the Cubs performing well this year and continued to trumpet that all season had plenty of folks buying into what they were selling and then to have it end so quickly, so abrubtly and so definitively had to be like driving into a brick wall.

In talking with my Cubs friends prior to the postseason I had told them that I think the Dodgers could win it all. They seem to have gotten into the playoffs 'under the radar' and not many have given them a chance...the perfect recipe to go deep in the playoffs. Their team has gotten stronger just in time, the playoffs. Furcal returned after missing almost all of the regular season and on the flip side, Andrus Jones was injured and not playing in the playoffs - both are likely positives for the team since Furcal has already shown his effectiveness whereas Jones has been nothing but a colossal bust since signing with the Dodgers last year and it might be a blessing to have him not play - oftentimes when you are shelling out huge dollars for a player you feel obligated to play them because of that...regardless of the quality of his play.

Before the playoffs started I was hoping that Milwaukee and Tampa Bay were the teams to make it to the World Series - the ratings for that series would be about 6 people but probably entertaining...

So now the networks have got to be cheering for Boston and really LA or Philly are good markets for them...but if Tampa doesn't make the World Series then it will be all major market teams....yawn...