How many got confused trying to find Cubs Friday night on television?

A part of me felt sorry for my step-grandmother, who had her plans to park herself in front of a television set Friday night and watch for herself if the Chicago Cubs were capable of actually winning a playoff ballgame.
 

How many Cubs fans nearly soiled themselves?

For she literally got caught up in the confusion of trying to figure out which of those high-numbered television stations she never pays attention to was the Fox Sports channel that was actually carrying the ballgame.

I’M NOT SURE if she ever managed to figure out the channel number (where I was based, it was channel 652). Although I wonder if the pitchers’ duel would have been so stressful that she was better off not seeing it.

For the record, the Cubs managed to get a 1-0 victory. Two more wins against the San Francisco Giants, and the Cubs will manage to advance to the next round of the playoffs – which would mean they would have accomplished as much as they did last year.

Now I’ve made it clear before I’m not rooting for the Cubs to win a thing. I’m an American League fan, and my interest is in seeing which ball club there manages to win the league championship – then go on to the World Series to beat up on the National League chump.

If it’s the Cubs, that’s cute. If it’s not, it won’t matter much.

ALTHOUGH I HAVE to admit to feeling a bit of compassion for Cubs fan-types who I’m sure felt a second of agony; what with the way Buster Posey came oh so close to hitting a game-tying home run for the Giants with two out in the ninth inning.

Valparaiso, Ind. native to pitch against Cubs on Sat.

You have to admit it would be so Chicago Cub-ish for the baby blue bears to lead their fans so close to victory, only to have it pulled away.

But the Cubs managed to win, giving them a jump toward trying to win their first National League championship in 71 years.

Which ought to be the target the team focuses on at this point. Win the league championship, then worry about which American League powerhouse you’d have to face come the World Series.

I’LL BE HONEST. A part of me thinks the multiple rounds of playoffs we now have is so excessive – and not just because it results in ballgames being broadcast on obscure channels that most of us never knew we had access to.

I long for the days when the regular season’s best ball clubs went straight to the World Series. Heck, even Cubs fans ought to wish that was the way things remained today.

For if they were, the World Series would be a facedown between the Texas Rangers and the Chicago Cubs – which would contain a certain amount of irony considering that when the Chicago White Sox back in 2005 made the first World Series appearance by a Chicago team in 46 seasons, they played against the Houston Astros.

Another Chicagoan vs. Texan matchup would be intriguing. Although considering that the Rangers managed to lose a second playoff game Friday to the Toronto Blue Jays. One more loss – which could come as soon as Sunday – and the “best team” in the American League will be outta dere!

AND AS FOR those people who are fantasizing about the all-decrepit ballpark World Series between the Cubs and the Boston Red Sox? I’m sure New Englanders are hoping that Fenway Park creates some sense of magic, or else they’re only one more loss away from letting the Cleveland Indians advance.

 

"Big Hurt" giving us his baseball insights on FS1

What happens if this becomes the year that Cleveland wins its first World Series in nearly 60 years, or if the Washington Nationals wind up bringing capital city baseball fans their first World Series victory since 1924?

Cubs fans may want to believe they hold a monopoly on losing. But what happens if nobody manages to break a losing streak this year?

It would be the cruelest possible cosmic joke if the Giants manage to rebound and go all the way to win the World Series – adding to their victories of 2010, ’12 and ’14. Which would mean we’d all be better if we can’t find the games on television, even though it means we’d miss seeing one-time Chicago White Sox star Frank Thomas offering his baseball analysis to the broadcast; such as telling us that Cubs fans will become so unbearable if the Cubs actually win that he'll have to spend his winter at his Las Vegas home.

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It’s that World Series time of year – which ballclub do we follow in Chi?

I’m amused by the knowledge that Jake Peavy is scheduled to start the second game of the World Series on Wednesday, pitching for the San Francisco Giants as they try to win their third World Series title in the past five years.

For let’s not forget that Peavy also was active this time of year one year ago – he was with that Boston Red Sox ballclub that managed to slip an American League championship in between two last place seasons. He got to pitch in the 2013 World Series.

TWO YEARS IN a row, Peavy is a starting pitcher for ball clubs that have a shot at the top title in professional baseball.

Of course, during the parts of five seasons that Peavy was a starting pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, he was supposed to be the big game pitcher who would lead the Sox to a World Series appearance.

Only it never happened. The White Sox flirted with playoff baseball during his time in Chicago. But it never was fulfilled for the South Side ballclub and its fans.

So what should we think when Peavy pitches on Wednesday. Are we going to secretly be rooting for him? Or wondering why the big bum couldn’t get his act together for Chicago (a 36-win, 29-loss, 4.00 earned run average record was far from what the White Sox expected).

NOW I’M NOT necessarily wishing ill will on Peavy. I’m just pointing out he’s one of the few ballplayers who will be taking the field beginning Tuesday in this year’s World Series matchup between American League champion Kansas City Royals and the National League champ San Francisco Giants that has a Chicago connection.

One of the few for whom we can scream at our television sets “Why couldn’t you do that here!!?!?” while watching him play the summer game in the days leading up to Halloween.

He’s not the only one.

There’s also Jason Frasor, a relief pitcher who’s on the roster of the Kansas City Royals.

SOME MAY REMEMBER he pitched part of a season (the second half of 2011) with the White Sox. It wasn’t all that substantial.

His connection is more home-bound. He was born in Chicago, raised in suburban Oak Forest and played college baseball at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale – before going into the professional ranks that has seen him pitch in Toronto and Arlington, Texas, along with the Royals and the White Sox.

It will be a first World Series appearance for Frasor – in fact, this is the first time he’s ever played for a ballclub that managed to get into the playoffs.

Thank goodness for all those wild cards that now permit lesser ball clubs to have a chance at a league championship and World Series appearance. Otherwise, the Royals would all be sitting at home, on account of the fact that the Detroit Tigers were one game better than they were during the regular season.

BUT WE DO have these expanded playoffs in baseball, and some people like the idea of these almost-good enough teams getting a second chance. Which the Royals have take advantage of – having not lost a single ballgame during the playoffs. While also giving us the all-Wild Card World Series for 2014.

Beginning with that wild card qualifier game against the Oakland Athletics – who had the guy who many thought was going to be the Chicago connection to this year’s World Series.

After all, the White Sox’ Adam Dunn was traded to Oakland in early September, giving them a big bat (home runs, plus many strikeouts) to bolster the team in October.

Yet his “Super Whiff” characteristics kept Dunn from even playing in Oakland’s one playoff game – in which Kansas City overcame the rest of the team, got hot at the right time and has given us countless moments on television of watching one-time Royals third baseman George Brett cheer on the boys in baby blue as they try to win their first World Series title since that ball club Kansas City had in 1985.

MUCH HAS BEEN made of the fact that Kansas City hasn’t won anything since the middle of the Reagan Administration. Although those of us who will be watching the World Series on television this week and next will snicker at the idea of 1985 being all that distant.

Particularly for North Side baseball partisans – where despite playoff appearances in recent years, there hasn’t been a World Series victory since the days when the U.S. flag only had 46 stars.

Nor even an appearance since (with apologies to Steve Goodman) “the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.”

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The finish line is in sight (we hope). So now we turn to quirky predictors

It always amuses me to learn of trivial little actions that some people like to believe predicts the outcome of a presidential election.

ROMNEY: Should he have rooted for Yanks?

Such as those individuals who believe the fact that the Washington Redskins’ defeat on Sunday means that President Barack Obama will lose come Tuesday.

FOR IT SEEMS that some people believe if the Redskins win their home game before Election Day, then the incumbent wins. President-elect Mitt Romney, anyone?

Not so fast. For there’s the VOTES Project, which is a mock election that has been held along the northeast at high schools to try to educate students in a practical way about how the election process works.

Supposedly, it has been correct every year since 1988 (except for 2004, when it guessed that we’d get “President John Kerry”).

This year, it resulted in Obama getting 316 electoral votes, compared to 208 for Romney. It also threw in a reality check in the form of the storm known as Sandy, which caused students at five high schools to be unable to cast votes.

WHICH MEANS THERE are 14 electoral votes that nobody gets!

So who should we trust, the high school kids, or the Washington Redskins?

Or perhaps we should be focusing on the Carolina Panthers – the team that beat the Redskins 21-13 on Sunday.

OBAMA: Giants fan, and Redskins basher?

The campaigns thought that North Carolina’s electoral votes would be up for grabs and that Barack Obama might actually have a chance of taking that southern state. It seems we should have been paying attention to the professional gridiron, instead of anything said at the convention held in Charlotte.

NOW, OF COURSE, anybody with sense realizes this is a batch of nonsense. One could probably find just about anything that matches up with election cycles in a way that makes them appear to be reliable predictors.

And while I realize the overly-religious amongst us are going to take offense at this next statement, it is a big coincidence! I’d really like to think that God, in whatever form he exists, has better things to do than worry about who wins an earth-bound election.

So I don’t think that a heavenly spirit is in any way giving the Redskins or these high school kids or any other human entity the ability to predict how an election will turn out.

That is up to the voters who bother to take the time to cast ballots. And as for those who speculate that votes will be lost due to weather damage caused by Sandy, I believe that those individuals determined enough to make a difference WILL find a way to vote.

BESIDES, WE ALL ought to know that the only true predictor lies within professional baseball.

It seems that when American League teams win the World Series in an election year, the Republican candidate prevails. While World Series champions from the National League benefit the Democratic Party candidate.

The ultimate Republican hero?



Although that is mostly because of the presence of the New York Yankees in the American League. It seems that the Yankees do well by Republican presidential candidates – thereby boosting the number of American League victories overall.

That wouldn’t be a factor in this year’s elections, since the Yankees managed to get knocked out of the playoffs by the same Detroit Tigers who got whomped on by the San Francisco Giants.

SO DOES THAT mean Obama will have extra special reason to invite the Giants to the White House next year for the traditional championship celebration?

And should he be grateful that the “fans” of U.S. Steel didn’t get the chance to see their favorite ballclub win its 28^th World Series title.

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Detroit/S.F. match-up may disappoint, but it's still the World Series

I’ll be honest – I was hoping for a World Series matchup this year between the New York Yankees and the Washington Nationals.

Not only would it have been a matchup between the two ballclubs that finished the regular season with the best winning records in their respective leagues, I would have loved to see the frustration from Chicago Cubs fans as yet another city with a losing history made it to the series before their precious Cubbies.

WASHINGTON, AFTER ALL, hasn’t had any of its assorted baseball teams throughout the years play in a World Series since 1933. No D.C. ballclub has won the Series since 1924.

But that isn’t going to happen. The Nationals blew a playoff lead to the St. Louis Cardinals, while the Yankees who appeared so significant in the first round of playoffs against the Baltimore Orioles withered away into insignificance against the Detroit Tigers.

Those same Tigers who barely scraped past the Chicago White Sox will go into the record books as American League champions for 2012. They will take the field in San Francisco Wednesday night – where the World Series against the National League champion Giants will begin.

Detroit versus San Francisco. I’ve heard of worse series matchups, I suppose.

BUT THAT’S WHAT it’s going to be for the next few days – possibly through Nov. 1 if the World Series actually manages to drag through all seven games.

I must confess to being unsure of who to root for in this particular pairing. I am a fan of the American League, and I usually root for the American League champions come World Series-time (and the league’s All Star team come the All Star Game).

I know some White Sox fans are so appalled at the fact that their ballclub didn’t even make it into the playoffs that there’s no way they’d even think of rooting for Detroit. Although considering how badly the White Sox played the final month of the season, I’d argue they didn’t deserve a playoff spot.

But a part of me has to confess to admiring this particular version of a San Francisco Giants ballclub.

THEY WERE THE team that was one game away from elimination in the first round of playoffs against the Cincinnati Reds – then came from behind to win three straight games.

Then in the second round of playoffs against St. Louis, they were down 3 games to 1 – at which point Giants manager Bruce Bochy made a wisecrack about having the Cardinals “right where we want them.”

Yet as it turns out, the Giants then managed to pull off three straight victories against St. Louis to win the round, and the National League pennant.

That last game in particular amazed me – particularly the final inning when the rainfall that had been hitting San Francisco all day Monday came down in a deluge. If it hadn’t have been the final inning of Game Seven of the National League Championship Series, I’m sure the umpires would have delayed the event – if not postponed it.

WATCHING GIANTS’ INFIELDER Marco Scutaro struggle to avoid slipping on the slick grass while catching the pop-up that was the final out of the Giants 9-0 victory was a truly nerve-wracking moment. I’m sure Boston Red Sox fans, in particular, are wishing their last-place ballclub had never gotten rid of him. It also was more intriguing than the final presidential debate, which seemed more like Mitt Romney trying to moderate himself into another Barack Obama when it comes to foreign policy that I can envision his followers being utterly repulsed.



Washington continues to wait for World Series


It’s kind of difficult for me to think of rooting against this Giants ballclub – even if it has been a few years since an American League team won a World Series and the American League “fan” in me feels like it’s overdue.

And I’m sure Detroit Tigers fans are gleefully awaiting a chance to see if their team’s acquisition of rotund slugger Prince Fielder for a big-bucks, long-term contract will pay off.

Being able to say that the Tigers got a World Series victory in the first year of the Fielder contract will go a long way towards erasing the complaints that will arise in the final years of the contract when Fielder is nowhere hear the feared hitter he is now – but will still get paid as though he is.

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Texas versus San Francisco: What do they know about pain of perennial losing?

My recommendation to everybody is to go out and buy themselves a pair of earplugs; the better to block out all the incessant whining we’re going to hear in coming days from Chicago Cubs fans with regards to this year’s matchup in the World Series.

The American League champion Texas Rangers will take on that other league’s champions, the San Francisco Giants, in a best-of-seven World Series, scheduled to begin Wednesday.

WHEN PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES star slugger Ryan Howard failed to come up with a game-tying (or winning) hit Saturday night and instead made the final out, the stage was set for the futility World Series.

The Giants, after all, are the team that has never won a World Series since moving from Harlem to the Bay Area in 1958. That last Giants’ World Series title of 1954 was so long ago that Willie Mays was an up-and-coming star when he made that fantastic catch of what could have been Vic Wertz’ inside-the-park home run at the Polo Grounds.

But compared to the Texas Rangers, that is a boatload of success. The Rangers, who came into existence in 1972 when an incarnation of the Washington Senators decided the Dallas suburbs were better than the District of Columbia, have NEVER been in the World Series. 2010 is already a monumental season for them because it is the Rangers’ first American League championship ever.

So one way or another, either the Dallas-Ft. Worth metropolitan area or San Francisco is going to get a World Series title to celebrate. One of professional baseball’s streaks of futility will end this year. It must. There just isn’t any way that both teams could lose.

THAT IS WHAT will cause the complaining from baseball fans for whom the epicenter of their fanaticism is the Humble Abode of one Elwood J. Blues (a.k.a., Wrigley Field).

We’re going to hear a lot about 1908 – the last time the Chicago Cubs managed to win a World Series. It’s 102 years and counting since a Cubs team won everything. Cubs fans are going to get all whiny and say that people of San Francisco and Dallas have no clue what it is like to go so long and support a ballclub without getting a sense that the team accomplished something.

We’ll even get reminders of 1945, the last year that the Cubs actually managed to win a National League championship and play in a World Series – losing four games to two to the Detroit Tigers (the same team they beat for their two World Series victories in 1907 and 1908).

By comparison, having a major league team since 1972 that never managed to win anything (as is the case for the ballclub based in the Dallas suburb of Arlington) is just a minor set-back.

CUBS FANS WILL want to think that these teams don’t deserve to think of themselves as having to endure any particular record of futility. Perhaps Cubs fans will think that other teams are trying to steal their unique aura by making it seem like their World Series-winless streaks are worthy of note.

Now as anybody who has read my past commentary on matters related to professional baseball knows, I am not a Chicago Cubs fan. I find the breed to be too self-righteous. They whine about everything. And there’s something about that consistent knack for blowing ballgames that I as a Chicago native find embarrassing.

It’s like people think of the Cubs and assume that all of Chicago is a batch of losers just because of the baby blue bear cubs from the North (side, that is).

Personally, I have no problem with the futility angle being applied to this year’s World Series, because it is legitimate. I think the Cubs’ standard of futility is in its own category, and that it is ridiculous to downplay somebody else’s significant streak of being unsuccessful.

SO IT WILL be interesting to see which city ultimately gets to celebrate its first World Series ever, and which one gets to have to take on the old Cubs’ mantra of “Wait ‘til Next Year). Perhaps the losing team will continue to be futile for a long-enough period that they someday can be put in the Chicago Cubs unique classification of losing.

Insofar as this year’s World Series is concerned, I suppose I’m rooting for the Rangers because I’m an American League fan and usually support that league’s team in the All-Star Game and World Series.

Although I have to admit, when I saw Giants shortstop Juan Uribe hit what turned out to be the game-winning home run Saturday that gave the Giants the pennant, I couldn’t help but recall the final game of the 2005 World Series, particularly the last inning when Uribe made a dive into the stands to catch a foul ball, then barehanded a ground ball hit by Houston Astros pinch-hitter Jose Vizcaino for a throw to first base for the final out that let the Chicago White Sox break their own futility streak (88 years between World Series titles).

I do have to confess one thing – a part of me was hoping that the New York Yankees could have rebounded and defeated the Rangers for the American League championship.

LARGELY, IT IS because of the presence of Yankees’ relief pitcher Kerry Wood – whom Cubs fans used to worship as the man who would take their team to a World Series appearance (which obviously never happened).

I would have gotten my chuckle from seeing Wood finally make it to a World Series in Yankee pinstripes, similar to how I still remember the 1999 World Series for giving long-time White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen his only chance to play (no hits and one strikeout in five at-bats) in a World Series, albeit while wearing the tomahawk of the Atlanta Braves across his chest.

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