Cubbies create nothing but a yawn from me, but White Sox offer no guarantees

I am a life-long Chicagoan interested in baseball who must confess that the presence of the Chicago Cubs in the 2017 baseball playoffs trying to get themselves a second-consecutive World Series berth leaves me emotionally flat.

Chicago baseball fans debate ...

I honestly could care less what the Cubs do this year. And not just because my interest in the local baseball scene focuses on the chances that the Chicago White Sox’ rebuild, with an intense “Cubano revolution,” will result in success.

BECAUSE OF THE White Sox interest, I’m an American League fan – one whom I must admit as a kid enjoyed the New York Yankees ballclubs of the mid-1970s and still remembers that two of their preeminent ballplayers were former White Sox Bucky Dent and Rich Gossage.

... which World Series relevant

I went into this year’s baseball playoffs focusing attention on the Cleveland/New York matchup, figuring that I’d wind up rooting for whichever team prevailed in that early round to go all the way to win the American League championship – then the World Series.

As for the National League? I check the box scores , but really don’t care which team wins. I only want them to ultimately lose to the American League champions.

If there is Yankee success in '17,...

I only saw the last two innings of that final Chicago/Washington playoff game – and will always believe the Cubs were downright lucky to get that 8^th inning pickoff play ruled in their favor because it put to rest the rally that WOULD HAVE resulted in a Washington victory (and the Cubbie faithful crying in their beers).

BUT REALLY, I’M not rooting against the Cubs at this stage of the playoffs Eventually I’ll root for either New York or Houston to beat up on either Los Angeles or the baby blue Bruins of the North Side – whichever prevails this week.

... it could be due to a trio ...

The part of me that roots for the White Sox during the regular season almost wouldn’t mind a Houston/Chicago matchup. It would be downright funny if the Astros – who only once in their history ever made it to the World Series; losing to the White Sox of 2005 before transferring leagues in 2013 – beat up on the Cubs!

White Sox fans mostly are apathetic about the playoffs (even though Cubbie faithful is deluded enough to think the whole world is obligated to root for their ball club), but would get a kick out of history recording the Houston Astros losing to their team, while beating the Cubs.

... of ballplayers with Chicago ties

Not all of Chicago is getting all worked up over Cubbie-mania. There are those of us with real lives, and those of us who are still living off the memories of that aforementioned ’05 World Series victory that was the first for a Chicago ball club in this century

JUST AS REGARDLESS of what happens with the Cubs against the Dodgers this week, Cubs fans will still have their memories of 2016 how they nearly blew a Game 7 lead to the Cleveland Indians, but managed to win in extra innings.

If Jose Lobaton hadn't been picked off ...

It’s the inherent character of Chicago baseball that fans have their team to root for – and the other might as well not exist.

The only way we’d ever get Chicago united over a post-season round of baseball playoffs is if we were to ever get the proper circumstances for an all-Chicago World Series.

Which is the goal of the White Sox re-build, to put their ball club in contention for a World Series berth at the same time that the Cubs may still have ballclubs in contention. That would be a circumstance that would create memories Chicagoans would talk about for the rest of their lives. Which when you consider how young some baseball fans are these days could easily stretch to the final days of the 21^st Century.

... it's likely the 'L' flag would be flying in the minds of Cubs fans

OF COURSE, THERE’S there’s always the problem that there are no guarantees in baseball – just like there’s no crying (remember the film "A League of their Own?"). Nobody knows just how the baseball season will play out until the ballgames are actually played.

It was just a couple of years ago the Pittsburgh Pirates had contending teams that were supposedly going to end decades of losing. Yet they haven’t won a thing – and their window of opportunity may now be over. Similar to those Seattle Mariners teams of the late 1990s to early 2000s – including the 2001 team that still has a record for the most wins in a season, but no league championship or World Series title to show for it. There also are many American League teams throughout the years that represented Boston, Chicago or Cleveland -- to name just a few examples of teams that came so close to winning it all.

A revival in Chicago?

Or maybe the story of coming years will be the resurgence of the Yankees (who haven’t won a World Series since 2009). What if the Yankees were to beat the Cubs in this year’s World Series, and have continued success that prevented the White Sox from winning a World Series birth in the near future?

Could the “Damned Yankees” be the uniting factor for both sides of Chicago baseball in years to come!

  -30-

’17 baseball season is ‘ovah,’ yet fan excitement strong on both sides of town

The Chicago White Sox season for this year stumbled to its end Sunday in Cleveland, with the White Sox being able to say they didn’t lose 100 games and are far from the worst team in baseball (they didn’t even finish last place in their own division).

As for the Chicago Cubs, they managed to pull off a third-straight year of appearing in the playoffs (which begin this year on Tuesday). It’s also the second-straight year of finishing a regular season in first place (something they hadn’t been able to do since 2007-08).

YET FOR THOSE fans of the cutesy Cubbies who are inclined to gloat, I say “Stuff it!”

Because the most disappointing aspect of baseball ending Sunday is that it means we have to wait some five months before we can see more progress in the great rebuild that White Sox management hopes will result in championship ballclubs sometime about 2019 or 2020.

While I’m sure that Cubs fans seriously believe the whole world is rooting for them to achieve a second-straight World Series title this year, there are those White Sox fans who will be anxious to see the rebuild progress. To see the youthful star Luis Robert progress up the minor league route (he may begin next year in Winston-Salem, N.C.) to get closer to Chicago.

Where he could pair up with established Cuban star Jose Abreu (a batting average of .305, slugging percentage of .554, 33 home runs and 102 runs batted in) and rising star Yoan Moncada to create that Cuban baseball revolution that could be the core of bringing a championship to the South Side in the name of the Cuban Comet himself – Minnie Miñoso.

OF COURSE, THERE are no guarantees in baseball. There are a lot of quirks that could come up that thwart a championship season. The “Damn Yankees” could resurrect themselves to a role of dominance during the next few seasons.

But White Sox fans are overly anxious, not wanting to see the on-field action stop because it means they’ll have to wait a little while longer for the title they’re hoping for.

And yes, there are elements of wanting to produce so as to “shut up” Cubs fans and their obnoxious streak of thinking that a lone World Series title now puts them in the same status as the New York Yankees (who have 27 such titles and are going for number 28 starting Tuesday).

In short, April 5 and Opening Day against the Detroit Tigers (the ball club that managed to bottom out and be worse than the White Sox this season) can’t some soon enough.

AS FOR THE Cubs, they now advance to the first round of playoffs against the Washington Nationals in the District of Columbia.

Their spirits would watch over ...

It will be interesting to see how Cubs fans react to not being the team of sympathy and underdog status. Don’t forget that Washington is now the city with baseball teams that have lengthy losing status – no D.C. ball club has won a World Series since 1924 or has even been in a World Series since 1933.

And the current Washington ball club has never won a thing (not even back in their days of being the Montreal Expos).

Yet the Cubs would like to think that their own losing ways still linger – and it would be of some historic significance if a Cubs’ team were to win a second consecutive World Series. Since the only two they ever had won before came in consecutive (1907 and 1908) years.

... any all-Chicago World Series of future

SO IT WILL be of some interest to see if a Chicago ball club can advance past Washington and Los Angeles (that’s what playoffs are for) to make it to the World Series.

Even if not as much interest as watching the rebuild taking place on the South Side that is now on hold for five months.

Because it would put us Chicago baseball fans a step closer to what would be the ultimate experience – an all-Chicago World Series. An experience we haven’t had in 111 years – and counting.

That would be the experience worth getting all worked up over!

  -30-

EXTRA: Beisbol heroics on Sabado from a pair of Latin American catchers

For those people who want to downplay the great significance that Latin America plays in modern-day professional baseball, Saturday was likely a swift kick to the huevos.
 

Carlos Santana became a Cleveland hero ...

For both the American and National leagues had more games in their ongoing quest to produce league champions who will face off against each other in this year’s World Series.

THE CLEVELAND INDIANS gave themselves a significant jolt in their chances of being one of those World Series-bound ball clubs – what with them beating the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1 to take a two games to nothing lead over their Canadian competitors.

While the Chicago Cubs started off their round of playoffs with an 8-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Three more wins, and the Cubs could have their first league pennant since 1945.

In both games, the big bats came from catchers who hail from Latin American nations – Carlos Santana of the Indians from the Dominican Republic and Miguel Montero of the Cubs from Venezuela.

Both men managed to hit home runs that gave their teams the leads they ultimately held. Both may well have had the highlights of their professional careers on Saturday.

FOR SANTANA, HE hit a line shot off Blue Jays pitcher J.A. Happ that managed to clear that 19-foot high wall they have at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, which may be as ridiculous a corporate ballpark name as Chicago’s new Guaranteed Rate Field.

 

... to be followed a few hours later in Chicago by a Cub

While Montero hit a four-run home run for the Cubs, coming in as a pinch hitter and breaking up a tied score that the Dodgers had just managed to accomplish.

Just at a time when the Dodgers thought they were going to outsmart the Cubs, a little bit of muscle broke the game open.

Just as how Santana broke up a double shutout game by putting the Indians on the board; creating a mood throughout Cleveland that had fans convinced that victory was theirs. And for at least a day made him the more important “Carlos Santana” than the legendary guitar player.

I WOULDN’T BE surprised if people in Cleveland and on the North Side were now gearing up for an Indians/Cubs World Series scheduled to begin Oct. 25. For what it’s worth, Halloween will be a travel day between games six and seven – if it turns out that those games need to be played.

 

For a day, he's just a guy named 'Carlos'

Although anyone with baseball sense knows nothing should ever be taken for granted until it’s a done deal. Anybody who has watched the Indians sweep the Boston Red Sox and handle Toronto thus far ought to be able to see they’re not going to be the least bit intimidated by the Cubs – no matter how much some people are determined to think it is inevitable that there will be an ultimate Chicago victory.

Toronto fans surely think things are about to change come Monday with the return of playoff games to Ontario, while Dodgers fans know that with six more games to play against the Cubs, they could still rebound.

Which is why baseball truly is the greatest of games, and only a fool will be paying any attention to the Bears Sunday as they play (and possibly lose to) the Jacksonville Jaguars.

  -30-

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.

  -30-

Will this become year “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” loses relevance

I’m not a Chicago Cubs fan. In fact, I have to admit the only thing about the city’s National League franchise I find appealing is that Steve Goodman song.

And no, I don’t mean “Go Cubs, Go.” Which is about as insipid a lyric as ever crafted.

I’M ACTUALLY REFERRING to the early 1980s tune “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” which purports to tell the tale of the final moments of life of an aging man who spent his life in fruitless rooting for a Cubs team that didn’t embarrass itself, and actually brought a championship to Chicago.

Of course, it didn’t happen. The fan in the song wound up being cremated with his ashes spread at Wrigley Field – with the “prevailing 30 mile an hour southwest wind” blowing them over the left field wall and bleachers so he can, “come to my final resting place, out on Waveland Avenue.”

Which is kind of a touchingly truthful sentiment, if you think about it. But would that be a loss if this truly is the year that the Chicago Cubs wind up doing anything of significance – rather than finding yet another way to blow it come playoff time.

Because that’s the mode we’re in now, what with the Cubs managing to win a division title with Thursday night’s St. Louis Cardinals loss. Although the Cubs tried rewriting history Friday by doing the cliche'd champagne splash following a victory over the Milwaukee Brewers that came a day after the clinching actually occurred.

Cubs fans consider fantasy pennants ...

IT ACTUALLY REMINDS me of the 2000 season when the New York Yankees actually lost 15 of their 18 final ballgames. Yet because the Boston Red Sox managed to pick the identical time of the season to stink, the Yankees clinched a division title with a loss.

I suspect many Cubs fans are now fantasizing about a Yankees-like scenario – the Yankees went on to win in the playoffs and wound up winning the World Series that year. Which was an even bigger deal than usual because they got to whomp the New York Mets for the World Series championship title.

... of 1969, 1984 and 2003 ...

But then again, the Cubs don’t have Yankee aura or winning ways. Every time the Cubs try to feed off Yankee aura (Bobby Murcer as a ballplayer, Gene Michael and Lou Piniella as managers), Chicago Cubbie-ness manages to overcome success!

... to be more real than the one ...

Which makes me wonder if the smart-aleck I read on the Internet on Friday has it more correct. That person pointed out that the St. Louis Cardinals managed to win World Series titles in 2006 and 2011, even though in both years they failed to win a division title.

COULD IT HAPPEN again come 2016? Could this be the year the Cubs manage to blow it when it matters the most and the Cardinals manage to prevail yet again?

Because that would truly be in Cubbie-character. This is the team that, as Goodman put it, hasn’t won since, “the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.”

It is why I just can’t get all excited the way I’m seeing some Cubs fans already wetting their pants with glee, as though they think this year will go into the record books as some sort of championship season.

... that has flown over 35th/Shields for 11 years now

This may well be the big difference between the perception of baseball fans who root for Chicago’s two ball clubs. Cubs fans in their minds see those league pennants for 1969, 1984 and 2003 flying above the center field scoreboard.

WHITE SOX FANS still have the nightmare that they’re going to wake up someday and find that the 2005 World Series championship was somehow just a dream.

There are still several rounds of playoffs that need to be completed before we have a National League champion, which then will face off against the (likely superior) American League champs!

In fact, the way baseball is now set up with all these extra teams thrown into the playoff mix, it seems that the powers-that-be would just as soon see a lesser team actually win the whole thing.

71 years, and counting, since "the year we dropped the bomb on Japan."

Will the Chicago Cubs manage to use the remainder of the month to relax, try to prepare themselves for the pressure of post-season play? Or will they be one of these ball clubs who somehow let the lack of serious game activity throw them off-track, resulting in a first-round departure from the playoffs and continued choruses of the Goodman song?

  -30-

EXTRA: Would the baseball season be better off if it were over already?

As much as I’m a baseball fan who enjoys every detail of the game, a part of me wishes the regular season proper of 2016 were over and done with.

When his sandwich is the highlight of  '16

And not just because the Chicago White Sox will be very lucky if they can finish the season the end of September with a .500 winning percentage, or because I’m going to find it annoying to put up with another month of Chicago Cubs speculation about whether they can actually win something of significance this year.

THERE IS A part of me that wonders if Major League Baseball, with its 162-game season, three rounds of playoffs and a World Series that stands a chance of not declaring a champion until early November has just become way too long.

I wonder at times if perhaps the entity known as Minor League Baseball is on to something – what with the way that minor league seasons come to an end on Labor Day.

For fans of the minor league game, it’s all over. Yes, the various leagues do have their own playoffs to determine a league champion. But those rounds are usually played as quickly as possible, because major league teams would rather have any serious prospects called up to the big ball club – rather than trying to win a championship for a place like Peoria or South Bend, Ind.?

The fact is that major league teams this year have already played about 135 ball games through Sunday. If the American and National leagues were a bit more aggressive about their scheduling, they could easily have played some 140 games.

WHICH IS SUFFICIENT enough to achieve legitimate champions – Toronto, Cleveland and Texas in the American League, with Boston and Detroit getting the wild card slots.

And in the National League, we’d have Washington, Los Angeles and the Cubs, along with St. Louis and New York. Let’s be honest – those teams are likely going to be the ones come early October that will wind up qualifying for the playoffs.

How many people really want to see another month of games being played just for the purpose of allowing the other 20 ball clubs to have a chance to sell some more hot dogs and beer (and at the soon-to-be Guaranteed Rate Field a Cuban sandwich named for the late pelotero Minnie Miñoso) and perhaps another souvenir cap?

Only wishful thinking. Or will Cubs soon get cap w/ Series logo?

The baseball fan in me would just as soon see the playoffs begin in coming days. I suspect many other fans feel the same way.

CONSIDERING THAT THE playoffs for baseball have evolved into a play-in round involving second place teams, then two more rounds before a league champion is declared, that could easily take up the bulk of the remainder of the month of September.

Which would put the World Series – that historic championship between the two league champions – on the calendar some time around the first week to 10 days of October.

Which back in the old days when there were only eight teams in each league and only the top two teams played beyond the regular season’s end, was when the World Series historically was played.

Reaching a champion some time around October 5 rather than November 2 or 3 makes a lot more sense.

I REALLY SUSPECT that serious baseball fans would accept such a change, particularly if it meant we could be watching games of significance – rather than watching the New York Yankees or some other team go through the motions of pretending they’re still in contention for a playoff spot.

Because if they really were in the running, they’d be better than a fourth place team now. And as for the fourth-place White Sox, the hard-core of fandom is ready to move on to 2017.

  -30-

EXTRA: 4-2 + 4-1 + 5-2 + 8-3 = Sweep

Yes, it seems that Chicago Cubbiness has retained its essential character. The final round of the National League playoffs resulted Wednesday in the New York Mets managing to thoroughly wipe up the floor with the Cubs.

Looks like the Post won't have to take it back

There won’t be anything resembling a championship in Chicago from 2015. The year 1945 is still the last time the Cubs were National League champions, while 1908 is still the last time the Cubs actually won the World Series.

THE CUBS LOST their fourth game of a seven-game series on Wednesday, and bringing the cinematic images of Marty McFly and Henry Rowengardner to the ballpark didn’t do a thing to add to the Wrigley Field aura.

Although perhaps it is good that there wasn’t a single person who could be the goat – no Leon Durham a la 1984 or Steve Bartman of 2003. In short, the reason the Cubs lost to the Mets after being up on the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals is because the Mets played better this week.

So now, the Cubs have another reason to think of the Mets as a ball club they detest. And not just because everybody enjoys a chance to dump on Noo Yawk any chance they get.

The Cubs lost to the Mets, and there wasn’t any black cat a la 1969 to blame! The New York Post won’t have to take back its front page from Saturday.
 

Still the ultimate goat

NOW AS I have written before, I’m an American League fan – kind of pulling for Toronto to come from behind to beat Kansas City, and whoever wins there to whomp all over the Mets.

Just think, a World Series between the U.S.’ largest city and that of Canada. It almost sounds like the real thing.

Personally, I think Cubs fans ought to be pleased. Because their favorite ball club outperformed significantly what any fan had any right to expect from 2015. Who knows? It may even be one of those years that develops experience that pays off in 2016 or ’17.
 

How long until Cubbiedom forgives him?

A World Series title then could make the stink of Wednesday wither away eventually.

THEN AGAIN, YOU never know what can occur. Let’s not forget the 1993 Chicago White Sox team that came close to an American League pennant and had many people convinced that ’94 was THE year!

I’m not saying we’re going to see a strike come ’16, but who knows what could go wrong.

If we want a local angle, perhaps we can root for hometown boy Curtis Granderson (of the University of Illinois at Chicago and T.F. South High School in suburban Lansing) to keep playing as well in the series as he did against the Cubs.

Although I wonder how many Cubs fans will be big enough to make that leap. Somehow, I doubt there will be many. Probably about as few as those Cubs enthusiasts who actually rooted for the White Sox back in 2005 when they gave Chicago a World Series victory in our lifetimes.
 

Cubs, or ...

SO NOW BASEBALL is over in Chicago. Although we still have the World Series, beginning Oct. 27 and running at least through Halloween and potentially through Nov. 4. Way too close to Thanksgiving for my comfort level.

... twins?

Which may be the big drawback to all the rounds of playoffs that allowed a third-place Chicago Cubs team to even qualify for postseason baseball this year – November ought to be for “hot stove” talk speculating about the future, not watching ballplayers enduring the chill of autumn wearing those hoods that make them look like refugees from the Blue Man Group.

  -30-

Cubbie power elicits little more than a yawn from some of us these days

I might be a Chicago partisan, but I have to confess to caring less as to whether the Chicago Cubs are able to achieve anything in the National League baseball playoffs beginning Wednesday.

A hero, or a goat, by day's end!

It’s possible that by day’s end, they could be defeated by the Pittsburgh Pirates and the whole thing will be over and done with. Or maybe they’ll last to some point later in October. Who knows?

AND AS FAR as I’m concerned, who cares?

Now I must confess to being an American League partisan when it comes to professional baseball. What attention I do pay to professional baseball this October is going to be to that segment of the playoffs. I found last night's New York Yankees 3-0 loss to the Houston Astros much more intriguing.

It’s conceivable that the World Series could come with the Cubs in it, and I’d be rooting against the ball club that represents the North Side of the city.

I’m sure some people are going to try to argue the city ought to unite. I’m also intelligent enough to know that’s not going to happen!

NO MORE SO than back in 2005 when parts of Chicago were all caught up in White Sox fandom as they won two rounds of playoffs, then took four straight games in the World Series.

While other parts could have cared less. I don’t hold it against those people. I would have considered it phony if they had suddenly “converted” to Soxdom and the city’s American League team.

It reminds me of the television crews a decade ago that made the mistake of heading for the bar scene near Wrigley Field to find baseball fans going berserk – only to find a whole lot of apathy.
 

Some will be focused on United Center

They should have headed south to about 103^rd and Western or maybe around 63^rd and Kedzie – if not Halsted Street just west of U.S. Cellular Field.

I EXPECT TO find a whole lot of apathy in those places this week, and in coming weeks. Halsted, up around Addison Street, will be the place to hang out for scenes of baby blue-clad people who feel the need to engage in drunken stupidity to support the ball club.

The fact is that this two-team town IS the character of the Chicago baseball scene, and in fact the character of Chicago as the whole South Side/North Side dichotomy does dictate a lot of the way things are done in the Second City.

It may well be that the crowd of fanatics who decide to spend their Wednesday night following the Chicago Blackhawks’ home opener (it’s being played simultaneous to the Cubs’ playoff game against Pittsburgh) will be the hard-core of Soxdom who can’t bear to pay attention to the Cubs.
 

It's legitimate, even if you don't remember

Personally, I find it amusing in that it’s not the first time that Cubs playoff baseball upstaged another sports team. Remember 1984 when the Cubs’ final playoff game came the same time that the Chicago Sting won an actual championship for the city? Of course you don’t!

NO ONE DOES. Any ceremonies the Blackhawks had planned to celebrate their three-times-in-six-seasons Stanley Cup championship team will go by the wayside just like the Sting’s North American Soccer League title.

There will be those of us who will see the situation logically enough and will go about our lives Wednesday night – seeing the Cubs as something just a little too pointless to pay attention to on a regular basis. Perhaps it ought to be thought of as a virus that we somehow got inoculated against by our Sout’ Side existence.

Now none of this ought to be interpreted as making excuses for the level of mediocrity that came from the White Sox in 2015. It was a disappointing season, perhaps balanced out by the fact that the Cubs performed far better than anyone had a right to expect.

Besides, regardless of what happens Wednesday, we all know that the hard-core of Cubdom are going to forevermore talk of this year as a success – no matter what happens. How many people think of 1969 as some major moment; instead of just being the year they lost a division title to a team that had never finished higher than next-to-last place.
 

Will he garner a companion on goat list?

OR ANY OF those Cubs division title years of the past when the Cubs managed to fall short – just as in 1984 when Leon Durham put his name in the baseball history books and reinforced the idea that Bill Buckner’s ball-between-the-legs gaffe of two seasons later for the Boston Red Sox had little to do with the “Curse of the Bambino.”

It was about the fact that Buckner was an “ex-Cub” and Wednesday could wind up being yet another example of how Cubbiness overcomes common sense in determining who wins and who loses on the playing field.

  -30-

Cubs fans will celebrate, but maybe we ought to root, root, root for the Pirates

The Chicago Cubs will continue to play ball for at least one more day, as they’ll be traveling to Pittsburgh to take on the Pirates this week for the right of which Wild Card team gets to take on the baseball division winners throughout October.

Is it the Pirates' turn to overcome losing ways?

I’m sure some Cubs fans are going to whine. That rant about being one of the best teams (based on won-loss record) in the National League, yet having to still fight for the right to compete.

EVEN THOUGH THE Cubs didn’t exactly choke. They finished their season with an eight-game win streak, and has many prognosticators wanting to believe this is the year that both the years 1945 AND 1908 lose their historic significance.

Yet I can’t help but wonder if it is more interesting if Pittsburgh winds up beating Chicago and going on to play the St. Louis Cardinals, with that winner taking on the Los Angeles Dodgers/New York Mets victor to claim the National League championship.

I’m sure some reading this will scream “Heresy!!!!!” and start sending me vulgar e-mail messages.

It’s just that I can’t help but think that the Cubs have already achieved far more than anyone had any right to expect this year. Whereas Pittsburgh has the ball club that in recent years has recovered from decades of dreck to come close to playoff success.

PERHAPS IT IS time for the Pirates to move forward. Perhaps it is Pittsburgh’s “turn” to move forward and win something – instead of those who have wanted to believe since back in May that it has to be the Cubs’ “turn” for victory.

 

One-time White Sox ace could be done

Somehow, the idea of a New York Yankees or Toronto Blue Jays World Series matchup against the Pirates or Dodgers is more intriguing than anything involving the Cubs or the intoxication crew that surrounds Wrigley Field.

 

Besides, if the Cubs really are the legitimate championship-quality ball club their fans want to believe they are, there are 2016 and 2017 to look forward to. If the Cubs can’t do anything in those years, then perhaps this whole era is as over-rated as Chicago White Sox fans will say it is.

As for the White Sox, they won two games of their final three-game series against the Detroit Tigers, but finished the season with a loss – and a 76-win season. Just short of the 78 to 82 win season I suspected they would have at season’s beginning.

Buehrle still far behind Spahn achievement

I WONDER HOW many White Sox fans on Sunday had their attention focused on Toronto, where the Blue Jays got their butts whomped by the Tampa Bay Rays and one-time White Sox ace pitcher Mark Buehrle gave up seven runs in two-thirds of an inning – costing the Blue Jays any chance of finishing the regular season with the American League’s best won-lost record.

 

The only reason Buehrle was called upon to pitch Sunday, just two days after pitching nearly seven innings on Friday. It was meant to give Buehrle a chance to pitch two full innings, bringing his season total to 200.

That would have made Buehrle one of only four pitchers to ever reach that season total in 15 or more straight seasons. All of those three – Gaylord Perry, Don Sutton and Warren Spahn – are in baseball’s Hall of Fame.

It would have been something for White Sox faithful who remember the decade-plus that he was the ball club’s best pitcher to celebrate. Instead, it added to the stink that was 2015 – with many fans fearing that 2016 will be more of the same because team manager Robin Ventura WILL return next year.

ONE OTHER ISSUE involving the end of the 2015 season – I thought it tacky that the Houston Astros ended their season with a loss that also ensured they would have to have their possible one-and-done playoff game at Yankee Stadium instead of at home, and yet the team could be seen celebrating with the now-expected champagne dousing.

What are they really celebrating? Creeping into the playoffs by a slot that didn’t even exist until a couple of seasons ago?

The Cubs still have a few rounds of winning to go before they can say they matched this achievement

Then again, I’m sure the White Sox – who beat up on the Astros in the 2005 World Series – would give anything if they could have an excuse to celebrate anything except avoiding a Last Place finish in ’15.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Perhaps one reason I like the idea of Pittsburgh in the World Series is I still recall one of the most-fun series I ever saw was the 1979 version when the Pirates beat the Baltimore Orioles four games to three. When Willie Stargell led "the Family" to a dominant ball club; remember all those stars circling their 19th Century-inspired stovepipe caps? And when "Sister Sledge" wound up gaining the one bit of musical fame that they're still remembered for.

Illinois’ Ebbets Field not in Brooklyn?

What with the Dodgers playing in St. Louis on Friday and Saturday to start off the final round of the National League playoffs, I was amused by a television report about the Ebbets Field that exists in one of the Illinois municipalities that is part of suburban St. Louis.

For it seems that an upscale residential subdivision in Edwardsville (otherwise known as the home of the urban campus of Southern Illinois University) was named after the one-time stadium where the Dodgers played back in the days when they were from the borough of Brooklyn.

THE DEVELOPER, ACCORDING to KSDK-TV in St. Louis, was such a Dodgers baseball fan that the streets in the subdivision were named after such ball club big-names as Steve Garvey, Tommy Lasorda and Duke Snider.

Of course, most of the baseball fans who actually live there root for the Cardinals and aren’t the least bit sympathetic toward the Dodgers – who haven’t appeared in a World Series since 1988 (the year Kirk Gibson did that funky arm-pumping thing when he hit that game-winning home run off future Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley).

Although I have to confess to having a knee-jerk reaction to the report. It’s too bad that an “Ebbets Field Estates” (the formal name of the subdivision) couldn’t have been built in Brooklyn, rather than Edwardsville.

By that, I’m referring to the Illinois municipality that is part of the St. Louis metropolitan area – not the borough of some 2.5 million people that is the former New York home of the Dodgers. It’s right on the Mississippi River across from St. Louis, but doesn’t get the straight-ahead view of downtown and the Arch like East St. Louis does.

EBBETS FIELD IN Brooklyn. Even if all in Illinois, it has a ring to it that would draw national attention – even though the municipality has barely 600 residents, almost all of whom are African-American (it’s the oldest town incorporated BY black people anywhere in the United States).

Where the name originates

 

I’m sure the Brooklyn officials would have gone along, although I suspect the developers probably wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with the idea.

Brooklyn, as in Illinois, has so little in the way of business that the Wikipedia page for the municipality uses a photograph of the village’s “adult entertainment strip” to illustrate the community.

An entrance to Ill.'s Brooklyn

Ouch!

AND YES, I should confess that the only reason I personally am aware of Brooklyn, Ill.’s existence is that I happened to notice it once while driving by on my way to St. Louis proper. It’s small enough that I guess many people don’t see it if they don’t specifically know to look for it.

All the more reason for an Ebbets Field in Edwardsville – a municipality that claims three one-time major league ballplayers (Lee Wheat, Jason Isringhausen and Mark Little) among its residents throughout the years.

So why I am getting all this worked up over an amusing bit of trivia that has nothing to do with the world of Chicago baseball?

Largely because this is October, and Chicago is so irrelevant to this time of the season when it comes to baseball. The 2005 and 2008 seasons were such aberrations in Chicago baseball history – although seeing both ballclubs blow it in the first round in that latter season seemed predictable).

IF NOT FOR this, we’d have to be obsessing over how delusional those Chicago Cubs fans were who thought seriously that Joe Girardi would ever give up a New York Yankees managerial post to be a part of the Wrigley Field scene!

Will cause disputes for years to come

While also having to be concerned about those Chicago White Sox fans who will get all upset over the sight of Jake Peavy pitching for the Boston Red Sox in their round of playoffs beginning Saturday against the Detroit Tigers – wondering why he could never have stayed healthy enough to pitch like his one-time Cy Young Award-self back when he was with the White Sox.

 

Even if outfielder Avisail Garcia (acquired for Peavy in this season’s big trade) goes on to become a big star for the Sox, it will never fully erase the frustration of Peavy’s performance – which was a large part of why the White Sox’ Ozzie Guillen era ended merely with a winning record, instead of a repeat performance in the World Series.

  -30-