What does Cubs ‘Magic Number’ mean for those fans who could care less?

We’re at that point of the baseball season where teams that have played somewhat respectfully start thinking seriously about the chance that this year could be THE YEAR for their favorite ballclub.

 

Sox fans have had to fantasize about the past

A league championship! Perhaps even a World Series title. There are at least a dozen of the 30 major league ball clubs who are acting these days as though this is THE YEAR.

INCLUDED AMONGST THOSE dreamers are the perpetual fantasizers who follow the Chicago Cubs. Even though it has been 71 seasons since the National League championship banner last flew over the Lake View neighborhood (and 108 years since “Cubs” and “World Series champions” were tied together), we’re getting the talk.

Particularly in the form of the “magic number,” which is the number of Cubs wins and second place team losses needed for the Cubs to prevail with a first place finish for the 2016 season.

As of Sunday, that number was “28.” Which means they’re not on the verge of clinching anything in the next few days. But it is close enough that 2016 could wind up being just like 1984, 1989, 1998, 2003, 2007, 2008 and 2015.

Years in which there was a Cubs playoff appearance but someone else won the rights to call themselves the championship team for the year.

SO IS 2016 destined to be THE YEAR for the Wrigley Field denizens. Or just another season in which they fall short?

Personally, I don’t really care. And I’m not alone.

 

That early season start seems like a century ago

For the reality of Chicago is that the character of our city’s baseball feelings is that they’re split between two ball clubs. There are those of us, myself included, who are going to feel apathy toward whatever the Cubs do.

In my case, it’s largely because I’m a fan of the American League and its ball clubs. Even if by chance the Cubs do win their first National League championship since 1945 and the rights to play the AL champion in the World Series, I’ll likely be rooting for the latter.

FOR THOSE PEOPLE who somehow think that’s disrespectful to Chicago or somehow petty, I’d say it’s only natural. I suspect it is the way many Cubs fans went about regarding the 2005 season when the Chicago White Sox managed to win their first American League championship in 46 seasons, then went on to perform many historic moments in beating the Houston Astros in the World Series that year.

There was that segment of Chicago that got all worked up and held that victory parade that stretched from U.S. Cellular Field through the South Side and into downtown. There also were other people who felt a big “ho hum” towards the event.

Which, if the Cubs do manage to accomplish something in 2016 (personally, I’m skeptical they will), is a sentiment that we will see repeated. Some of us will care. Others of us will already have moved on either to the Chicago Bears or to the 2017 season.

It’s just the character of Chicago – no matter how insufferable some Cubs fans get in believing that everybody on Planet Earth somehow cares what their favorite ballclub does.

IN FACT, I’LL be honest. There is a part of me that wouldn’t mind if the Cubs were able in 2016 to share in the feeling of what it is like to have a ball club that does something worthy of note.

 

The White Sox are 2-1 this season with me sitting in the stands. All photographs by Gregory Tejeda

Because I personally think the “lovable loser” mentality reflects badly upon Chicago as a whole. And while I’ll admit all of our city’s professional sports teams have had their eras of suckiness, it is largely the lengthy stretches of the Cubs that implants that image in the public’s head.

If the Cubs really do win something this year, we can finally move on and quit thinking there is something so special about a ball club that can never win a thing. Then we can get on to the ultimate argument-provoking debate for Chicago sports fans – who’d win a fantasy championship series between the ’05 White Sox (best in the American League that season) and ’16 Cubs?

Of course, anybody with sense could see Mark Buehrle pitching a complete-game shutout and catcher A.J. Pierzynski using his baseball “smarts” to pull off such a fantasy victory for the Sox.

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Madigan, Rauner tried this week to outgun each other amidst the stink of livestock waste at Illinois state fair

It has been a few years since I last went to an Illinois State Fair, although it sounds like this year the politicking reached a level of intensity not often seen recently.

 

The sentiment that Democrats tried to stir up to tag all Republican candidates in this year's election cycle

Republicans, when they had their day to celebrate on the fairgrounds in Springfield, made a point of doing everything they could to downplay the existence of Donald Trump – while also playing up the looming presence of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

DEMOCRATS FOLLOWED UP the following day by doing just the reverse – making sure everybody they could tell knew that Trump was at the head of the Republican ticket of candidates who will be in the running in the Nov. 8. general election.

All too predictable. While also all too sad. Since it seems that our state government officials aren’t anywhere near being capable of working together. It is likely the political lollygagging of recent years will continue.

Particularly sad because the agreement reached back in June to come up with a budget that allows government operations to continue was only a six-month agreement.

Come January 1 when we’re all suffering hangovers and realizing the person lying next to us is not the one he or she is supposed to be, we’re going to get hit with another sucker punch – the budget nonsense that dominated the entirety of Illinois Fiscal 2016 will be back.

SO EXCUSE ME for thinking that perhaps the state fairgrounds was the perfect place for the latest attempts by Gov. Bruce Rauner and Madigan to try to one-up each other – all the livestock barns on the premises do give the place a perpetual odor of animal dung.

And if you’re not careful where you step, you can get it all over your shoes too!

 

GOP's response. Image provided by Illinois Republican Party

Poop on your shoes is about the level of the rants used by the Rauner camp, what with them circulating buttons depicting a youthful, early 1970s Madigan back when he was a freshman legislator (supposedly sent to Springfield by the original Mayor Daley in part to keep his son, the newly-elected state senator Richard M. out of trouble in the Illinois capital city). And also a version depicting an equally-youthful-looking Richard Durbin before he ever dreamed of being a U.S. senator.

The point being that his 40-plus years of legislative service is too long. And that perhaps a Republican alternative would benefit the people of Illinois.

THERE’S JUST ONE problem with that theory, or all the rhetoric of recent election cycles that try to turn the campaign into a Madigan referendum.

The only people who actually vote up or down on Madigan’s continued presence in the Illinois House of Representatives are the residents of the House 22^nd District out by Midway Airport. By and large, they’re content to keep him in Springfield, and even feel some pride that their legislator is THE BOSS and other peoples’ legislators have to follow his orders.

You can argue whether Clearing neighborhood residents or any of those people in nearby suburbs also in the district really get anything from Madigan’s presence. But there isn’t really any clamoring for Madigan’s removal from the people who could do something about it.

Take the case of Jason Gonzales, the most recent challenger who got his behind beaten on primary Election Day this year and is now filing a lawsuit challenging the legality of the overly-aggressive campaigning that Madigan did to ensure his victory.

SOLID ENOUGH THAT he took nearly two-thirds of the vote. A thrashing of the sort that some Republicans fear they could get come Nov. 8 because of the presence of Trump on the ballot.

Which is why party officials went out of their way not to talk up Trump’s candidacy – which is strange because usually the presidential bid (particularly one that motivates some people to want to vote as eagerly as Donald’s does) is the one that is counted on to stir up support for everybody.

Then again, the Trump trash talk does have a way of ticking off some people to the point where we really will study for years to come just how much of a drag he was on the ballot.

All of this back-and-forth nonsense actually makes me pleased I didn’t attend the fair (and not just because I have no desire to ever see the Husband Calling Contest again). Because it seems that the stink in the air was less offensive than the noise pollution committed by all the politicos.

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Better late than never, but I’m sure some will still complain it inadequate

I’m sure the Chicago Police Department has fantasies about being able to put to rest all those people who have spent months complaining (years actually, but it’s only recently we’ve started listening) about the treatment of black people by law enforcement personnel.

 

JOHNSON: Collected 7 badges and guns from officers

Yet anybody who believes that the decision announced Thursday to fire seven police officers because of their connection to the October 2014 shooting death of Laquan McDonald will in any way ease the tensions that have arisen is living in a serious fantasy-land.

FOR THOSE WITH the short memories, the McDonald shooting death by police is that one captured on a squad car video camera – the one for which officer Jason Van Dyke now faces criminal charges of multiple murder counts and only remains free now because he had friends capable of posting the $1.5 million bail that was set for him.

But police Superintendent Eddie Johnson sent out an e-mail message to police informing them that seven other officers will face the ultimate professional discipline – they’re going to have to relinquish their badge and gun and be reduced to the role of mere mortals.

No longer will they have a special claim to police powers, or the authority to legally carry a weapon for their use in protecting the public from danger.

Although there are those who’d argue that the police themselves are the dangerous element because it is one way too willing to make presumptions based on race about who represents a danger to the public.

JOHNSON SAID HE made his decision to try to terminate the seven officers based on his belief that the statements they made about what happened the night McDonald died from 16 gunshots were not totally truthful.

As if we could have resolved this matter much sooner if those officers had come out and told the truth about what happened between Van Dyke and McDonald.

Yet considering how entrenched the mentality is within law enforcement of an “us versus them” paradigm, I doubt that knowing a few police officers will lose their jobs will pacify anyone.

I already can envision police officers and their supporters claiming that these cops were being sacrificed to try to appease troublemakers, while let’s not forget that the Black Lives Matter movement consists of people who seriously call for the abolishment of law enforcement.

LARGELY BECAUSE THEY mistrust the motives of anyone who would want to be in a position of authority over other individuals.

Trying to claim that letting seven cops go (even though the city’s Inspector General did its own investigation that concluded 10 cops should lose their jobs) will somehow resolve the situation just won’t do.

This attitude we have in our society, the split between police and a portion of the public, goes beyond any one case. It certainly isn’t limited to Chicago – which is why I have always thought those people who try to place blame on Rahm Emanuel are being just a tad absurd.

Heck, a large part of the dynamic that is spurring the presidential campaign of Donald Trump to linger on even though his own actions would totally devastate a lesser candidate is those individuals who want to rant and rage about the need for law and order.

AS IN THE people who will complain the loudest should the day come when Van Dyke is found guilty of murder; the ones who wish they could follow through on Trump’s response to recent rioting in the Milwaukee area by shooting the troublemakers – most of whom in that instance were black people.

And for whom their “bullet” will be the ballot they cast on or before Nov. 8 (if they go early voting) for Trump as president.

 

TRUMP: A symptom of real problem?

Trump has tried to tone down his talk by saying his talk of “law and order” is aimed at black people, who often suffer from the violence. Although it is spoken to white people who want to knee-jerk react to the sight of African-American individuals by lashing out in some violent form.

Until we can overcome that attitude in our society, the only thing that firing a few police officers will accomplish is adding to the ranks of the unemployed.

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EXTRA: My regrets I can’t comprehend Arabic in the least

I’m usually pretty loose when it comes to public comments. I’ll let people say just about anything they want here, so long as they don’t delve into profanity.

 

FARR: Sad if he's the only Lebanese you're aware of

Yet I was forced Thursday to delete one person’s proposed comment they wanted to post on the end of the Trump’s Second Amendment people wisecrack totally in character commentary that was published here Aug. 11.

THE PROBLEM? THE response was written in Arabic. I have no clue what it was that was being said.

Which is most likely a short-coming on my part. Unlike some foreign languages that use similar alphabets that I can kind of comprehend, I was unable to even come close to translating what someone was trying to say.

Although from what I could tell from the portion of this weblog that actually tracks (in a general sense) the whereabouts of my readership, this response came from someone in Saudi Arabia. Someone tried posting it at about 2:20 a.m., Chicago-time (which is the only time zone that matters here)!

Knowing my luck, I deleted a comment of great political and social significance. Then again, it might have been just an attempt at spam; someone trying to use this site to sell their product or service!

JUST ONE OTHER thought. In deleting the comment, I remembered an old episode of M*A*S*H where actor Harry Morgan’s “Col. Potter” character tried reading a letter written by the mother of actor Jamie Farr’s “Cpl. Klinger’s” back in Toledo, Ohio. Written in Arabic (the character was supposedly Lebanese), Potter said, “It’s a pretty language.”

One that many of us ought to not be so arrogant and quick to dismiss in today’s global community.

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Why, oh why, would he want to be president; for the television ratings?

For Hillary Clinton, the reason she’d want to be U.S. president is simple. She’s the ambitious sort who probably thinks that if her husband was capable of getting elected to two terms of work in the Oval Office, why can’t she.

 

Campaign a stunt to promote television show? Or just a figment of Michael Moore's imagination?

The fact that she’d be the first female in that role, if she succeeds in winning the Nov. 8 general election, also entices her – the thought of a legacy that would make her a historic figure has its appeal.

BUT WHAT ABOUT Donald Trump? What would make a real estate developer who has built countless structures (and named so many of them after himself) want to have a position as head of the bureaucracy that comprises the federal government?

Perhaps it’s the fact that it doesn’t really make much sense that makes some people suspect Trump isn’t really interested in holding the post – and may very well consider outsourcing the position to someone else should he manage to prevail on Election Day.

Which is a ridiculous thought. Then again, so much of what has occurred under the guise of the Trump presidential campaign has been absurd.

I found it interesting to read a Michael Moore (as in the documentary filmmaker) commentary where he suggests that Trump got into the presidential bidding as a publicity stunt, of sorts, to promote that ridiculous television program, The Apprentice.

YOU KNOW, THE one that everybody thinks is ever so cute because he’s always barking out “You’re Fired!” at people. As though there’s really anything interesting about watching someone get dismissed from their place of employment.

Under Moore’s theory, television executives backed off of Trump when they started hearing his anti-Mexican rants that began his campaigning. But Trump – and his ego – got caught up in campaigning to the point where he can’t really quit now.

Now I don’t know if I really buy this theory. I don’t doubt television executives are trivial-minded enough to concoct such a scheme. I’d just like to think that someone business-oriented like Trump would knock it down before it got started.

After all, a presidential campaign takes time away from business interests if done right. And Trump doesn’t exactly seem like the kind of person who’d turn over leadership of Trump Enterprises to daughter Ivanka or son Donald, Jr.

I’VE KNOWN PEOPLE who work in construction who have done business with Trump Enterprises who say that he micromanages the details of his projects, literally insisting on personally approving any expense over $100,000.

To the point where I know construction types who say they walked away from a chance to make very big money on projects because they didn’t want to deal with The Donald watching over their shoulder on every little detail.

To my own sensibility, Trump is the business-oriented type of person who probably views government officials as some sort of wasteful middle-man he is forced to deal with. Worse yet, they impose all kinds of restrictions that add to his expense – which means cutting into the financial bottom line of the buildings he erects.

By running for office, he’s eliminating the middle-man and gaining the authority to sign off on his own interests. I’m sure the last thing he’d want to do if he were to get elected president would be to have to turn over management of his company to someone else.

IT WOULD DEFEAT the whole point of why he got involved in this campaign to begin with! To my mindset, business-oriented people are not fit for government, largely because they’re not used to the idea of having to compromise and negotiate deals on behalf of conflicting interests.

Particularly for someone like Trump, he’s used to getting to bark orders and having them followed. How would a “President Trump” react the first time Congress told him symbolically to “shove it!”

 

Is Hillary really in for a crushing defeat? Zip says so

I actually think that the best thing for Trump’s personal sanity would be for him to suffer a crushing defeat on Election Day.

Which means that for the nation’s sake, we should hope that the Zip poll – the one by an app surveying people anonymously that has Trump winning 81 percent to 19 percent – is downright ridiculous.

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Playing politics with the tax man; is the voting public just like Rhett Butler?

Yes, it’s just a politically partisan stunt, bordering on trivial, for a group calling itself the Democratic Coalition Against Trump to try to use the Freedom of Information Act to get the Internal Revenue Service to release information concerning the income tax returns of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

 

TRUMP: He's rich, but how much?

I write that because I don’t expect the IRS to take seriously a request by a group that specifically has created itself in recent months to oppose Trump’s fantasies of running roughshod over the Republic by becoming its president.

BUT THAT DOESN’T mean the issue of Trump and his income tax returns isn’t something of significance – although I don’t regard it as the be-all-and-end-all issue that some would have us believe it means.

It is a practice going back to the days of Richard M. Nixon, who wanted to respond to the allegations of illegal activity and the fact that only the most hard-core of political partisans believed him when he said “I am not a crook” by letting us know the personal information about his finances.

It is a practice that presidential candidates have carried on since then, along with many other government officials at varying levels. It is supposed to let us see for ourselves that these government officials are really just regular folks like you and me.

Of course, they’re not in so many ways. But they’d like us to think so.

BUT THIS PRACTICE is being altered in this election cycle. For Democrat Hillary Clinton came forth with her tax return, which shows that she and husband Bill Clinton are doing well financially.

An income of just over $10 million – largely because the former president is involved with his foundation that raises funds for supposedly good causes, and Hillary has been active on the speaker circuit and can command ridiculously high rates for her appearances.

So yes, we can see for ourselves where Hillary is coming from – although I found it interesting to read the recent New York Times story about the two-year time period after Bill Clinton lost an Arkansas governor election and she had to work her butt off to support him financially while his ego recovered from political rejection.

 

CLINTON: Her wealth mere pennies by comparison

This may actually be of importance to some people who don’t have a knee-jerk hatred of a candidate and don’t know who they’re voting for yet.

BUT WHAT DO we have of comparable value about Trump? Nothing!!!!!!!!!

He has refused to make anything known of his finances. What do we really know of the Trump Organization and its CEO? Not a thing!

There has been some speculation that what Trump doesn’t want known is his actual financial worth – which may not be as high as he likes to give the impression of in public. His ego would take a blow, and yes Trump is nothing else if not an egomaniac!

Although his attitude also reminds me of the never-quite-came-to-fruition New York gubernatorial campaign of radio talk show host Howard Stern. He talked a lot of trash about public policy, but wound up dropping out when he learned there were legal requirements concerning personal financial disclosure.

HE DENOUNCED THE system that would make him reveal his wealth, which with all the different mediums in which he has his finger dipped into is quite sufficient.

Trump, who at one time was a regular guest on Stern’s radio program because he was entertaining with the garishness of his lifestyle, is giving us that same “It’s nobody’s business” approach. Which is why this election cycle will likely come and go without anything resembling a financial disclosure.

Besides, I suspect that the whole purpose of a tax return disclosure is to create the appearance of ordinariness. And the last thing Trump would ever want to appear to be is ordinary.

We’re supposed to think he’s better than us, which is why we’re supposed to place blind faith in him that all his goofy rhetoric won’t lead us (with apologies to that 2002 Tom Hanks film) down a road to perdition. Because some of us are likely just like the Rhett Butler character of "Gone With The Wind" and just "don't give a damn."

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Who’s kidding whom? We don’t (or shouldn’t) require immigrant standards

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump showed us all on Monday why his line of reasoning makes him unfit to be president of the United States.

 

TRUMP: Would his wife be model immigrant

That’s the only way we can view his suggestion that we require tests of people from elsewhere on Planet Earth who want to come live in this country. As Trump put it, we should require tests to see where they stand on certain issues.

AS FOR THOSE whose views on issues don’t pass the test, keep ‘em out!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t let ‘em in!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ban them!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which, of course, is nonsense. There’s no way we could ever devise a test on social issue stances that would possibly make any sense.

Largely because those are issues upon which we, the native born of this nation, don’t agree. Just think how up in arms our own citizens would be if/when they found out that the official stance required on an issue such as equal rights for gay people is the one they can’t stand.

And as much as I’d like to fantasize that we could deport all those people who culturally want to live in a land motivated by the Dixie mentality and a return to “our way of life” (which is the euphemism I have heard many aging Southerners use to describe the segregation of old), I’m realistic enough to know it will never happen.

IN FACT, IT would be more likely that the official stance required for immigration would be something along the lines of the Dixiecrats of old. Something that the real majority of our nation would find repulsive.

Something that would go about splitting our society ever further than it already is. How quickly will vice presidential running mate Mike Pence have to come up with a stance in opposition to make himself look a little less ridiculous by association?

For the simple fact of our society is that we are a mix. We don’t have an indigenous people in this country (and I’d say those people of native Indian tribes aren’t numerous enough to be considered the base of our nation).

 

PENCE: What next will he disagree with

And while I know there are those who rant and rage and complain about how we can’t all unite and be just like themselves, I have always thought of the fact that we, the United States, are a cultural mutt is our greatest strength.

ONE BEING MADE even stronger in the 21^st Century because immigration is no longer about finding even more western Europeans who, within a single generation, can be mistaken for someone who was native-born to this nation.

I also have felt that those individuals who come from totalitarian nations with close-minded views of the rest of the world are often the ones most in need of some time living in this country.

Exposure to the real world is what they need.

Then again, I suspect there are those living in parts of this country that keep themselves as isolated as they can from urban America who also could benefit from such exposure.

BECAUSE A PART of me has always wondered if those social conservatives of our society look at the totalitarian parts of the world and secretly feel a tinge of jealousy, wishing that our nation would be just as strong-armed in opposition to anything they don’t agree with.

Maybe we ought to think about deporting them to less-open places of the world? Nah, that would be as logistically ridiculous as all of Trump’s talk about boosting deportations and erecting a pointless wall (you never heard of tunnels?) along the U.S./Mexico border.

 

CLINTON: A vote for sensibility?

If anything, I suspect that many of the people who actually are going to vote for Trump for president come the Nov.8 elections are doing so because they like this ridiculous isolationist vision of the world. Which is why Trump said what he did on Monday during a campaign appearance in Ohio.

The man will say anything, no matter how absurd, if he thinks it will get him another vote. Meaning that the real majority of us who find isolationism to be stultifying need to express our opposition on Election Day with a vote of opposition.

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