Okay, all you 8,000 blog readers out there, listen up. I deal with a lot of serious subjects on this blog, but I also like to have fun. And I’m also a big baseball fan. In Chicago. Right now that combination adds up to something slightly dangerous, as Chicago fans are entering uncharted waters.
They may well have a winner in the Chicago Cubs, who last won the World Series in 1908. At the risk of my nonexistent reputation for sports prognostication, I say they are going all the way.
There are times in the affairs of men and women when all the stars line up, and the omens all point in one direction. Consider the following:
- The Cubs, who had a mediocre first half of the season, came roaring out of their obscurity after the All-Star game to secure a wild card spot, just three games behind the St. Louis Cardinals, the team with the best record in Major League Baseball this year.
- They did this in large part with the help of a pitcher who was not even in the All Star game, Jake Arrieta, who was 11-1 after the break with a 0.75 ERA. I mean, who does that?
- They used Arrieta in the one-game wild card playoff against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh, where he iced the team that was just two games behind the Cardinals in the National League Central Division with a four-hit shutout. The Cubs then moved on to St. Louis.
- The Cubs lost game one in St. Louis, roared back to take game two, then finished off the Cardinals in two games in Wrigley Field, the first time in a century they have clinched a playoff series in their own stadium.
- Despite the fact that Jake Arrieta finally had an off night, his first since July, his teammates picked up the slack and hit six home runs to carry him to an 8-6 victory. Those home runs broke an MLB record for the most by any team in a playoff game. Ever. Granted, it was a windy night on the lakefront, but it was just as windy for St. Louis.
- And then—and then . . . . this is the topper, the one clue that marks a team of destiny. Late in game four, with the Cubs already ahead but happy to take out some insurance, Kyle Schwarber swatted a four-bagger that appeared to top the towering Budweiser sign in right field. But what happened to the ball? No one saw it land on Sheffield Avenue behind the stadium. No one claimed to have caught it. But photos revealed a ball sitting on the platform supporting the sign, and a Cubs worker indeed found it there, with the distinctive markings of a postseason ball.
Indeed, the Schwarbomb, as it is now known, a 419-foot monster launch, managed to fall onto the platform and stay there. The Cubs have encased it in a glass box to protect it from the elements and plan to leave it there until the playoffs are over. Think of it as a potent of good luck. Our time has come.
Now, I am going to upset half of Chicago with my unorthodoxy. I can root for the White Sox or the Cubs, and as the White Sox are not in the playoffs—in fact, they had a very mediocre season—I am perfectly happy to cheer on the Cubs. They are the best thing happening in Chicago, at the very time when the former Chicago Public Schools CEO has pleaded guilty in a bribery case for steering a no-bid contract.
You see, I grew up in Cleveland, where we had to suffer with the long-suffering Cleveland Indians, stuck with a name and logo that still brings discomfort to many Native Americans, a team that took a 41-year break in World Series appearances after 1954, when the winningest team in Major League history lost four straight to the New York Giants, who included in their ranks one Willy Mays, who made what is perhaps the most famous catch in Major League history of a Vic Wertz would-be home run ball. Events sometimes foretell destiny. Mays produced one in 1954; Schwarber may well have produced one in 2015.
Coming to a city with two teams, I failed to do what native Chicagoans do between the Cubs and White Sox: pick sides. Instead, I thought, double the chances, double the fun, what a blessing to have two teams in contention. Until I found out that, most years, neither one was in contention. And then there was that foul ball caught by fan Steve Bartman in the 2003 playoffs. He was blamed for the Cubs’ collapse, but really, a team so easily rattled did not deserve to move on. The 2015 Cubs are poised, not rattled, confident, not jittery. They are going to win.
Besides, I am a fan who never had any dreams of being on that field myself. As a child in Little League, I had about a .100 batting average after getting glasses for myopia and astigmatism. I didn’t learn how to compensate for all that until I was an adult and occasionally played intramural softball. One night, laying into a pitch that was just too good to be true, I drove one deep into left field, so far that I was crossing home plate before the other team got the ball back into the infield.
Damn, it felt good. Ever since, I have understood what it feels like to really park one. Even if mine came from an amateur against other amateurs. And I know when a really big home run is an omen of things to come.
And if my sixth sense about the Cubs turns out to be in error? I can always go back to writing about urban planning and disaster recovery. Lord knows, the Cubs have provided some lessons on the latter topic over the years. But not this year. They’re taking the World Series.
Jim Schwab