Eaglie's Aviary

Friday, May 16, 2008

Cubs Playoff Hunt-Watch Starting Already?

We won't start it 'til it's started, to rip off Rocky. Yet it seems to be an inevitability that the Cubs will compete for the division title and pennant this year, if not the World Series itself. Which scares the Hell out of me.

What will we do if the Cubs win? I don't think anything less than detonating an atomic confetti bomb on Chicago's South Side would do. But besides that, I never thought to think about it until yesterday.

I went to the game on Thursday as the NL Central Division leaders won 4-0 over the ex-Cub Greg Maddux, who said it was his last game at Wrigley, likely ever, in that tone he loves to drone reporters to sleep in--seriously, the man's next business move should be selling lullaby records through Disney.

It stunned me, really. To see the Cubs not blow a lead, and to see my old hero off. It was a sort of changing-of-the-guard, if the fuzz-hatted Tories were given standing ovations (Greg got that). For a moment, I felt bad giving the losing pitcher a standing ovation after a 4-run fifth inning, but it was not meant with any disrespect. Greg was just another piece of the puzzle in the Cubs' drive to finally win.

Not one to believe in Predestination or Providence, except in the case of sports, I just got up and sang Go, Cubs, Go. My life in baseball flashed before my eyes in newsreel fashion, and I got a little teary-eyed. My longtime psychological problems with winning were putting on the high heat, and nostalgia beamed me in the batting helmet. I needed Dr. Phil, just a little, who was singing the 7th-inning stretch.

What else but baseball can make me, the normally girded warrior of wit and irreverence, turn to crying on bended knee? Who else but the Cubs could do this with a record I've never seen this early in the season? I don't know. Really, what will there be when my team wins a World Series after 100 years?

Right. Confetti bomb. South Side. Check.

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