Sometime in the mid-1990s, there was an episode of the X-Files, where the "Smoking Man" character tells some underlings at a meeting something along the line of "The Buffalo Bills can never win a Super Bowl, never." The Bills in the early '90s lost an unmatched four straight Super Bowls.
The implied meaning, of course, that the Bills losing, or I should say, not winning, served as the glue to keep our society together--for better for worse.
In baseball, it appears that the Chicago Cubs play the same role. (Disclosure: I'm a lifelong Chicago White Sox fan.)
Arizona won tonight's contest 5-1. They move on, the Cub players empty out their lockers.
After dropping the first two games of the best-of-five series in Arizona, the Cubs were hoping "The Friendly Confines" of Wrigley Field would breathe life back into their hopes of moving on to the next round of playoffs--and then to the World Series.
But the night got off to a very bad start for the National League Central Champion Cubs, when Arizona center fielder Chris Young smacked the first pitch of the game for a home run to put the Diamondbacks in the lead--a lead they never relinquished.
Later in the game, Cubs radio play by play announcer Pat Hughes remarked, "The ball was really bouncing off the bats in batting practice." But Cubs color announcer Ron Santo replied, "But it seems to be only doing that for the other team."
That was just little bit after left fielder Eric Byrnes hit the second D-Back homer in the sixth inning. And in the ninth, shortstop Stephen Drew hit a ball out of The Friendly Confines onto Sheffield Avenue.
The Cubs only run came in the fourth, when catcher Jason Kendall drove in a run on a fielder's choice play.
The Chicago National League franchise has not won Major League Baseball's World Series since 1908. The only people that were around then are the Geico Insurance cavemen. The Cubs haven't even been to the World Series since 1945--when most of the good players were serving in the military. Since the first, and then the second round of playoffs were added to baseball's postseason, the Cubs have made four appearances in the quest for at least getting to the World Series. Of course they failed each time--two historic collapses--blowing a two games to none lead to the San Diego Padres in 1984 in a best-of-five National League Championship Series, and the Bartman ball incident in the 2003 NLCS, contributed to the now legendary Cub reputation for futility.
The Cub fans I know were very gloomy even before tonight's game, they saw a defeat tonight as a near certainty. Perhaps I'm more observant, but based on their moods yesterday and today, Cub fans are probably taking this defeat very hard--harder than the others.
Booing could be heard after the final out over the airwave of WGN-Radio. (I had turned the TBS television off.)
The North Siders had some company in World Series failure until a few years ago. But in 2004, the Boston Red Sox won their first World Series crown since 1918, and one year later, Cub fans had to endure (Horrors!) the Chicago White Sox, who hadn't won the Series since 1917, bringing Major League Baseball's championship trophy to Chicago.
Now the Cubs are all alone in futility, their nearest neighbor is the Cleveland Indians--who haven't won it all since 1948. And the Tribe is still in the playoffs, leading the New York Yankees in the American League Division Series two games to none.
And if the Chicago Cubs fail to win the World Series next year, it will mark a century of futility.
As for the 2007 Cubs-Diamonbacks series, one thing can be said with certainty: The best team clearly won.
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