Cubs Down 0 - 2

Let me start with an annectdote.

On September 20th I was in the Cubby Bear (a terrible bar) with 4 friends that are Cubs fans. We were among 100s of other Cubs fans. When Jim Edmonds caught the a fly ball for the 27th out of the game and the Cubs had clinched the NL Central division the place errupted. Just as the Cubs players ran around the field spraying champagne on the crowd dozens and dozens of bar patrons started shaking their beers and spraying them around the bar. I took an involuntary beer shower.

From there we went out on the street and stood in the middle of Clark and Addison. Thousands of people were walking around, chanting, drinking, and celebrating. It went on for a long time and the bars around the field were packed well into the night as peole continued to celebrate.

On Tuesday this week, before the first playoff game, there was a major rally held in Daley Plaza to celebrate the Cubs clinching the division.

Way back on September 20th and on through this week I've been reminded of a South Park episode called "Gnomes." Part of the subplot was a group of gnomes that were going around collecting everyone's underpants. They had a business plan:



It felt like the Cubs and their fans had the same question mark in the Phase 2 column.

I'm not here today to criticize or make fun. A lady friend, a Cubs fan, sent me a text last night requesting "Please don't send me any bad texts about the cubs... Broke my heart again..." The thought of taunting her or any of my other friends never crossed my mind. In fact, as best as my Cardinal's blood would allow me, I've been rooting for the Cubs this week.

No, I'm not here to cricize but to ask a serious question. What is wrong with the Cubs organization that they are unable to win?

Yesterday was the 8th straight playoff game the team has lost going back to 2003. Obviously, it goes back much farther than that. Swept out of the playoffs in 1998, winning a single game against the Giants in 1989, winning two against the Padres in 1984 before losing 3 straight, and of course there was the 1969 regular season collapse.

I don't mention all these incidents to rub anyone's nose in it but to point out that the failures span managers, squads, executives and owners. I don't believe in the supernatural and I don't believe in curses and superstitions. There is no goat curse. Having a priest sprinkle holy water in the dugout Wednesday night would have been a poor joke if it hadn't been undertaken seriously. No, the problem has become systematic within the Cubs organization and it spans all kinds of shakeups in the organization. It has to be some kind of undercurrent in the organization that gets passed viraly from person to person.

The organization was one of the best in the very early days of baseball. The organization has long forgotten how to win, though. The celebrations surrounding clinching the division looked like a team that won a pennant or a World Series. Were the settling?

I remember when the Astros played the White Sox in the World Series in 2005. I paraphrase here, but just before game 1 Craig Biggio of the Astros said, "We [The Astros] have accomplished our goal by making it to the World Series." Hearing that I turned to my roommate and told him the White Sox have already won the series. Four games later it was over. Is this what the Cubs thought? It was good enough to win the Central Division? I hope not.

A coworker who flies up from Dallas, TX, every week observed it Wednesday night. He came over and asked me what the problem was with the Cubs. Obviously I don't have the answer or I would have typed it by now. My coworker wondered aloud why the organization doesn't hire a raft of sports psychologists to come in and work with the team. With their current $100M+ payroll it would be a drop in the bucket. It certainly couldn't hurt.