There’s Always Never

There’s always 2015…

That’s the year that in the movie “Back to the Future Part II” shows the Cubs winning the World Series over “Miami”.

Only 7 years to go…

Agreed, 2015 it is. Get your hover boards ready.

2 things I hated about going into the postseason this year…

1 – that damn eddie vedder song about ‘Someday they’ll go all the way’ was not inspiring them to go all the way this year, not good.

2 – Jim Belushi changing the lyrics to ‘Go Cubs Go’ to ‘The Cubs are going ALL THE WAY!’. You can’t change that song. Not at the end of an epic year.

Curses are terrible. I hate this franchise, yet, I love this team soooooo much. I’ll never give up on them.

I also am questioning for the first time weather the cubs CAN win it all. But not because of any curse or anything like that. Its because of the enormous pressure thats heaped on them every time they make the playoffs. In order to win it I think they need to consistently go to the playoffs (like Boston) and when its no longer a big deal to make the playoffs then they can win.

well said Sheps…

I can’t believe we went a whole post-season without seeing Kerry Wood, Reed Johnson, or Ted Lilly. We barely saw Marmol or Samardjin. I saw Neil Cotts so much I want to vomit. How can we call Lou a great manager when Felix Pie pinch hits in a game, and Reed Johnson never sees a pitch? And how was Micah Hoffpaiur not on the roster? I know this is the loss talking, but I think the Dodgers beat some team wearing Cubs jerseys, but they didn’t beat the Cubs. Because Kerry Wood is the Cubs, and he wasn’t on the field.

I don’t care about matchups or lefty vs lefty matchups. If you are going to beat the Cubs, you’re going to face Samardjin-Marmol-Wood in the last 3 innings. I don’t care if its 1-0 or 15-2, it’s the playoffs. What are you saving them for? Don’t let the Dodgers tack on those extra runs.

Trade Soriano, Fukudome, and Dempster. They’re losers when it counts. Dempster was a bad closer because he couldn’t do it when it counted, and he’s not the right starter for October because he couldn’t do it when it counted. He’s a loser. Through and through. Trade him and bring in a real pitcher.

Could not be more true Joe. They HAVE established a recent history of winning, which, like Boston may catapult them into believing they can go further and further into the playoffs. I’ll continue to believe, but not be fooled into thinking they could actually taste it one day. Where have you gone Mark Cuban, our Cubs Nation turns its lonely eyes on you…..?

Joe, I think you are on to something. It just gets harder to ignore the 4,000 pound elephant in the locker room every year they get in the playoffs.

The only thing I can do next year is not care about the regular season. When this team wins a playoff game, I might get excited and pay attention. Guess I am tired of devoting my time, heart, and emotion into this team. Mark Cuban in ‘09!!!

I disagree with one part. The Cubs aren’t the underdog. The Dodgers and Rays are underdogs because they weren’t supposed to be here. But the Cubs were built to be here and they’ll be expected to be there for the next few years.

This catastrophe is more about simply being losers. And not just regular losers like the Royals or Urkel. I’m talking about made-for-TV losers where they are good looking enough to get the girl but it turns out the reason she agreed to the dance is because it was all a big joke by the jocks.

Bottom line is that the Cubs got kicked in the crotch, and unfortunately, the Cubs fans are the testicles.

It may be true that they will never win (or make it to) the WS. But it will be awhile anyway. For one thing, the current team is obviously not good enough. They’ve proven that. And now they probably can’t afford to get free agents until current contract are over or traded (if they can find takers). Plus, I think the perception of the team is going to go back to what it had been: an incompetently run organization that can’t rise above mediocrity. A new owner can change that, but said owner will have to somehow establish their own identity. The thing is, the leading group seems to be closely associated with current Trib leadership, so that new identity is going to be hard to come by.

Finally (I hit submit too soon), after 42 years of dedication, I’m going to transition into fair weather fan phase. Honestly, the regular season is not worth the time. Fortunately, the last 25 years have brought a few good seasons, with a lot of bad ones. But I’ve seen all that before. I haven’t seen the Cubs in the WS. So, if they make it, I’m there, but not until then. Call me a stupid bandwagon jumper if you want. I couldn’t care less. We’re all stupid for showing any devotion to millionaires who don’t care about us (and, for that matter, shouldn’t).

Agreed…on so much. Thanks, Sheps, for the healing balm of your reflections. We don’t need to be analyzed or scolded or dissected today, as all the media will try to do. We just need a plain, old fashioned hot cup of comfort, which is what Cubscast has been for me these past couple years, as I sometimes feel completely isolated (here in NW Ohio, taking down my Cubs flag at 1AM so my neighbors can’t mock me).

Agreed–we were NOT the underdogs this year. Agreed–there was WAY too much pressure on these players. Disagree–the Cubs don’t care about us. Isn’t their fumbling and freezing up and trying too hard THE classic symptoms of caring too much?? They need to stop caring about our crazy expectations and remember why they love baseball. And we could take the same advice.

And just for the record–I’d rather not be a testicle.

As a Red Sox fan with friends who are Cubs fans, I know exactly what you guys are going through. Often in my fandom through the years I went through the same thought process. So let me give so my perspective on this.

I think right now the entire curse has taken on a life of its own, just like the curse of the bambino in Boston, to the point that there is enormous pressure on the players and the city, and every time anything goes wrong, there is a collective sense of “it’s happening to us again” negativity that pervades through the fans and the ballpark, this has a definite psychological impact on the players and their ability to perform.

Even though I never believed in the real Curse of the Bambino, at the same time I knew the idea of the curse was itself a curse, that it both created the immense pressure to “end it” as well as the negative mentality of “how is it going to happen to us this time?”

I felt that this mentality was a huge handicap in Boston winning because of its effect on the team, to the point that I felt that this handicap was going to by itself prevent the Red Sox from ever winning. I think this is the same thing that causing the Cubs to underachieve.

Then something happened in 1999, the team fell behind 0-2 in the ALDS against the Indians and came back to win the series. Then in happened again in 2003, they came from 0-2 down in the ALDS against Oakland and their “Big Three” and won the series.

Those 2 comebacks had a huge impact on mentality of the players and the fans. Instead of always waiting for something bad to happen in the best of times, the fans instead learned to hope for something good even in the worst of times.

I think those 2 comebacks paved the way for 2004. Because it finally brought the fans and the players on the team out of the negative attitude that I spoke of earlier.

I think this is was the Cubs need. They need to break the negative mentality curse before they can win it all, and the only way to do that is to do something special. Some Lazarus moment when they rise from the ashes. Not to win it all immediately, but to just break the cycle of negativity. Where the next post season appearance is a new opportunity to do something great rather than a new opportunity to blow it.

Anyways that’s my thoughts on it, and as an outsider, it’s really up to you guy to decide if it’s worth anything.

My daughter pointed out that the last time the Cubs were in the World Series, they lost to Detroit. The last time they won a World Series, they beat Detroit. Twice.

So, maybe it isn’t a curse so much as a preconditional limit: The Cubs will not make it to the World Series until the Tigers do.

Maybe the key to removing the pressure is for the team to EMBRACE the “curse”, even if they don’t really believe in it. Think about it: This knowledge that they’ll somehow find a way to blow it makes them the ultimate underdogs. They should use that to their advantage. Have some fun with this curse thing — no matter how well the season is going, Piniella should remind the fans and media not to get too excited because after all, this is the woeful, cursed Cubbies we’re talking about. Play on that theme the whole year, with a twinkle in his eye. Take the damn pressure off the damn players, or it’s never going to happen. Thank you and by the way, great show guys, you are the best and most consistent Cubs podcast I have ever heard.

Thanks Red Sox fan, but playing poorly didn’t “happen to the Cubs.” They played poorly. Their manager didn’t do particularly well, either. The management of the time miscalculated and misscouted again regarding Fukudome. The Cubs are their own curse.

That should read “management of the team.”

Mattvegas–
I disagree. You can point to individual mistakes and whatnot but it’s clear the team we saw in the playoffs was very different from the one we watched all summer. I think the comment from Red Sox Fan was accurate, helpful, and actually a very nice thing to take the time to do, so thank you, RSF.

I don’t understand how Reed Johnson did not get played more he should have started over over Fukudome, Fukudome was slumping at the end of the season bad coaching

My great grandfather was born in 1908; he’s the reason I’m a Cubs fan. I was SO SURE this was the year. I KNEW they would win on the 100th anniversary.

But they blew it again. I am so disappointed and frustrated. I’ve invested so much time into this year, following the regular season and getting all hyped up that this would be their year. I was really hoping for the Century-peat. Now I have to watch Manny Ramirez disrespect America’s greatest past-time with his sloppy clothes. This is not what baseball is all about. I am done! (until next spring, I can’t walk away… /hangs head)

Fukudome wasn’t the only one slumping. Besides a couple of bright spots like Big Z’s no-hitter, the whole team closed out the last few weeks in a slump. You never want your money riding on the horse that’s ahead out of the gate. He loses steam down the stretch and gets passed up ’round the last turn by the ones that are hot towards the end. The Dodgers weren’t the hottest team in baseball, but they were winning, and that positive mentality helped them beat a team that wasn’t winning like it used to. Playing at Wrigley under the pressure of media and fans to “break the curse” could have been a huge boost if we ended the season with a sweep of the Brewers, but we didn’t, and the wrong “It” happened.

There’s not much to say at this point, no one we can really point figures at (it wouldn’t do any good), but looking forward there are changes we can do to increase our changes for a better performance in next year’s post season (call me an optimist).
In the past two years both Soriano and Ramirez have choked in the post season. I guess I can live with Ramirez choking because his regular season clutch numbers are much better than Soriano’s (and he doesn’t earn as much). With that said, I can count the number of times Soriano has DIRECTLY impacted a game that resulted in a dramatic win (or even a win) and it isn’t many (maybe 3 or 4 at the most), but I can also recall a number of games that his sloppy outfield performance as cost us games as well.
So for next year, Soriano should not be hitting leadoff and everyone in the baseball world knows it. Look at it in this light, if he can’t get himself psychologically comfortable in the fifth or sixth spot (which is where he should be hitting) what makes us think that he’ll be able to get himself psychologically comfortable in the playoffs.

I now Soriano isn’t to blame for the lack of offense in the post season; however, we picked up Soriano to be our Manny or our Big Papi (and even paid him as much), but he hasn’t lived up to those expectations and honestly, I don’t think he even will. And like any other players we have, if he can’t muster up the performance that is expected of him, than we need to give someone else the opportunity that can and will step-up and that goes for Fukudome as well. And I know that’s easier said than done because we are upside-down with Soriano and Fukudome in regards to their trade value, but perhaps we do what many of the collapsing banks have done and consider writing of our losses.

As for next year, I say we bring back Johnson and Hoffpaiur and as for pitching let’s bring back Harden and possibly trade Marquis and let Marshall have his spot in the rotation.

Sorry for the long post.

Hey Guys,
How is your “RECUBERY” going? I think we all need a little mental break.
See ya (or I mean hear ya) in a few days!
Rox

Did anyone see the greek orthodox priest showering the dugout with holy water and saying prayers before game 1?? The word on this is that the chairman of the cubs Crane Kenney, called this priest in, they tried to keep it private but obviously it was caught on video and went national before the game. Now, this doesn’t exactly show much faith in the team does it? I can’t imagine being some of the guys on the team trying to keep the curse nonsense out of my head and then seeing the chairman feed into the curse, the 100 years and actually add more fuel to the fire. The team AND the organization needs to shake this curse b.s., the only thing that will get them back to the world series is good baseball, focus and handling the pressure well. I mean we weren’t idiots for believing, they made a fool out of all of us. Ya, we still believe, somewhere in our broken hearts…

I did not see the priest footage, I’ll have to check that out. And that makes me feel terrible, now I also have to blame my religion for the Cubs failures too. Man.

I love the podcast, i have been listening for years now.

I am die-hard. die-hard, never miss a game, Cubs fan. I was angry, but I am over it now. I am a Cubs fan now, I was a Cubs fan in 2003, in 2004, in 2005.. I will always be a fan.

You can sit there and say whatever you want about what should have been done who should have started, who shouldnt have played. They choked. Get used to it people, its the Cubs.

…and i will always be a fan

Couldn’t have put it better myself Billy.

The post and the podcast said everything so perfectly… my heart hurts. I’m in shock becuase even I, a die hard Cubsfan that was there in ‘89 and relive it almost daily with Giants fans in the house, believed this year was different.
I only hope people can forgive Bartman now, we know he really had nothing to do with 2003.
And I can totally relate to my Toddler now, all I can say is WHY? Why Dempster, why not lilly? Why Fukodome, at least he did get a hit in Game3. Why TBS, at least I was able to listen to WGN radio or I probalby would have smashed my TV during Game 3.
And I’m changing the quote: There’s no crying in baseball, unless you’re a Cubs fan.

I hope all the fair weather fans learned their lesson, because I never did and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone… okay maybe Dodger fans.

AND IF RON SANTO doesn’t make it into the Hall this year.. I just may have to boycot MLB. I’ll miss you Wrigley Field… at least I’ll still have my Cubscast!

to Red Sox fan: I would be on the same page with you if most Red Sox fans did not feel that they were entitled to win every game and that when they go to the opposing team’s stadium that the home team’s fans should not be allowed to cheer for their own team! I liked you better when you were losing.
Hey Cubs fans, we do not go on the field and play, the players do. But I think we feel th pain more than they do. I grew up a Phillies fan, but am a converted Cubs fan because, even though I live nowhere near Chicago, I can feel how special it is to be a Cubs fan (it has only been 16 years, but I do not miss seeing a game on TV). I agree with Sheps, I am 50 years old and don’t ever expect to see them in the World Series in my lifetime, but I know that Opening Day 2009 I will be full of hope again. That is what true Cubs fans are like, and that is what ownership banks on. It is a chame they will never let Mark Cuban in, he might actually make the players take that final step, not that they did not try-I do think they did, but they needed one more level of passion that is missing.

Agreed Billy.

Is anyone else getting made fun of? I’m a student and wear some Cubs item at least twice a week. On monday my teacher made a comment about how I felt about the “Fubs”. Ouch.

There is always next year…..

Hi guys–
Man, I still feel depressed and sad. I watched Saturday night until about the 4th inning and I had to turn the tv off and go to bed, hoping that if I didn’t watch, maybe they would win. At that point, I was trying any superstition I could.
I still have my Cubs logos up at my desk and I have my “I want to get to 2nd base with Mark DeRosa” t-shirt on order.
We are planning a week-long trip to Wrigley next summer, which will be my first time there, and I am still planning to burst into tears when I enter the Friendly Confines. Win or lose, they are still Our Team.

Cheer up, dudes. We’ll be back next year, and all of this will be a dim (sad) memory.

vch

Yeah, I arrived to my office cubicle Monday morning to find some friendly co-worker had left drawings of goats all over my desk and around the walls. They were printed out from some teaching web site for kids to color… so I’ve been coloring them. They make great gifts for the girls around the office who also happen to be Cubs fans in mourning

And there’s a really ugly goat I’m gonna color for the White Sox fan…

I just listened to the Cubscast of Oct. 7th. I have to say you and others covered every feeling I had after the loss Saturday night. Nice to know I am not going thru this alone. I (unbelievably) stopped watching the game Saturday only going back for occasional updates. When it was over,I was plunged into the depths of despair, swearing I would never wear another Cubs thing again, asking why do I continue to go thru this with them, and sorry that I have passed my love of the Cubs on to my sons. However, I awoke Sunday morning and my first thought was “what Cubs jersey should I wear today?” So I have bounced back, don’t need to seek professional help THIS year, and look forward to February and Spring Training.

One strange thing I found about the Cubs unfortunate postseason is that the Cubs didn’t lose 3 straight games until June 17 when they were swept by the Rays. And then they go and lose 3 straight when it matters the most.