Journal WIAKywbfatw's Journal: Big Hurt in Chicago... 1
There's a Big Hurt in Chicago right now. And I'm not talking about Frank Thomas.
I stayed up late to watch game 7 of the Cubs vs Marlins NLCS last night (UK time is five hours ahead of US EST, so that first pitch was after 1.00am in the morning for me), and I have to admit that I fell asleep before the very end. But not before I saw a piece of piece of history (if you get my meaning).
It's funny what we remember and what we forget. I can remember my first real haircut, when I was about two, but I can't remember my first day at school. I can remember watching the news the day that John Lennon died, that the Mary Rose breathed air again after lying at the bottom of the sea for centuries, that Challenger exploded, that the Berlin Wall fell and that Nelson Mandela was finally freed, but I can't remember my first day at work. I don't think that there's a Cubs fan alive that will forget the last two days.
Pain and pleasure seem to burn images and memories into our brains. I'm sure that the reasons why are Darwinian, that it's all about survival of the fittest, etc, but that's no consolation for Cubs fans who'll remember the last 48 hours as long as they live. To them, those memories will be pain for pain's sake. Nothing more, nothing less.
Heck, I feel for Cubs and their fans even more because they weren't just eliminated from the playoffs, they lost the NLCS after leading it 3-1 and needing just one win to get back to the World Series. The World Series. So near but yet so far.
By the time I woke up this morning, at 6.15am, the game had ended. I often stay up late on a Sunday and Wednesday to watch a live game of baseball and I often fall asleep on the sofa sometime between the first pitch and the final one, so that scenario's happened countless times. But when I awoke something unexpected happened. Usually, after falling asleep like that during a game, one of the first things that I do is go upstairs and refresh the ESPN.com scoreboard to find out who won and who lost. Today though, the moment I regained consciousness, perhaps even before I was fully awake, I heard the result on the news. Freaky.
How did the Cubs lose? Why? I'm sure those questions are being asked and answered by Cubs fans and baseball enthusiasts the world over. Some will blame Steve Bartman, an ordinary but misguided fan, who became (in)famous in the 8th inning of game 6. Others will look at the way that the Cubs were blanked in game 5 by a pitcher with less than 20 career wins (albeit one that's got a great future ahead of him). Or how, ultimately, the Cubs overreliance on their greatest strengths, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, became their greatest undoing.
How do I explain it? Well, laying it all on Bartman is an easy out (which, frankly, is something the Cubs could have done with a few more times the last couple of days - easy outs, I mean). One thing's for sure though: while they're singing the blues in Chicago, they're enjoying the sunshine in Florida today.
Oh yeah, and overnight "Do the Bartman" has taken on a whole new meaning in Illinois. We're not talking about a cartoon kid that lives in Springfield and his silly dance, we're talking about a living, breathing human being that lives in Chicago and his life. The Cubs' World Series dream might be dead until next year but that's no reason for wanting Bartman dead too. Cubs fans, the key phrase here is "until next year".
I'll end on a poetic note. For some stupid reason, when I heard the news that the Cubs had lost, I thought of a song that I couldn't have heard for over 15 years. Sung by a soap opera star, it hit number 1 in the UK singles charts for three weeks in 1986. A one hit wonder, loved by millions, hated by millions more, it's a love ballad entitled Every Loser Wins and it goes like this:
We nearly made it
We nearly found the perfect combination
The road was right, we must have read the signs wrong
And now it's all gone
But if we'd made it
Could we be sure that it was for the better
Who could say we would have stayed together
Nothing is certain, in a changing world
Every loser wins, once the dream begins
In time we'll see, fate holds the key
And every loser knows, the light eternal shows
Will shine on you, and all those who knew
We nearly made it
Suddenly we seemed to stop and lose our way
But did it really matter anyway
For that was yesterday
And we must live for now
Because every loser wins, once the dream begins
In time we'll see, fate holds the key
And every loser knows, the light eternal shows
Will shine on you, and all those who knew
We nearly made it
Stand up and count me
I know you're on my side
Shine down on me
And those who believe
That we can make it.
For me, that song, which just popped into my head out of nowhere, summed everything up perfectly. And I'm not even a Cubs fan.
Psychology (Score:2)
In that kind of situation, you hope to be the hero, but you live in absolute *fear* being the goat (apologies, Cubs fans), and I believe it takes a toll on the overall performance of the players.
If they could come up with some kind of consciousness-altering drug that they could ad