Pinch me, please. Someone tell me that this surreal nightmare is just that -- only a nightmare and nothing more. Someone tell me that the Cubs did not blow a 3-1 series lead. Tell me that Mark Prior and Kerry Wood -- arguably the best pitching duo in baseball -- did not lose back-to-back games that if won, would have sent the Cubs to their first World Series in the post-World War II era.
Tell me that the Florida Marlins did not really beat the Cubs 9-6 Wednesday night. In Chicago. At Wrigley Field.
Any other team would be celebrating the pennant with champagne. Any other team would be on the way to the World Series. Any other team would not be forced to wait a 96th year for a championship.
But this isn't another team. This is the Cubs. The same Cubs whose last World Series title came during the Roosevelt Administration -- that's Teddy, by the way. Nicholas II was the tsar of Russia then.
I want to blame this disaster on the fan who took the third out away from the glove of left fielder Moises Alou Tuesday night. I want him to be the scapegoat, but if he hadn't extended that inning that saw the Marlins score eight runs in a silenced Wrigley, the Cubs would have found some other way to lose. They're the Cubs.
They did this in 1945, losing Game Seven of the Series to the Tigers. They did it in 1984, up 2-0 in the then-best-of-five National League Championship Series only to lose the next three. They did it in 1998, squeezing into the playoffs only to be swept by the Braves.
I live near Chicago, and I've loved this team my whole life. They're part of Chicago. I consider Wrigley Field the greatest place on earth, and I've been there numerous times. I've seen Sammy slam home runs onto Waveland Avenue. In high school, my friends and I played Ferris Bueller more often than we should have, because the Cubs were more important than class. There's magic in the Wrigley ivy. I've seen comebacks and embarrassing losses. Home runs and strikeouts. But never a championship.
Cubs history is bleak. Year after year, it seems, they sit in the cellar of the National League, while the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros fight for the Central division crown. Last place finishes three out of the last five years.
But this year was different. The Wrigley atmosphere was different. Dusty Baker was here. Mark Prior (18-6, 2.43 ERA), at age 23, was becoming the game's best pitcher. Running out of time in late August and September, the Cubs took four games out of five from the Cardinals, and then went 19-8 in September to sew up the division title. In the divisional series against the Braves, they rallied to win the best-of-five series in Game Five. In Atlanta. Against our better judgment, Cubs fans dared to believe because it was different this year. This team was different. The curse that has hung over the skyscrapers and stockyards of the Windy City like a somber black cloud finally would be dispersed.
And then this. After losing Game One in the eleventh inning, the Cubs won the next three games, two of which were played in south Florida. It would only take one game to get to the World Series. Two games to be played in Chicago, with wunderkinds Prior and Wood to take the mound in the final two games. It couldn't happen. Prior and Wood had lost back-to-back only once all season. Wood hadn't lost since August 21. Prior was 12-1 after the All-Star break. It was inconceivable.
But these are the Cubs. Josh Beckett two-hits the Cubs in Game Five. Series 3-2. Fan interference in Game Six. Disaster. Series 3-3. Kerry Wood gets pounded for seven runs in Game Seven. Series 4-3, Marlins. Game. Set. Match.
The team that makes an art form out of losing has produced a new masterpiece of postseason futility. Chicago weeps.
Now all that's left for Cubs fans to do is to recite that same empty mantra that has carried us through the past 95 years:
Wait 'til next year.
