Numb

The Cubs just lost.

Swept. For the second year in a row.

100 years. This year was supposed to be different.

It felt different. But it was not. Same old thing.

Future generations of psychologists will tell us how irrational it is to cheer for a bunch of highly paid athletic freaks; why it makes no sense for us to pay money and waste watching them play a game. But we do, it is a social thing, it is an envy thing, it is an escape thing.

Right now, I am sitting alone in my apartment, I could not bear to be around people as the Cubbies were swept away again, thinking about how much a Cubs victory would have brought me joy, alleviated me from the pressures of paying back over $120K in loans. But instead, I am feeling the way Derrek Lee and Ramirez and Theriot and Harden and Zambrano and the rest of the post season roster are feeling. There is no envy. Just mutual disgust, depression, and overriding sense of failure.

This was "next year."

The last time I invested this much time into a Cubs team was 2003. In 2003, I had just graduated from college and was working a night job while trying to figure out what to do with my life. The nice thing about working at night was that I could go to bed around 5 a.m. and be up by 1:20 for the Cubs game. If they were playing at night, I listened to Pat & Ron on the radio.* That postseason I paid $300 to see Mark Prior defeat Greg Maddux in person. It was my greatest moment as a Cub fan.

We all know what happened next:




This summer, like in 2003, I was out of state until graduation. This summer, I did not work, I studied for the Bar. I watched or listened to on the radio, nearly every single Cubs game while I studied for the Bar. After the first day of the Bar, I went back to the hotel and watched the Cubs defeat the Brewers (though I fell asleep in the 7th inning. Sorry, but the Bar Exam is exhausting). After the second day of the Bar, I celebrated by watching my Cubbies defeat the Brewers again.

This does not even include the game I went to while I should have been studying for the bar (it would have been more, but money, not really growing at trees). It was 40 degrees outside, and my little Sis and I were sitting directly behind home plate, with the wind blowing in.

After the Bar, I watched every game, until I moved to VA. The next couple months sucked. I went through withdrawal. I had no cable, and a very shaky unsecured wireless connection from a neighbor upon which I "watched" every game I could on mlb.com. Not to mention the traveling. But eventually, I got my cable, but still could only get the games on WGN. I still watched most games on mlb.com with the trusty LAN, and then the Cubs clinched, and I was able to take a breather.

Playoffs came, I was confident. This team was good. Very good. We could score a hundred different ways, we had a great pitching staff, and three reliable arms out of the bullpen. I started ripping on White Sox mercilessly, goading them into talking about a Red Line series, then laughing because the Sox would never make it out of the first round.

Ooops.

I do not know what comes next. It took me a long time to recover from 2003. But this is what being a Cubs fan means I guess.

At the very least this tempers my expectations for what is projected a much better Blackhawks team. I seriously considered dipping into my my slim funds to come up with the money for Center Ice, to watch the Blackhawks (yes, they put the games on WGN, but they will not be televised nationally). They are, after all, the other horribly lost cause of a chicago team.

Ah, well. I am very sad. I will get my comeuppance on Monday I suppose. Until then, I am going to listen to this fifty times:



*I did not pay for the WGN radio feed through MLB, but I cannot imagine what Ron is going through right now.

UPDATE: Al from Bleedie Cubbie Blue says it best