Farewell 2015 Cubs and Thank You

So much has been written about the Cubs, but now with the World Series over and the time changed, all the hype fades till February when pitchers and catchers report to spring training.  The baseball news gets skinny in the regular press; confined to trades, acquisitions, and the business side of baseball.  I took down the Tribune full page player photos and the W towel from the shack. 

I’ll miss the games, the radio and TV broadcasts, the slow unfolding of division races in the standings, and the individual achievements of the players.  They’re out there somewhere, the Cub players, relaxing I hope.  It was quite a run for them in 2015.
Monday I watched the Kansas City Royals finish off the Mets in New York.  I appreciated the camera shots of the Met fans at the conclusion of the TV broadcast.  Grim, dejected, downcast, and mournful faces were rife in the home stands.  It’s awful to lose, especially after achieving so much.  I knew how they felt.   I was in Wrigley Field for the last game of the National League Championship Series.  I had barely taken my seat in the left field bleachers when the Mets went ahead in the top of the first inning.  They stayed there, stomping my young Cub team, making them look bad, exposing their weaknesses.  After the Mets had scored six I left for a half inning, roaming Wrigley’s refurbished back bleacher area and finding Hot Doug’s (I had the tasty Rick Reuschel sausage.). It wasn’t supposed to end like that.  It had been a story book season, the story was drawing to a close, and it was not a happy ending.  There would be no miracle finish.  Unlike the previous game I attended, the first of the Division Series at Wrigley, when they hit six home runs against the Cardinals, the Cubs lost soundly and decisively to the Mets.  I felt like that sad Paul Simon baseball song from “Crazy After All These Years.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILGsLlS7stw&index=5&list=PLLtQvkTqKXThUDFb3UaXygDC5s38fJeiJ
But wait.  They Cubs lost while playing for the championship of the National League.  It suddenly came to me.  This is a victory. 
I wrote about the 2014 Cub season last fall in a blog post called “You Are Where You Are.”  If you scroll down through the posts it’s still there.  I tried as best I could then to put a positive spin on what was a losing season.  They finished last in their division you know.  Here’s an excerpt from that piece written at the end of September.
Did Cub fans have high hopes for their 2014 team in spring training?  No.  We expected them to have a losing season.  It was called a rebuilding year from the start, which is a misnomer.  For the Cubs it was simply a building year.  They had nothing to rebuild from.  Rebuilding implies you once had a solid structure to restore.  The Cubs have been in shambles, as far as their won-loss record, since their last winning season in 2008.  They lost 101 games in 2012.  Winning seasons have been few and far between since 1908.  It’s a very sad history to own.  But such is the history of the Chicago Cubs.  They are where they are.

• The Cubs finished in the cellar in 2014 with a record of 73 wins and 89 losses.  They were in last place of the National League’s Central Division for the fifth year in a row.  Thirty teams make up Major League Baseball in America, fifteen teams in both the American and National League.  The best team in baseball, Numero Uno during the regular season, were the Los Angeles Angels with a record of 98 wins and 64 losses.  The Cubs, looking purely at wins and losses now and not beer sales at home games, tied with the Philadelphia Phillies as 23^rd best team in baseball with a winning percentage of .451.  But then, everybody has to be somewhere. *
• Though few recognize it there is each year a king of the cellar dwellers, the team that happens to find themselves last in their division but with the best record of the worst losers.  It happens this year that the Cubs tied the Phillies as being “Best of the Worst.”  You won’t find this kind of analysis on ESPN folks.  It’s a shame to allow the title of “Best of the Worst” to end as a tie.  I personally believe it should be decided by a one game playoff. *
• Never, when I wrote that sentence about a “Best of the Worst” playoff last fall, did I envision the Cubs involved in a one game playoff to make the playoffs at the conclusion of the 2015 regular season.  But there they were.  I am still amazed.  Here’s what the Chicago Cubs accomplished in the regular season.
  The Cubs won their last eight games, ending the season with a record of 97 wins and 65 losses, and finished third in their division.  Their record was third best in Major League Baseball, behind the Cardinals with 100 wins and the Pirates with 98.  Had they played in any other division in either league they would have finished first.  The division winning Mets won 90, the Royals 95, the Texas Rangers 88.  They did with a lineup that started as many as four rookies at times.
  They won by scoring early and staying ahead.  They scored late and won by coming from behind.  They won close games with good pitching.  They won by hitting home runs.  They led the league in walks and strikeouts.  They made mistakes.  But they won.  They played small ball when they needed, executed double steals, rubbed their helmets when they got on base, laughed, dumped water on each other, rushed the field and mobbed the player with the walk off hit, and had so much fun.   It was raucous inside the clubhouse.  They danced after victories, accompanied by a smoke machine and a disco ball.   They ignored curses (what goat?) and dismal history.   They weren’t born when that stuff happened.  Some of their parents weren’t even born then.  They didn’t care.  And they drove the entrenched pessimism right out of the hearts of old and jaded Cub fans like me.  As the season went on and they grew braver and more confident I could feel the fear of collapse, misery, and my own personal baseball squalor leaving me.  It was wonderful.   Both the players and the fans fell in love with new manager Joe Maddon.  He played a new kind of baseball in Chicago, moved players in and out of the lineup, up and down the batting order, from one position to another.  He took charge and showed both the rookies and the veterans what it took to win.  And win they did, over and over.  Success was infectious.  You could see it grow.  The summer grew hot.  July came and they were still winning.  August was even better.  Then they had a simply magnificent September.  Joe made pre-game batting practice optional. And, miracle of miracles, the Cubs kept playing into October.  Wrigley Field was resplendent in October, the ivy just starting to yellow.  I know it was true because I was there.  Who would have thought?  Not me.
  The Cubs didn’t win the World Series.  They fell short.  They were on fire at the end of the regular season, winning their last eight, winning their ninth against the Pirates to earn the right to play the Cardinals.  They lost their first game in St. Louis, only to win the next three.   Before they were swept by the Mets they went on a 12-1 tear.  But in the end it was the Mets who were hot, until they played the Royals.  It may be the team puts themselves in a position to win and gets hot at the finish.  The Cubs are very close to being that team.      As the young talented Kansas City Royal players celebrated in New York I imagined the Cubs in their place.  Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo putting on the victor’s tee shirts, Addison Russell and Jake Arrieta donning World Series Champs hats, Kyle Schwarber in catcher’s gear (get him out of left field for God sake) lifting Hector Rondon off the ground.  World Series champs.  I could actually imagine it.  A once unimaginable scene is now possible.  What a difference a year can make.  The Cubs are transformed as I am along with them.
  That young Kansas City team, essentially the same line up this year as last, lost the series in 2014, leaving a runner ninety feet away on third base as the Giants took them down.  They paid their dues, learning the hard way what it takes to win it all.  The Royals built their team as the Cubs have, with patience, developing young talent.  It’s a winning strategy, and it’s the path the Cubs are on.  Unlike 2008, when the Cubs paid too much for players at the end of their career, essentially taking an unsustainable shot at post season glory, this team has legs.  We have these great young kids for years into the future.       
  Now I really mean it when I say “Wait until next year.”  The sarcasm is gone and the next year filled with promise.  The Cubs are in a different place, and I like where they are.  I can’t wait till spring 2016.  Go Cubs.  Thank you for giving us hope.