We'll Always Have Paris

Amid a grey and soggy spring featuring two distinctly uninspired Major League Baseball teams, the Chicago Sky began their defense of the franchise's first WNBA championship. But it wasn't as pretty as their eventual league-best won-lost record would indicate.

An opening night defeat to the Los Angeles Sparks bordered on ugly, with repeated turnovers (especially on the offensive end) short-circuiting possessions. The Sky appeared unfocused and distracted. But six games in, the Sky stood at 4 -2.

It continued, with the Sky winning twenty-one of their next twenty-seven games. To that point, they never lost two in a row. Need more? How about their 3-0 record versus the Connecticut Sun, a team that had presented a major hurdle in last year's playoffs.

With just three games left in the season, a pair of sloppy losses to the Seattle Storm and Las Vegas Aces gave the Sky their first two-game losing streak. A lifetime spent as a Cubs fan was not required to wonder if perhaps the Sky might have gotten a bit too comfortable.

Thankfully, they finished the season strong with a decisive win against last year's Finals opponent, the Phoenix Mercury.

Bring on the playoffs!

They started as ignobly as had the regular season. The seventh-seed New York Liberty exploded out of the gate and beat the Sky in Chicago, outscoring them by eight in the fourth quarter. This was not good.

The Sky were able to refocus and take games two and three.

Next up was the Sun. After seven straight losses to the Sky, I don't imagine motivation was an issue in Connecticut. Nor do I imagine a lack of confidence was an issue for the Sky. With home court advantage in the five-game semis, Chicagoans had every right to feel optimistic.

Owing to a brutal third quarter, game one went to the Sun. No big deal. A team that good was bound to win one sooner or later, right? Game two was a reassuring win for the Chicagoans. They were confident and dominated the game.

On Connecticut's floor, the Sky also took game three. I permitted a small smile to manifest itself upon my face—the Sky were back in control.

Game four was a chassis-shaking, tire-shredding disaster. The Sky were never in this one as the Sun took out their long-simmering frustration and punished them over four quarters of a WNBA playoff game.

Ouch.

Would a return to Chicago re-animate the Sky? Or had Big Mo shifted irreparably to the team from the East coast?

Connecticut took the quarter number-one 24-16. Chicago took the second quarter by the same score. They also took the third quarter 18-8. A certain Cubs fan was ready to let go.

But as the hoary old sports cliché goes, the Sky had been here before. They knew what they had to do.

Only they didn't.

They shot 2 for 15, snagged 3 rebounds and dished out 2 assists. They did not visit the free throw line. Not once.

The Sun? They shot 8 for 15, pulled down 14 rebounds and handed out 8 assists. They went 8 for 8 from the free throw line. They outscored the Sky 24-5.

I can't imagine a WNBA title contender ever played a worse quarter of basketball.

Under different circumstances, I would have called Candace Parker's early exit from the court a bad case of over-indulgence. The byproduct of a bloated sense of entitlement. But given the Sky's fourth-quarter meltdown, to come so close only to have it ripped from your hands had to have been excruciating.

And with the expected retirements of Parker, Courtney Vandersloot and Allie Quigley, the look of next year's Sky will be very different. They're still talented. But will they remain legitimate title contenders? Not so sure.

We are often told to appreciate the moment. To be in it. That a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And sports is pretty good at imparting those lessons. The unexpected run to a title by last year's Sky team was as inspiring and as mind-blowing as it gets.

And I'm happy to say I wallowed in it.

But being in the moment and being vested and engaged ain't so hot when your team crashes. It eventually renders us as Humphrey Bogart in the movie Casablanca, when he ruefully tells Ingrid Bergman “We'll always have Paris.”

So it goes.

Sports in the Twenty-first Century

Man. What a decade. Ever think you’d live long-enough to see the New Jersey Nets and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals? Or the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series?

How about the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl?

Are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers not only going to a Super Bowl but actually winning one a vision not even binge-drinking could inspire? Imagine the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox finally ending their championship droughts—in consecutive years!

Okay. Very funny. When does the alarm clock go off?

Sure, the usual suspects made plenty of appearances; the L.A. Lakers won four titles, the New York Yankees, rejuvenated Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Steelers two each. The San Antonio Spurs at last converted all those winning seasons into a trio of trophies. And the Boston Celtics recovered from their post-Bird stupor long-enough to snatch one.

But that’s not what this decade is about.

It’s about the Florida Marlins winning another Series just six years after their ’97 title. It’s about the Philadelphia Phillies winning only their second title in 108 years. And it’s about the fresh-out-of diapers Arizona Diamondbacks denying the fabled Yankees a World Series fourpeat by scoring two ninth-inning runs in the seventh game of the 2001 classic—off of Mariano Rivera no less.

It's about the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim—a hockey team named after a Disney movie—going to the Stanley Cup twice (and winning once). It’s about the Anaheim Angels winning the 2002 World Series against the San Francisco Giants and big, bad Barry Bonds. Can anyone say Anaheim—Suburb of Champions?

When the Tampa Bay Lightning (What? Tampa Bay again?) and Carolina Hurricanes win successive Stanley Cups, and the New England Patriots become the dominant team in the NFL, you just know someone spiked the punch.

But not everyone tried it.

The Los Angeles Clippers still reside at the bottom of the NBA. The Cleveland Indians haven’t won a Series since 1948. The Sacramento Kings haven’t put their fingerprints on a championship since 1951, when they played in Rochester, N.Y. and were called the Royals.

And the Stanley Cup remains a rumor in—of all places—Toronto, where the Maple Leafs haven’t bothered since 1967.

And then there’s the Detroit Lions. Once upon a time, the Lions were the cream of professional football, playing for four NFL championships between 1952 and 1957 and winning three.

But then, the Titanic used to float.

That leaves the hapless Chicago Cubs. One-hundred years and counting. A Las Vegas bookie calculated the odds at a million-to-one, which actually means the Cubs have won the lottery. Only no one's calling and claiming to be related.

When homes wired for electricity represented cutting-edge technology the last time you won a championship, you're overdue.

When eleven of baseball's fourteen expansion franchises have seen World Series action since you did, you're overdue.

And when a football team quarterbacked by Rex Grossman hits the Super Bowl before you're awarded World Series visitation rights, you need to call your OB.

Now.

Who knows. Maybe the next decade will be the one. But like my math teacher once advised me about a malfunctioning calculator—don’t count on it.