The September Fade

No, it's not the latest hairstyle sported by Harry Styles as he tours the world. Nor is it the latest iteration of Donald's comb-over. Nope. The September Fade is the semi-annual collapse of the Chicago Cubs on the odd years they are actually in contention.

I've only been following the Cubs since 1968, so I'm hardly an expert. But they have an unpleasant habit of fading in September. Do I remember the jokes about the Cubs relocating to the Philippines and renaming themselves the Manila Folders?

Sadly, yes.

For purposes of juxtaposition, the 2016 Cubs followed up a sizzling August (22 – 6) with a stupendous September, going 17 – 10 as they wrapped up the NL Central division. The previous year, after having embraced the idea they were legitimate contenders, the Cubs also followed up a torrid August with an equally-torrid September (19 – 9), ending the year on an eight-game winning streak.

(You will excuse me for not mentioning that after taking the season series from the New York Mets 7 – 0, they disappeared against them in the National League Championship Series, falling four games to none.)

Even after a slow start in 2017, they caught fire in late-summer, going 16 – 8 in July, 17 – 12 in August and 19 – 9 in—you guessed it—September. In 2018 they managed a still-impressive 16 – 12 record, tying the Milwaukee Brewers for the division lead. (Naturally, they lost game one-hundred sixty-three at home to those same Brewers, managing just three hits in a 3 – 1 loss.)

Following that defeat, the Cubs went on to lose another game—also at home—in a one-game wild card series to the 1927 New York Yank...er, I mean the 2018 Colorado Rockies. The score was 2 – 1, but at least the Cubs totaled six hits.

In a manner of speaking, the immediate future began in 2019. In what was widely seen as a make-it-or-break-it year for Maddon and company, the Cubs played well, ending August with a 73 – 62 record, in second-place just 2.5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals.

But do you remember September?

The Cubs crashed, going 11 – 16 and losing ten out of their last twelve games (which included a season-high nine-game losing streak).

So, yeah. This isn't new.

Most famously there was 1969. After enjoying a five to nine game divisional lead from mid-May through Labor Day, the Cubs went on to lose seventeen of twenty-five games that September, which included a season-high eight-game losing streak. It was enough to subvert a very healthy divisional lead to the point where the Cubs stood eight games behind the New York Mets by season's end.

In an era where only division winners were invited to participate in the post-season, it was a brutal end to a campaign that had success-starved Cub fans rekindling their belief in Santa Claus.

I hate the Mets to this day. And I always will.

2008. The Cubs were cruising along at a 100-win pace when September struck. They enjoyed a division lead that grew to 10.5 games by the 22^nd, despite the Cubs suffering through what was easily the worst month of the season (12 – 12).

It was perhaps fortunate that September had just thirty days.

The good news was that the ninety-seven win Cubs were opening the divisional playoffs against the 84 – 78 Los Angeles Dodgers, who not only held the worst won-loss record of any of the MLB post-season combatants, but the worst road record of any of the five National League post-season entrants.

To Cub fans who hasn't yet surrendered their innocence, this was a sign from God that the Cubs were headed to the World Series. To those of us who had lost our virginity some time ago, this pairing merited only a reserved and distant “Hmmm.”

The Cubs wasted no time in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, losing game one 7 – 2 and game two 10 – 3 at Wrigley—to the second-worst road team in the playoffs. I didn't even bother checking the score for game three. Didn't need to. I knew instinctively they had once again found the cloud in the silver lining.

Unlike other Cubs teams that had suffered a difficult September, the 2008 squad distinguished itself because it had also experienced a difficult October, something the 1984, 1989 and 2003 clubs were also familiar with.

Yes, for the masochistic Cub fan, it was a season to remember.

2023 didn't plumb those depths, but managed to hold several peculiar qualities all its own.

First off, you should know the Cubs held the third-best run differential in the National League for the majority of the season. Their pythagorean won-lost record was 90 – 72, a full seven games above their actual record.

This was going to be a continuation of the second-half success last year's team enjoyed. And with new additions like Cody Bellinger and Dansby Swanson plus the return of Kyle Hendricks, why wouldn't it be?

Read on, dear reader. Read on.

So what went wrong? The Cubs punched well below their weight. They ran notoriously hot and cold. Slumps and injuries held an all-access pass to their locker room.

Jameson Taillon and Drew Smyly appeared in April to be decent-quality fourth and fifth starters, but that didn't quite happen. Taillon's first half was a disaster, and Smyly never got untracked and was relegated to the bullpen.

However good Marcus Stroman was in the first half (and he was Cy Young-nominee good), he tailed off during the Cubs' visit to London and never recovered. (A cartilage-injury to his ribs helped ensure he wouldn't.)

Hendricks arrived in June and was a great help. But the Cubs couldn't score when Hendricks was on the mound. Ten of his twenty-four starts resulted in a no decision, and what usually happened on those occasions was that the bullpen would extend to the opposition the generosity Hendricks himself refused to.

That left Justin Steele. The new guy in town had a breakthrough year and was a deserved candidate for the Cy Young trophy until a couple of late-season starts went south.

Then there was the bullpen. It was a bullpen-by-committee kind of deal, with Adbert Alzolay emerging as the eventual closer. And for the majority of the year he was quite good. But his calendar contained a 'September' too, and he was sidelined at the most critical time of the year.

There were lots and lots of blown save opportunities in September, something that doesn't align well with post-season play. Over the last thirty days, only the Atlanta Braves and Kansas City Royals created more save opportunities (thirteen) than the Cubs' dozen. The Cubs could only convert four.

There's no telling what those eight blown saves (defined as a lead lost in the eighth or ninth inning) did to the club's psyche. But the position players weren't without blame as slumps coursed through the lineup in a highly-democratic fashion.

Swanson, the Cubs big free-agent signing, had a good year defensively but his offensive production was on the weak side. Specifically, he hit just .184 in August (OPS of .662) and .236 in September—not the numbers you're expecting from a triple-digit signing.

Seiya Suzuki rebounded nicely at the end of the year, but could only manage a batting average of .177 in June (with a slugging percentage of .228 and an OPS of .475) and .240 in July (with a less-bad slugging percentage of .350 and an OPS of .660).

Even Bellinger slumped, hitting .226 in May and .250 in June with slugging percentages of .300 each month. But a month-long knee injury hit him in mid-May, so..

He also tailed-off in September.

The lasting picture I have of the 2023 Cubs is that there always seemed to be someone on the IL and/or enmeshed in a deep slump. Suffering from a lack of depth, this was a club that could not afford to be hamstrung by a starting pitcher or positional player or bullpen closer struggling. And yet it was—repeatedly.

The powers that be maintain the Cubs weren't supposed to be contending for a playoff slot, which helps not one iota in picking up the pieces of this broken season. That wasn't the point! They were contending. And they choked.

On the other hand, the Dodgers, Atlanta Braves and Baltimore Orioles won 305 games between them. The Orioles and Dodgers were swept by teams that won (respectively) 90 and 84 games.

(Just for fun, I'll add the 99-win Tampa Bay Rays, who were swept in the wild card round by a 90-win team, also.)

The Braves will likely bow out of their series tonight to a team that also won 90. That's four teams—all substantially better than the Cubs—who went 1 – 11 in October.

Maybe that's the reason we keep watching—the immutable and unexplainable mysteries of sport.

Major League Ennui

Chicago is just one of four municipalities (soon to be three) to host a pair of major league baseball teams. To cities without even a single franchise, this—at first blush—appears to be an enviable concentration of wealth.

And at first glance, it is. Doubles the chances of hosting a championship. Of having a contending team in a late-season pennant race. Two sets of athletes performing otherworldly feats in the rarefied strata of major league baseball.

Or so you'd think.

We've had a pair of baseball teams in town for a very, very long time. Way longer than Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and the Bay Area (municipalities that, at one point or another, enjoyed the services of multiple MLB baseball teams). In fact, only New York City can compare. (But remember: the Yankees had NYC to themselves from the time the Giants and Dodgers departed for the West coast until the birth of the Mets in 1962.)

So, yeah. Chicago has been a two-MLB town longer than anybody.

But as any local baseball fan will admit, a lot of good it's done. From the end of World War One (November 11, 1918) through today (July 4, 2023), Chicago has celebrated just two World Series victories. Two. In what is nearly 105 years.

Sure, the White Sox ended the third-longest title drought in the history of professional sports in 2005. And the Cubs famously ended the longest back in 2016. But that's it. Put another way, it's as many as the Houston Astros have amassed since 2017.

As we know so well in Chicago, two teams doubles the odds. What we frequently forget is that it doubles the odds for everything. Good and bad. Not just of winning championships (although that would be nice), but of sucking. Being uncompetitive. Playing listless, uninspired ball in front of some of the most-expensive seats in Major League Baseball.

White Sox fans are in their second season of hair-shirt torment since the fall of the 2021 AL Central champions in the first round of the playoffs. To their fan's immeasurable relief, the team finally jettisoned Tony LaRussa, which helped not one iota. While he should be credited with keeping the team afloat despite the parade to the IL, his successors have fared no better.

However unwilling and disorganized the 2022 team appeared, the 2023 version is far worse. For the White Sox merely to equal last season's .500 mark, they will have to win 44 of their remaining 76 games, which equates to a 93-win pace over a full season.

Additionally, the parade to the IL has not stopped. Every week, another player suffers an injury that keeps him out for weeks, if not months. Those that remain more or less healthy underperform—spectacularly. Tim Anderson? Dylan Cease? Yoan Moncada? Michael Kopech? Eloy Jimenez? All were exceptionally-rated prospects. None have fulfilled their potential.

The team's leading light is Luis Robert, Jr. Named to the American League all-star squad last week, he appears on track to play in 100 games for the first time in his four-year career.

This is probably a good time to mention that the White Sox do lead the league in something, though. They have suffered the largest drop-off in average attendance in Major League Baseball.

The return of pre-pandemic congestion is partly to blame, I'm sure. As is the reconstruction of the Kennedy Expressway. But it appears White Sox fans know a bad thing when they see it.

Ever-hopeful Cub fans were anticipating this season as the team actually competed in the second half of 2022. With the return of arms like Kyle Hendricks, Marcus Stroman, Drew Smyly and Justin Steele and newly-added players like Dansby Swanson and Cody Bellinger, the Cubs just had to be better.

Didn't they?

Yes and no. Are we talking about the team that took two out of three from the Tampa Bay Rays in May? Or the team that has lost seven out of eight to the likes of St. Louis, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Milwaukee?

Like it or not, the Cubs are telling us who they are. We just need to listen.

TJ Maxx used to call itself “a new store everyday.” The Cubs could do likewise. They are the personification of 'win some, lose some.' But in the end, that means they're not very good. Not in the context of a 162-game MLB schedule, anyway.

Relief pitching has been, to be kind, inconsistent. When it functions as intended, the Cubs can make use of their starter's quality outings and post a save. When it doesn't, it sends the Cubs to agonizing losses. I haven't examined the data, but I'd wager next week's pay check the Cubs have surrendered more runs in innings six through nine than innings one through five.

In one and two run games, the Cubs are 11-21. In games in which they score between one and three runs, they're 8-26. Yet they possess the biggest run differential in the division. So they're either winning 7-2 or losing 3-2.

Free-agent starter Jameson Taillon has been a disaster. The Cubs are 2-12 in games he starts. His E.R.A. is 6.93. I mean, that kind of generosity belongs in a sleigh and a red velvet suit. On the rare occasion Taillon makes a quality start, the Cubs are 2-1. But with three quality starts in fourteen opportunities, well, not even Tom Ricketts has that kind of money.

But the Cubs' woes extend far beyond Taillon.

The Cubs have a big problem hitting with men on base. Or more specifically, with runners in scoring position. And they have for a while. Their .225 batting average ranks 28^th. Their .300 on-base percentage ranks 25^th. Their 14 home runs rank 26^th.

See a picture forming?

While otherwise respectably talented, the Cubs morph into the Oakland A's with runners in scoring position. They get really nervous. They mostly crumble. In a game where scoring more runs than the opposition is fairly critical to the outcome, is it any wonder the Cubs are 38 – 45?

Would a regimen of Viagra fix that? How about Shohei Ohtani?

Exacerbating local fan's sense of doom is that both Chicago entries play in the worst division in their respective league. This generates questions. Questions like “If the _____________ can't compete in the weakest division in the _________________ League, how bad are they really?”

At least in the case of the White Sox, I suspect we don't want to know. The Cubs? Depends on the day. They give 'unpredictable' a bad name.

Worse, management doesn't seem to have a clue. Sox GM Rick Hahn doesn't appear to be in any hurry to move on from their failed prospects, whatever their underachievement. But it's hard to know for sure because he's been very, very quiet.

Across town, Cubs' president Jed Hoyer appears as flummoxed as the rest of us when queried about whether the Cubs will be buyers or sellers come August 1^st. I'll say this: it's fairly difficult to imagine them embarking on the kind of run that would position them as a contender.

While Chicagoans can blame the wildfires burning in Ontario and Quebec for the poor air quality and visibility, our baseball teams have no such option. They're likely wishing the smoke was a little thicker.

 

It Seems the Big Apple Has Worms

 Amidst the darkness of another Cubs' season gone sour, I am grateful for the chuckle provided by a former Cub.

It's been a rough couple of years for Javier Baez. After contending for the Most Valuable Player award in 2018, he battled injuries in 2019 which put a dent in his playing time as well as the Cubs' ability to contend.

The up-is-down-and-down-is-up nature of the post-COVID outbreak world has not been kind to him. Baez struggled mightily in 2020, claiming the lack of a proper spring training and access to video hurt his preparation.

But he has continued to struggle this year as well.

Always a free-swinger, Baez somehow made it work. But his strikeout percentage has become alarming. Alarming to the point where it leads the major leagues. Which isn't a good look for a player expectinging to cash in on a ginormous free-agent contract this winter.

Traded to the New York Mets at the now-infamous 2021 trade deadline, Baez landed on a team whose season has mirrored that of the Cubs. The Mets looked like world-beaters in May and have regressed ever since. To the point where their 8 and 19 record this August rivals that of the Cubs' 6 and 20.

Ugh.

Pair a frustrated ballplayer known for speaking his mind with an equally-frustrated fan base which expected its team to contend for a division title and things become flammable, as we witnessed over the weekend in New York City.

To be fair, the Mets have been hit by injuries and hit hard. Off-season acquisition Francisco Lindor under-performed, got injured and continues to under-perform. The Mets' traditional strength—pitching—hasn't quite been that, led by Jacob deGrom's recurring arm problems.

The un-hittable pitcher remains un-hittable, but only because he's on the sixty-day IL. As are so many Mets pitchers.

So. Met fans are pissed. In a world wracked by chaos and upheaval, watching your guys contend would be a very welcome distraction. But when they don't, sport becomes just another irritant. Fans boo.

Whatever the reason, several players on the Mets (including Baez) felt entitled to rate their fans performance as well, responding during recent home games with a thumbs-down gesture after getting on base.

Baez admitted it's a way for he and his teammates to boo the fans back.

Pitcher Marcus Stroman even went so far as to blame the media for the controversy.

Hmmm.

Because they saw it, Marcus?

At any rate, I take a not-insubstantial amount of glee at this tempest in a teacup, if only because I'm an old Cubs' fan who can't quite put 1969 behind him.

It was bad-enough the Cubs tanked after such a promising start. But having a team from New York—New York!—sweep in and grab the glory only added insult to injury for this Second City native.

I've disliked the Mets ever since. And for that matter, all New York teams, basically. (Yep. It's a Chicago thing.)

Finally, one of the big disadvantages to being a professional athlete is that when you do your job poorly, you do it poorly in front of tens of thousands of people. The smart thing to do is admit that yes, you sucked today. You screwed up.

That takes the wind out of hypercritical fan's sails.

The stupid thing to do is deflect the blame and the criticism. Like blame the media for that misplayed fly ball. Or in the case of Mr. Stroman, something your teammates did entirely of their own free will.

And yet, this being New York and the Mets, I can only smile at Baez's insouciance.

Rock the boat, baby.

It's That Voodoo That Tom Do

Way before I did, Tom Ricketts realized he had an expectations problem. Saddled with a civic institution of a baseball team and its fan's elevated expectations, he faced a quandary: how do I achieve fiscal austerity, maximize my rate of return and yet convince the public I am vested in this team and its ongoing success?

Distressed that the cash tsunami he anticipated when he purchased the Cubs had yet to materialize, Tom had become irritable. And the public pressure that accompanied the re-signing of three stalwarts, which meant three more expensive long-term contracts that only guaranteed he'd be on the hook for a lot of money, was only making things worse.

Tom thought. And thought. He consulted with consultants. He lost himself in the creation and examination of scenarios. It would be a public relations disaster to trade Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez. As it would to let them leave via free-agency.

And yet, hadn't he spent enough money?

How could he duck re-signing the threesome (one of whom was on the wrong side of thirty, the other injury-prone and the third having seemingly peaked by the age of twenty-eight) without being crucified by Cub fans and the media? In what kind of environment could let his his three stars go without giving the faithful cause to take-up pitchforks and torches?

“Ah-ha! I've got it! I'll make them bad! I'll have Hoyer gut the pitching staff! We can let Jon Lester and Jose Quintana and Tyler Chatwood go to free-agency and trade Yu Darvish! Hell, he's a Cy Young contender and he's under contract! And while Kyle Hendricks is pretty damn good, there's no way he can carry a team!

And best of all, we have no prospects on the farm! It's genius! I can dump salaries today and it'll pave the way to saving even more tomorrow! No wonder I'm a billionaire! And the fans? As soon as those bi-polar crybabies get a load of the new Cubs they won't give a crap what happens!”

And so it was done. The team momentarily veered off-course in May, but is now back to exploring the multitudinous varieties of futility. A rejuvenated Craig Kimbrel is playing like he didn't get the memo, but with the trade deadline just three-weeks and change away, he won't be a problem for long.

Collectively at their career lows, it will be interesting to see what Rizzo, Bryant and Baez fetch—not that it matters.

The heavens will part and ol' Tom will soon be rolling in it. He knows, like we all know, that when it comes to Wrigley Field and the Cubs, the product on the field is less-important than where they play. And he can make money far more cheaply than he would fielding a contender.

Besides, with a championship in the bank, he's set for the next century.

Right?

Stuck in the Middle With...me?

I had no idea the block-programming I encountered via my cable provider would one day double as a weather model. If I had, I might not have fired them. Alas, AT&T bills escalate like Illinois property taxes, putting the kabosh on that teachable moment.

But even minus the ongoing example their lesson remains.

Last winter gave all appearances of being a mild affair, with precious little of the white stuff falling through the twenty-fourth of January. In my naivete I even began to entertain thoughts of green grass and soft breezes. Leaves on trees. Songbirds.

But the same block-programming which had gifted me with days full of That '70s Show and Wicked Tuna and the always-delightful Housewives franchise asserted itself in a new arena—weather. The one-flavor-at-a-time aesthetic was about to deliver a punishing new blow.

It snowed. Then it snowed some more. And then it snowed still-more. A forty-three year-old record for consecutive days of measurable snowfall nearly fell as well, but was merely tied. Long story short, we received a winter's worth of snow in a single month.

The concentration was unprecedented.

Then spring arrived. And for the first time since 2017, May didn't generate record amounts of rain. But relief is discouraged in Illinois, and by June my portion of the state was immersed in a drought.

Beige grass, trees stressed and shedding leaves—the whole deal.

But last Wednesday it finally rained. Then it rained on Thursday. And on Friday. Saturday. Monday. Tuesday. And is forecast for today as well. (Though appropriately gloomy, Sunday was somehow exempted.)

It seems even the Cubs, in a fresh take on the eternal nature or nurture question, have adopted the dynamic.

They sucked in April, setting franchise records for hitting futility. And when you consider the team began play in 1876 in the so-called “deadball” era, well, it appeared the deadball era wasn't quite as dead as we thought.

They got their groove on in May, going 19 and 8 and outscored the opposition 131 to 85—a margin of nearly two runs a game. Oh my god! These guys are the 1939 Yankees reincarnated!

Ugh-huh. Sure.

June has seen a return to April's form (if their play can even be dignified by such a term), as they have gone 12 and 15 and averaged a meager 3.3 runs per game, which is even worse than April's showing.

It has grown exponentially worse since the fourteenth. From that point, the Cubs have terrorized Major League Baseball, winning 4 of their last 15 and crossing home plate 28 times in those 15 games. (If you're as mathematically-gifted as I, you'll notice that isn't even two runs a game.)

It is wearying. Sorry, Mr. Hoyer.

Stir in lingering pandemic fatigue, inflation, shortages, random and widespread gun violence and our simmering political and societal divides and life feels pretty damn weird. Out of control. Like a frozen pizza that goes from undercooked to burnt in milliseconds. 

What the _____? Are extremes the new normal?

It must now be asked: Could the neurological condition known as bi-polar actually be a lifestyle?

Devilment

I feared the Cubs had made a deal with the devil when the Ricketts family assumed control back in 2009. Eminently wealthy and—with the exception of daughter Laura—vociferous supporters of all things Republican, I did my best to ignore that and focus on the promise of the latest regime change.

And the Ricketts (okay, Tom) mostly did a pretty good job. After some initial floundering on the baseball side, he landed Theo Epstein in 2011. If nothing else, Ricketts knew the importance of having a highly-talented captain to guide the ship.

It is said that lightning never strikes twice, and yet that is exactly what happened under Epstein's tutelage.

After putting an end to the Boston Red Sox' championship drought, he started in on the Cubs'. Building from the ground up, he installed knowledgeable scouts with which to stock the farm system. That talent could be used to either build a club at the major league level or as trade bait towards bringing older, more-seasoned ballplayers to Chicago.

The farm system yielded a respectable bit of fruit, even if the harvest was a little light on pitching. And Epstein gradually acquired a nice mix of veterans to augment the youngsters. By 2015, the Cubs were contenders.

And we all know what happened in 2016, don't we?

Alas, the wheels began to fall off not long afterwards. Maybe it's Chicago's blind idolatry of its baseball and football champions, but the Cubs regressed almost immediately. While not as dominant as the 1985 Bears, they resembled them in their post-championship self-satisfaction.

Some blamed Joe Maddon's overly-permissive managerial style. Others blamed the players. But regardless of why, the Cubs receded almost as quickly as they had emerged. True, they rallied in the second half of '17 and made it to the NCLS. But in three succeeding seasons, they failed to even win a wild card game.

Without so much as lip service paid to the idea of signing some combination of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez to long-term contracts, Ricketts now appears on the verge of painting himself into the same corner notorious A's owner Charles O. Finley did in 1976, and risks losing multiple frontline athletes with no compensation whatsoever.

With Cy Young candidate Yu Darvish traded away for four very minor prospects and Jon Lester, Tyler Chatwood, Jose Quintana and Kyle Schwarber lost to free-agency, it's little wonder Epstein saw the writing on the wall and left with a year remaining on his contract.

Even before the onset of COVID, Ricketts repeatedly stated “There is no more money.” With a full-bore salary dump in progress one could be excused for asking “There is now, right?”

One also wonders what Ricketts has planned for Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward and Kyle Hendricks. And how this salary dump, with so very, very little received in return, positions the Cubs as ongoing contenders?

It's tough not to see baseball's version of Jerry Jones taking shape, who like Ricketts rebuilt a once-dominant franchise, made a big splash with some Super Bowl victories and then lapsed into mediocrity while turning the Dallas Cowboys into his personal ATM.

While Jones has seeming forgotten everything he once knew about running a winning NFL franchise, the Cowboys spout money like a severed artery does blood. With Rickett's multiple improvements to Wrigley Field and his developments in the surrounding neighborhood, imagining his business plan suddenly doesn't take so much, well, imagining.

Cub fans deserve better than another interminable slide into nothingness with spinning turnstiles and the Rickett's rosy bottom line priority number-one.

Yep. Devilment for sure.

This is Why You Were Booed at the Cubs' Convention, Mr. Ricketts

To those of us in the ninety-nine percent, you are an insanely wealthy man. While your ownership put an end to the century-long championship drought, it has also overseen a renovation of Wrigley Field that spouts revenue like those fountains in front of swanky Las Vegas hotels.

And good for you. You are entirely within your rights to make as much money from your businesses as humanly possible. Where you go wrong is when you say “I don't have any more money.” You understand how that sounds, right? It's a screaming, neon-lit definition of disingenuous.

I'm sure each arm in your Cubs' kingdom has a budget and a profit and loss statement, and after dropping 391 million on long-term contracts to Jason Heyward, Yu Darvish, Tyler Chatwood and Craig Kimbrel your wallet is pretty sore.

But here's the thing. The Cubs aren't a quote-unquote business. They're a civic institution. You just happen to be the current owner. And when you say you don't have any more money, you are effectively cutting the heart out of it.

The window is still open. These Cubs are young and in their prime and just a savvy trade or two removed from contention. I'm going to presume this isn't news to you. Otherwise, you wouldn't have fired Joe Maddon. 

And yet you've essentially told the three mainstays in your lineup that their time in Chicago has a sell-by date.

Huh?

Inviting some combination of Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and Kris Bryant to put up their feet and stay awhile would accomplish two things: it would destroy the notion you're ready to shred the championship-era Cubs and begin another rebuild (not the wisest proposition as you prepare to unveil your in-house cable channel) while proving you're still interested in further burnishing the Cubs brand (not to mention your own) with another title.

Are you?

Based on their 2019 contributions, three-fifths of your pitching staff could be described as wobbly. Bullpen issues abound. And who's going to play second base?

But the folk who pay forty-bucks to park and munch on seven-dollar hot dogs while swilling ten-dollar beer know these aren't insurmountable problems. There's still plenty of gas in the tank and topping it off for another run is just a savvy (there's that word again) trade or two away.

I'm aware that Major League Baseball's interminable crawl to a decision regarding the Bryant case isn't helping.

But you're putting out mixed signals. Where's the evidence of a clear, decisive game plan? Is moving Will Venable from first-base coach to third-base coach what GM Theo Epstein meant by a “reckoning”? Are you tearing down and preparing to rebuild or are you reloading?

Nothing foments restlessness among the electorate like the mixed messages of indecision.

You have to know that letting Rizzo, Baez and Bryant go with nothing in return puts you closer to Daniel Snyder than Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, right?

Look. The Cubs' organization is obviously very fond of David Ross. Do him a favor and give him a chance. And just imagine the hero worship if the Cubs could pluck one more title from the MLB firmament. 

Even if you do enable that contagion in the White House.

 

Joe Maddon

It's hard to see anything clearly without the passage of at least a little time. It has a way of settling the raw emotions that frequently cloud an event, its causes and ultimate impact. Which is why we should be grateful for a thing called history. It puts things in perspective.

Take Joe Maddon's dismissal from the Chicago Cubs last Sunday.

Initially, I was upset. I was a fan. Maddon exuded an affable charm as he molded his young Cubs and inspired his veteran ones to a world championship in 2016. He led the Cubs to successes not seen since the Great Depression—which, if you're counting, was over eighty-years ago.

And to his bosses gratification, he kept the turnstiles spinning.

But things evolve quickly, and while he was the ideal manager to shepherd that team to the top of the National League Central and baseball in general, he wasn't the guy to keep them there. Rumors of an overly-permissive clubhouse made their way through the MLB grapevine, and it soon became obvious these Cubs were satisfied.

Houston Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel observed as much even before the 2018 season began, stating “We're not the Cubs” when asked about his team's ability to repeat in the American League West.

Many teams came of age alongside these Cubs. The Cleveland Indians. The Los Angeles Dodgers. And the aforementioned Astros. All sustained a far-higher level of competitiveness than did the Cubs. Their managers were able to transition from inspiring youthful teams to motivating and preparing them for the mounting challenges of staying on top.

It was something Maddon couldn't do.

After GM Theo Epstein's ultimatum essentially turned Maddon into a lame duck, the Cubs got sloppy. Mental mistakes on the basepaths. Home run-or-bust at bats, especially with men in scoring position. And fielding more typical of a company softball game than a major league baseball one.

None of those are the hallmarks of a team laser-focused on winning a title.

The front office shorted Maddon on bullpen support and the farm system dried up without ever yielding a starting pitcher. But I can't vanquish the thought that if Maddon had kept these guys in fighting trim, they'd be vying for a World Series slot tonight.

Alas, he did not. These Cubs grew fat and lazy, and for that Maddon must be held accountable. 

Nevertheless, you will always have a place in our hearts, Joe.Good luck to you.

The Sound of a Window Closing

Not quite six months ago, I wrote that insofar as the Chicago Cubs were concerned, they couldn't possibly repeat last season's head-scratching fiasco. This year would assume an air of normalcy, defined as the Cubs resting comfortably atop the National League Central Division at the conclusion of the season.

I was wrong. Interminably and utterly wrong.

I have been watching major league baseball for half a century, and I have never seen such a confounding display of it. 

There are but a select few who see this team behind closed doors. In the locker room. At meetings. On team flights. I am not one of those people.

And yet, I don't need to be to know something is amiss.

Yes, there have been injuries to critical personnel: Willson Contreras, Javier Baez, Craig Kimbrel and most recently, Anthony Rizzo. Ben Zobrist spent the brunt of the season on leave collecting the pieces of a shattered marriage. And Kris Bryant, Cole Hamels and Brandon Kintzler battled recurring maladies.

But so did the New York Yankees, who as of Friday's games are 100 and 55 and sit eight and a half games ahead of the division's next-best team. No, this isn't about injuries. It's about something less-obvious and more-insidious. These Cubs are satisfied.

Having vanquished the most cursed stretch of baseball any franchise ever endured, Rizzo, Bryant, Baez, Zobrist and Jon Lester will never have to pay for a drink in Chicago again. Which is as it should be. The Cubs' 2016 championship was a monumental event that transcended loyalties and perhaps even baseball itself.

But that title raised expectations. With a young core entering its prime, there was no good reason to believe they wouldn't contend for several more.

And they have. Kind of. After a hung-over first half, the 2017 Cubs got serious and again won the division, defeating the Washington Nationals in the divisional series before being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.

Emerging cracks in the pitching staff were addressed by two free-agent signings, Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood, which on paper reinforced the pitching corps for another title run.

It didn't quite work out that way as Chatwood struggled to throw strikes and Darvish seemingly couldn't shake the memories of his disastrous World Series the year before and pitched just forty innings before succumbing to injury.

Despite blowing a five-game lead in the closing weeks, the Cubs staggered to 95 victories (which seen through the lens of 2019 appears truly remarkable) before surrendering the wild-card game to the Colorado Rockies.

The on-again, off-again offense, the shakey bullpen and the general weirdness which characterized 2018 couldn't repeat itself in 2019, right?

Right?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I don't want to say this season has been strange, but I'd swear I saw David Lynch in the dugout.

The offense still disappears without a trace and the bullpen is still shakey, but this year there is a new wrinkle: the Cubs can't win on the road. Current homestand excepted, the Cubs were giant killers at Wrigley and morphed into the Florida Marlins on the road.

Team stats don't show a marked fall-off in OPS or runs scored or in batting average, but the Cubs could not find a way to win away from home. No division contender had a road record anywhere near as awful as the Cubs'.

And in the long, slow slide that is destined to close this season, it has caught up with them. Armed with a small lead, the Cubs could not afford to mess up. And mess up is exactly what they did. The run spigot has been turned off and the Cubs are in the midst of a four-game losing streak—at home.

In homer-happy 2019, they have scored just nine runs in those four games. (That figure falls to five in three games when the series-opener against the St. Louis Cardinals is eliminated.) This after scoring forty-seven in three games against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Bi-polar? You have no idea.

This while the division-rival Cards amass the best record in baseball since the all-star break and the Milwaukee Brewers, supposedly eliminated from contention after the loss of Christian Yelich, have won eight of ten since his injury.

But these are numbers. They are only reflections of what is going on with this team. And that goes back to my contention that this club is satisfied. There is little sense of urgency. The fact that this club has never gone on a sustained surge means things like focus and purpose are in short supply. Chemistry is as rare as clutch hitting.

The Cubs aren't on a mission anymore.

They never found their groove, and have actually regressed from last season's sputtering stop-start despite the remarkable turnaround by Darvish. With the second-biggest payroll in baseball, the Cubs are punching way below their weight.

As a fan desperate to see another World Series appearance before the window inevitably closes, I'd like to see change. Even if that means waving goodbye to a personal favorite like Rizzo or Lester or Contreras.

With the Cubs' farm system running on fumes, the only way forward is a trade. It's time to be bold. It's time to ask “What would Bryant bring on the open market? Who could we get in exchange for Baez?”

Slugger Kyle Schwarber had a big year. What would he bring?

Shocking? Perhaps.

Necessary? Definitely.

For whatever reason, this team is sleepwalking. Blame it on the front office. Blame it on Maddon. Blame it on the prolonged pressure of playing for the Chicago Cubs, where the scrutiny ratchets up right along with the wins.

The bitch-slap of a big trade might shake them from their doldrums.

There's enough here to build on, but without a judicious trade or two this thing will never be turned around. They have shown us who they are.

Are the 2019 Cubs the 1987 Minnesota Twins?

For the second time in three nights, the Cubs balled-up a gorgeous pitching performance and tossed it into the trash. They may not be able to hit the side of a barn with men on base, but they're Mark Price when it comes to swishing the circular file.

Tuesday, Jose Quintana pitched six innings, allowing five hits while striking out fourteen. Owing to their clutch-averse batting, the score upon Quintana's exit was tied at two. Naturally, the Cubs went on to lose, allowing a run in each of the seventh and eighth innings.

Tonight, it didn't matter that Yu Darvish, who in this up-is-down-and-down-is-up season has emerged as the staff's ace, pitched a seven-inning, ten-strikeout, four-hit shut-out. The Cubs' bullpen, as hapless as it is overworked, again found a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by allowing a run in the eighth and six in the bottom of the ninth.

(Wednesday's outcome didn't require the services of the bullpen, as starter Cole Hamels saved them by allowing an unfathomable eight runs in just two innings of quote-unquote “work”.)

If it even needs to be said, the Cubs are on the road, where they should labor under the name Doctors—because they make everybody better.

Miraculously, the Cubs remain tied for first in the National League Central Division—even with their odorous 23 – 38 (.377) road record. It has been a long time since a division contender possessed such a Jeckyl and Hyde personality; dominating at home while practically soiling themselves on the road.

In the fifty seasons since divisional play began, many clubs have cinched a division title with mediocre road records. 38 – 43. 40 – 41. You get the picture. But only one featured a Cubbish road record and still seized the division crown.

And that team would be the 1987 Minnesota Twins.

For those of you lacking both age and perspective, the late-eighties and early-nineties were great times for Twins' fans. With the 1987 edition featuring starters like Bert Blyleven and Frank Viola with fire-breathing reliever Jeff Reardon coming out of the bullpen, and a line-up studded with folk like Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, Kirby Puckett and Tom Brunansky, the Twins could be a handful.

Especially at home.

Road games were another matter, as the team struggled to a 29 -52 record.

Yet they managed to defeat the 98-win Detroit Tigers in the ALCS, taking two out of three at Tiger Stadium.

In the World Series, the Twins faced-off against the mighty 95-win Cardinals of St. Louis.

In a seven-game classic, the Twins jumped out to a quick two-games-to-nothing lead, taking games one and two at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

In typical fashion, they surrendered games three, four and five at Busch Stadium before rallying to take games six and seven at the Metrodome. Thusly, the 85-win Twins won a world championship.

I believe it's called home field advantage.

Without that option, hope resists the corrosive effects of reality and sustains the belief that, yes, the Cubs could somehow do some damage in the post-season.

After all, the 2008 Los Angeles Dodgers had the worst road record of any team in that year's MLB playoffs yet still managed to defeat the Cubs twice (outscoring them 17 -5) at Wrigley Field in the opening games of that year's NLDS series.

Yes, dreams die hard.

Wither the Cubs?

A little over four months ago, I gamely predicted the 2019 Cubs would shrug off the weirdness of 2018 and play to their abilities. They would run, hit, pitch, catch and throw like the World Series contenders they are.

Or more specifically, were.

While the Cubs have largely pulled down the curtain on the one-run-per-game act that plagued them throughout 2018, they own one of baseball's worst batting averages with men on base, which gives their brittle bullpen precious little to work with.

Which is why they are among the league leaders in blown saves.

Several Cub notables (former MVP Kris Bryant among them) are barely hitting their weight with the bases occupied.

Never mind what happens when a left-hander shows up on the mound.

Furthermore, the Cubs' 21-33 road record translates to an anemic .388 winning percentage—the winning percentage attained by the much-feared Florida Marlins. Despite killing them at home (.678), their awful road record sabotages any chance they have of winning the division.

Could the Cubs even split their road games, they'd be sitting pretty in the National League Central—and on their way to 95 wins. But that would be doing it the easy way, and as these Cubs have made clear, doing it the easy way somehow corrupts their sense of Cubbishness.

Hair shirts, anyone?

Granted, the Cubs labor under media scrutiny known only to the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers and Notre Dame and Alabama football programs.

But the 2019 Cubs are punching way below their weight. Top to bottom, they are the most-talented club in the division.

Something is very, very wrong.

Unlike the 1969 team, it hopefully won't take fifty-years to figure out what.

Here Are Your 2019 Chicago Cubs!

In the wake of perhaps the most disappointing 95-win season in baseball history, the Chicago Cubs begin another season today. Even with the ascendant Bears garnering disproportionate amounts of media attention, the Cubs remain the topic on everyone's lips.

Why didn't they pursue Bryce Harper? Why didn't they pursue Manny Machado? Why didn't they sign a front-line reliever? Why didn't they extend Joe Maddon's contract? Why didn't they can Joe Maddon? How are they going to compete by standing still?

Cubulous Nervosa generates many, many questions. The only known cure is to take a deep breath and slowly exhale.

Yes, last season was one of the most perplexing and aggravating on record. An offense that would vanish like a magician's prop. The disastrous signings of not one, but two, free-agent pitchers. A profound early-season slump by the usually reliable Anthony Rizzo and an injury-plagued, below-par year from Kris Bryant.

Not to mention late-season injuries to Brandon Morrow and Pedro Strop.

And yet the Cubs still won 95 games. Contended for the division flag until the last day of the season against the surging Milwaukee Brewers. A run here and a run there and that irksome wild card game against the Colorado Rockies never would have happened.

If Maddon didn't prove his worth and the Cubs their mettle last season, I don't know when they have.

Alas, we live in a microwave culture. Expectations rise like the temperature inside a parked car. 2016 might as well be 1908. 

And when these new expectations aren't met, the people take to social media and howl.

As your friendly, web-based contrarian, I'm going to suggest that 2018 was an aberration, not the beginning of a trend. I'm going to suggest that we should be praising Theo Epstein for resisting the public mania for brand name free-agents.

Not that Epstein is without fault. I'm not crazy about his public calling-out of Maddon. But as Maddon himself would admit, it's the manager's lot to take the blame for whatever perceived failure his team accrues.

Not winning the 2018 World Series doesn't constitute heresy in my book. And I'm not sure not winning the 2019 edition qualifies, either. I think the Cub nation needs to take a deep breath and consider where it is.

It has evolved from wondering if haplessness is a permanent condition to demanding world championships every year. It must remember the quantum leap the objects of its affection have made.

My two-cents says that if fans can't quit obsessing whenever the Cubs don't pitch a no-hitter every time out and if certain quarters of the media don't stop turning every molehill into a tabloid-worthy mountain, all assembled might have seen their last World Series trophy.

I'll say it again: the Cubs have scaled heights unseen at Wrigley Field since the Great Depression, and ones unimaginable as recently as 2013. You remember 2013, don't you?

But they need a little breathing room. They need a little less scrutiny. It's okay if Hendricks occasionally goes four innings or if Bryant is hitless in four at bats. It's not the end of the world.

Counter to Mr. Epstein's appraisal, consistently winning two out of three would be wildly and exuberantly splendiferous. My therapist assures me 108 wins would give the Cubs the NL Central title and home field for as long as they want it.

Last year was just.....weird. It's not going to happen again. And with the season-long presence of a fully rehabilitated Yu Darvish, the Cubs effectively have a new free-agent signee. Not to mention one of the best managers in the biz.

But Theo, we (that's you) need to let him be. Excepting Jussie Smollett, I've never seen anyone perform well with a noose around their neck.

Go Cubs!

The Premature Coronation

I frequently delude myself with the notion that Chicago is a baseball town. More specifically, a Cubs town. But even after four last-place finishes in a row, Bears' pre-season games knock the Cubs, who happen to be in the midst of a heated pennant race, off the front page.

Huh?

The Bears win three games in a row for the first time in five years and it is apparent they are headed to the Super Bowl. This is cycled endlessly by the media and on Facebook and even by sober people. The Bears are the talk of break rooms and bars and subway cars.

A lopsided win against a deeply-flawed Tampa Bay team etches it in stone. And thanks to an early bye week, the Bears and their fans have fourteen days to revel in the afterglow. And revel they do.

This is the best Bears defense since 1985. After one (that's one, as in less than two) big game from heavily-scrutinized quarterback Mitch Trubisky, the Bears are the '62 Packers, '84 Niners and '72 Dolphins all rolled into one.

So when does the Super Bowl start, anyway?

So it goes when you defeat the diminished Seattle Seahawks, forlorn Arizona Cardinals and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who conveniently are minus their starting quarterback. This is all it takes to engorge the Bears and their fans.

As an admittedly fair-weather Bears fan (I will root for the Dallas Cowboys when Jerry Jones is gone), I can take the local heroes—and their fans—with a grain of salt. That goes for the overheated media coverage, too.

I smile when I realize that the same team which took down the high-flying '85 Bears on a Monday night also took these guys down last Sunday.

Oh sweet irony.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for the Bears. The franchise that mostly wasted the services of Hall-of-Fame LB Brian Urlacher has done a serviceable job in the last two drafts. This is noteworthy when you consider the signing of QB Mike Glennon and dismissal of K Robbie Gould not so long ago.

Then there is the timely theft of Kahlil Mack from the Oakland Raiders. He has cemented an already talented defense, which bodes well for any team.

But the Bears are young. They are inexperienced. Like freshly-laundered sheets, there are plenty of wrinkles to iron out.

They are playing a last-place schedule and all concerned are convinced they're the New England Patriots. Let's be clear: a thrashing of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers does not a world champion make—even in a microwave culture like ours.

The Bears need to learn how to win. And how to lose. They need to learn how to sustain effort and focus and how to ignore the hyperbole.

The Bears need to learn how to respect each and every opponent. Every guy they face was The Man on his high school and college team. You get that, right?

We pull long and hard for our guys. But like the champions we envy, we shouldn't get too high after a win or too low after a loss.

Clear-eyed moderation is best.

Like my favorite GM says, if the Bears are truly pointed in the right direction we should give them a little time and enjoy the process.

The Bears are a work in progress—not a museum-ready masterpiece.

That's Cub!

Unlike 2015 and 2016, when the Cubs were a surging powerhouse, the 2018 Cubs have had to fight and scrap—thanks to a succession of injuries, a couple of disastrous free-agent acquisitions and a Jeckyll and Hyde offense.

But like any good team, they have won even when they weren't at their best. To the point where at this late date, they possess the league's best record. 

But fatigue looms over Wrigley Field like a flock of vultures.

The inexplicable offense, which routinely seizes up like a bum knee, is reason number-one the Cubs have struggled to a thirteen and eleven record this September.

While these Cubs lead the National League in games scoring eight or more runs (34), they also lead the league (and are second in MLB) in games where they were shut-out or only able to manage a single run (35).

And nemesis number-one—the Pittsburgh Pirates—are in town for a four-game series just as the Cubs seek to recover their mojo and snap off a big, fat winning streak.

True to form, the Cubs managed just a single run Monday night, succumbing 5 – 1. And Tuesday night they were shut-out, making it six games in a row the Cubs put up a run or less against the Pirate's staff of apparent Cy Young candidates.

(In fact, nine of the team's nineteen match-ups have found the Cubs unable to manufacture anything but a single run—or less. Predictably, the Cubs are 2 and 7 in those games.)

Less Jeckyll, more Hyde please?

Even when the Cubs got back into the swing of things Wednesday night and put up six runs in the game's first four innings, their other Achilles heel—a ravaged bullpen—surrendered two runs each in the eighth and ninth, necessitating a walk-off single by Albert Almora in the bottom of the tenth to salvage a win.

No wonder I require the presence of an EMT while watching games.

Lack of hitting aside, the starting pitching has been consistent, with late-season addition Cole Hamels adding heft to a rotation weakened by the twin failures of Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood.

But at this critical juncture, the bullpen is minus its two best arms. Brandon Morrow is out for the season with a bicep injury while Pedro Strop recovers from a strained hamstring. If nothing else, September has made clear that the less hitting you have, the more pitching you need.

If this misbegotten sundae of a season even requires a cherry, take your pick between the suspension of shortstop Addison Russell for domestic violence or the ruinous schedule revisions that had the Cubs reporting for thirty games in thirty days.

Sigh.

And yet our heroes remain in first place, albeit by the slimmest-possible margin. They close at home against the St. Louis Cardinals while their primary competition (the Milwaukee Brewers) does so against the Detroit Tigers.

I fight off recurring visions of 1969 and 2003 and focus on the truths uncovered in this season of struggle.

1. Joe Maddon is a great manager. He is perfectly attuned to this generation of ballplayers and knows how to motivate them and keep them listening. Buy-in is always critical for a manager or coach, and it's pretty obvious all concerned reach for their wallets when Maddon has something to say.

Maddon conjures up inventive strategies and isn't afraid to use them. Sure, they don't always work. But neither does my garage door opener. If nothing else, they combat the stress and mental fatigue that can settle at this time of year.

He has his naysayers. But who doesn't? If Strop beats out an infield grounder with the bases loaded and the Cubs win, Maddon's a genius with an otherworldly sense of the game. If Strop pulls a hamstring before he pulls up to first, Maddon's an idiot.

That's the way it goes in the sports racket. It's Maddoning.

I for one love the fact Strop was running his ass off trying to beat it. That speaks to Strop—and Maddon.

2. The Cubs are tough. They are focused. I haven't read of anyone complaining about the brutal late-season schedule, Kris Bryant's injury, Yu Darvish's crash and burn or the intense media crush that speculates about Every Little Thing. Every Day.

The Cubs show up ready to play. And more often than not, battle until the game is over. Best of all, they have bad memories when things go off the rails in an especially gruesome loss.

Tomorrow it's always the top of the first in a zero-zero tie.

3. Because they have struggled and haven't mowed over everyone in their path, a championship would be so much sweeter this year than in 2016.

Next up? Game four with the division rival Pittsburgh Pirates. Game time 7:05 PM CDT.

Go get 'em.

Feeling the Heat in May

In 2016, the Cubs approached the league like eager med students completing their surgical residencies. With the opposition seemingly under anesthesia, the Cubs made expert incisions, extracted wins and sutured with a fast, laser-like precision. There was no stopping them.

At least until that year's World Series moved to Wrigley Field.

If contending for a World Championship isn't challenging enough, imagine playing for a franchise that hasn't come close in over a century. In front of rabid fans and an over-heated media while the nation looks on expectantly; all of them ready to pounce if sport's most infamous dry spell isn't broken.

The once free-flowing Cubs, who dismissed history when they weren't professing ignorance of it, looked stiff and self-conscious. They managed just five runs in the three games at Wrigley, eventually squeezing out a desperate 3 – 2 win in game five.

Removed from the pressure of clinching at home, they exploded for a 9 – 3 win in game six, and gritted-out an extra-inning game-seven clincher.

A year and-a-half removed from that glorious November night in Cleveland, the Cubs are struggling again. Sure, they've positioned themselves mid-pack in the NL Central and are theoretically ready to strike. But several glaring, high-priced failures consistently subvert them.

The pitching staff is struggling to incorporate two free-agents, Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood. This to replace free-agent departure Jake Arrieta and the newly-retired John Lackey.

Chatwood leads the league in bases on balls, and last night walked 5 in just two and-two-thirds innings. 

After five seasons in Colorado, perhaps he is lonely when the bases are empty. Whatever the reason, putting the opposition on base without requiring them to even slap the ball through the infield is not conductive to winning baseball.

Then there is Yu Darvish. Darvish's well-chronicled struggles originated in the 2017 World Series, where he failed to last beyond the second inning in either of the two games he started for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

While he has lasted beyond the second inning in several of his starts for the Cubs, his new unlucky number is five. It is in this inning that Darvish falls prey to his internal demons and does a remarkable imitation of Santa Claus, gifting the team in the other dugout with run after run after r, well, you get the picture.

Further torturing Cub fans is the fact that Arrieta is off to a great start in Philadelphia, where the surprising Phillies are in the thick of contention. But before we submit to having another limb pulled from its socket, Cub fans need to embrace the fact that Arrieta didn't have a snowball's chance in Phoenix of re-upping with the hometown heroes.

The truth is that outside of a trio of fine seasons in Chicago, Arrietta never threatened to make anyone forget Christy Mathewson. Or even Bert Blyleven.

But tell that to agent Scott Boras.

Boras' determination to sign his client to a contract appropriate for an ageless hybrid of Walter Johnson, Bob Feller and Tom Seaver relegated Jake to a team without any other big contracts, I.E. the Phillies.

The Cubs still have two strong starters and an occasionally decent third, as well as a largely-reliable bullpen, which should be more than enough to keep them in contention in the middling division they are fortunate enough to inhabit.

But then there is that facet of baseball known as hitting.

It is important to get hits. And where possible, to cluster them in an inning where other players in the same uniform have also done so, thereby increasing the odds that some of them might cross home plate, resulting in a run.

But like the products of a severely dysfunctional household, this edition of the Chicago Cubs is reluctant to send anyone home. The fact is the Cubs strand more men in scoring position than any team in baseball. Their .230 team batting average under these conditions likely has something to do with that.

Like many sports, baseball is reciprocal. Give a pitcher a little breathing room and a steady defense and they no longer fear that a single bad pitch will send the game rushing into the nearest sewer grate.

Give an offense a pitcher who can consistently put a lid on the opposition while the batters puzzle out the opposition's hurler and they no longer feel the need to imitate Babe Ruth each and every trip to the plate.

While Ben Zobrist has returned to form and Javier Baez and Willson Contreras are in the midst of breakout seasons, key run producer Anthony Rizzo is mired in a deep slump while Jason Heyward continues his offensive struggles.

But like the pitching, the team is hitting—enough. (They rank fourth in MLB in runs scored.) The problem is when they hit. Over the course of the season, only the woeful Cincinnati Reds have left more men on base.

Yes, it's only May. And it is my unswerving belief that no team has ever won a division or a league or a world championship before Labor Day. If baseball is a marathon, the Cubs are at least positioned to make a move when the time is right.

But it is also my belief that however heavy the pressure was to win a World Series, it has only increased in the season and-a-half since. And that these Cubs are feeling it—bad.

Athletic Celibacy, Pt. 2

This is another post with lists. Lists of the ten all-time longest droughts. Droughts between championships and droughts between appearances in the World Series, the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup. The observant enthusiast will draw several conclusions.

Number-one, the Chicago Cubs were champions long before 2016. Their 107 seasons between championships is unlikely ever to be surpassed. It is untouched in the annals of professional sports.

But their second record is looking like low-hanging fruit.

The Cubs' 70 seasons between visits to the World Series is threatened by the NBA's Sacramento Kings, who haven't paid a visit to the NBA Finals since 1951, when they played 2,290 miles to the east and sported the words 'Rochester Royals' on their jerseys.

Moving on, as a Chicago-based baseball fan I'm trying to calculate the odds of my hometown's two baseball teams owning the two worst cases of World Series avoidance in MLB history. I mean, how do things like that happen?

And what does it say when the parity-obsessed NFL has more teams on the appearances list than any other sport? I guess inept management can happen anywhere—even in luxury suites. Maybe Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy flows upstream?

Finally, if you ever wondered how dominant the Toronto Maple Leafs once were, know that despite not appearing in the Stanley Cup since the Summer of Love was in its planning stages, the Leafs still rank third in Stanley Cup appearances and second in Cups won.

As promised, here are the lists. Two of them, to be exact.

The first contains the ten all-time longest droughts without a franchise appearing in their sport's championship series or game. The second enumerates the ten all-time longest stretches without a championship.

Figures are current through each sport's most-recently completed season.

Chicago Cubs MLB 70 1946-2015

Sacramento Kings NBA 65* 1952-present

Arizona Cardinals NFL 59 1949-2007

Detroit Lions NFL 58* 1958-present

Atlanta Hawks NBA 55* 1962-present

Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 49* 1968-present

New York Jets NFL 47* 1969-present

Kansas City Chiefs NFL 46* 1970-present

St. Louis Blues NHL 46* 1971-present

Chicago White Sox MLB 45 1960-2004

Milwaukee Bucks NBA 42* 1975-present

Honorable mentions:

Oakland Athletics MLB 40 1932-1971

Cleveland Indians MLB 40 1955-1994

Golden State Warriors NBA 39 1976-2014

Minnesota Vikings NFL 39* 1977-present

Here is where the Cubs appear eternal. As hapless as franchises like the Cleveland Indians, Arizona Cardinals and Sacramento Kings may appear, they would have to remain title-free for roughly another forty years—over a generation—to have a shot at the Cubs' record.

That puts it into perspective for me.

Chicago Cubs MLB 107 1909-2015

Chicago White Sox MLB 87 1918-2004

Boston Red Sox MLB 85 1919-2003

Cleveland Indians MLB 68* 1949-present

Arizona Cardinals NFL 68* 1948-present

Sacramento Kings NBA 65* 1952-present

Minnesota Twins MLB 62 1925-1986

Detroit Lions NFL 58* 1958-present

Atlanta Hawks NBA 58* 1959-present

San Francisco Giants MLB 55 1955-2009

Philadelphia Eagles NFL 55* 1961-present

Tennessee Titans NFL 54* 1962-present

New York Rangers NHL 53 1941-1993

Honorable mentions:

San Diego Chargers NFL 52* 1964-present

Buffalo Bills NFL 50* 1966-present

Toronto Maple Leafs NHL 49* 1968-present

* = active