Oct. 19--This is how it was supposed to be, after all, full of fret and fear, how it has always been with the Cubs, the Apollo 13 of baseball teams. But, sir, the moon is right outside the window. We can almost touch it. No, boys, we have a problem. We're going home.
It is always something. It is never the Cubs. In this case it is the Mets, with all the brilliant pitching the Cubs were supposed to have. With an unlikely nuisance named Murphy, who is supposed to be named Fowler or Coghlan.
The Cubs have lost to a better team on bitter days.
But there is no romance in that; facts do not feed the myth that fate has it in for the Cubs, that something beyond their control will do them in, popularly an animal, a goat or a black cat. Gatorade on Leon Durham's glove. Haven't heard that one for a while.
Maybe it will be something climatic this time -- not climactic; you know, the weather. Too much ski-lift gear, or not enough. Cubs hitters bundled and Cubs pitchers in short sleeves. The manager looks like he has been overdressed by an anxious mother, all layered and woolly.
The Cubs bats were as cold as the back of their necks. And they have left the impression that they are more concerned about the second than the first. Could this be the Curse of the Hoodies?
This may be the series that Mother Nature took away. Much as what the Cubs are belongs to Father Time. Just keeping it in the family.
Odd it is that the team from the city with the gusty nickname and the dependable chill off the lake couldn't cope with a little temperature dip. What the Cubs need, and will get, according to their manager, is 15 degrees more of Fahrenheit. Help them feel their hands a little better.
For a sport with endless tomorrows, baseball is nothing without yesterdays. Memories pile upon one another like old shoes in the attic. You just can't bring yourself to throw them away.
For the Cubs, there behind the china trunk and once again under the bed, are the Mets. Niggling nuisances more than persistent rivals, and right now very much in the way. The Mets and Cubs do not share a history as much as an intersection.
There was '69, of course, but both teams have gone on without one intruding on the other's brand. Cubs: lovable and doomed. Mets: inadequate and not the Yankees.
The Mets are a team that made mishap into a character trait, touching depths unreached before or since, baseball's village idiots, always good for a belly laugh; whereas, for all their persistent failure, the Cubs have never caused more than quiet giggles or redundant groans, baseball's beloved flops.
Sentiment washes the Cubs, so long so doomed, but much is there for the Mets, too. These are two orphans with their plates in hand asking for some more please, sir, or in the case of the Cubs, some.
And what's more, something vital is lacking here. Spite. None. Not a bit of it.
Give the other guys credit, says the Cubs manager. Heck of a game that guy Harvey pitched. And our guy was OK too. Good hitter, hot hitter, that Murphy. How grown up, how adult, how dreary.
There's nothing in this Mets series like the resentment for the snooty title barons to the south, the Cardinals, in, what, their third or fourth manor house since the Cubs moved into Wrigley? And overstocked with all those shiny plaques and prizes while the Cubs hide participation ribbons. Hate St. Louis and gloat. Can't do that with the Mets.
Or those little town grunts to the north, the Packers, undeservedly better, gamer, smarter, more successful and downright more pleasant than the Bears. The Mets offer nothing like that.
Oh, there was a Chicago vs. New York fists-clinched stare-down once upon a time when the broad-shouldered Knicks could not beat the Bulls any way but up. Where's a Pat Riley or an Anthony Mason when you need one?
If the Cubs can't recover, someone or something must take the blame.
Bernie Lincicome is a special contributor to the Chicago Tribune.
