Did ESPN Jinx the Chicago Cubs and Prolong the Curse?

Articles about the Dodgers’ epic three-game sweep of the Cubs are everywhere.

Gene Wojciechowski who I assume is the Midwest reporter for EPSN.com, has written three such pieces about the Cubs since the playoffs began, compared to one each for the White Sox (who won a one-game playoff and three in a row to end the season) and the Brewers (who beat the Cubs to clinch on the last day). A piece for Outside The Lines, No Love Lost (also a great Joy Division song), has a link entitled “Share your misery, Cubs’ fans (although this was done before the playoffs).

“Cubs Misery Continues” – a piece on how one fan would not invest too much emotion into the Cubs after the 2003 season, which prompted him to write Wrigley Blues about the 2004 season, only to succumb to, yet again, another heartbreaking Cubs’ loss in both 2007 and 2008.

Let’s compare this to other long suffering franchises. The Cleveland Indians, next up on the drought at 59 years, were good for most of the 90s and made it to the ALCS last year. They went up 3 games to 1 on the Red Sox and eventually lost the series. THAT was heartbreaking. One win away from the World Series and then they coughed it up. But were there pieces, help groups and everything short of counseling for those long-suffering Indians fans? Nope.

Six years ago the San Francisco Giants made it to the World Series; they hadn’t won it all since they moved to San Fran in 1954 (53 years math majors!). They also were up, 3-2, with two games left in Anaheim. Then Scott Spiezio came up and golfed a ball into the stands, delighting the Rally Monkey and the Thundersticks. That reinvigorated the Angels, who then rallied to win the game 6, 6-5, and game 7 for the championship. Were there any gratuitous pictures of Giants fans with their heads hanging, or articles on how it’s been so hard to be a Giants fan? Not on this scope.

So let’s be objective here. The 2003 NLCS Cubs’ collapse was historic. Only five outs away. It deserved everything written about it; Bartman, however, did not (there were two big turning points in that series – Beckett’s game 5 complete game shut-out and Alex Gonzalez’s error). Heck, the other cursed franchise – not the White Sox (86 years at the time), you simpleton, the Red Sox (87 years) – were also five outs away from the World Series, only to be beaten by the hated New York Yankees. Sure, there was the same outpouring of grief that the Cubs got, but the Red Sox did something about it – they won it all the next year (and proceeded to become worse than Yankees fans).

OK, so we’ve gone continental. Let’s keep it local. Before 2005, the White Sox last made the playoffs in 2000. They promptly got swept by the Seattle Mariners in much the same way the Cubs did; lack of hitting, bad pitching, etc. They, like the Cubs, had the best record in their league and didn’t show up for the series. Were there any stories about how long it’s been since we last won? Fans perspective on what it’s like to suffer? Possibly, but as abundant as this. So the White Sox fans were rewarded with a 2005 World Series championship, the lowest rated World Series ever (as rated by Nielsen). Were there dedications, pontifications and heartfelt prose written on the White Sox? You bet your ass; they just won it all.

So now we get to the Cubs of 2008. NL-leading 97 wins. Dominant pitching staff. Excellent bench. Threatening order one through eight (sometimes even nine). Nine out of ten ESPN experts picked the Cubs to win the series; most commonly 3-1. Jayson Stark had them winning the World Series, beginning the piece by stating:

“Our friends from Chicago are already pleading with us not to write this column.

Sorry.

Our friends from Chicago think that if we pick the Cubs to win the World Series — heck, if anybody picks the Cubs, whether it’s an ESPN employee or the guy who changes their oil at the Express Lube — it guarantees, absolutely for sure, that it can’t possibly happen.

Sorry.

We’re doing it anyway. We’re predicting the Cubs will win the 2008 World Series.”

This, naturally, led to him picking the dream match-up of – whoa there, sparky, not an “L” White Sox-Cubs series – but the EPSN/MLB/Advertisers revenue dream pairing of the Red Sox and the Cubs.

As Stark so eloquently states, people from Chicago didn’t want this column written. He couldn’t be further from the truth. By getting so close to the World Series (i.e. making the playoffs) and losing, Cubs fans get to whine, complain, sulk, and write books about how it hurts so much to be a Cubs’ fan. It allows people like Rick Reilly, who is usually spot on with his skewering of sports culture, to make a list of unforgettable and unfunny predictions on how the Cubs could lose in the postseason this year. The man behind the “Cubs Misery Continues” column, William Wagner (special to SI.com, by the way), managed to milk those long suffering fans by writing his tome of the 2004 season, Wrigley Blues, which was inspired by the Cubs very close brush with simply making the 2003 World Series. He thought they were going to win it all the following year and he was to be the one to chronicle it; he was wrong and got rewarded with an engaging, unique perspective on what’s it like to be a suffering Cubs fan. Yeah, you and the countless millions who watched the Cubs follow Bozo the Clown on WGN throughout the 70s and 80s.

You may be asking, “Why are you bothering to read these articles?” Put simply – they’re funny. To see these people live, die and cry about and for the Cubs is a riot. You know what happened after the White Sox lost in the 2000 ALDS? I took a few jokes from Cubs’ fans about then winning more games in October than the Sox (1-0) and I moved on. I was optimistic about the 2001 season, but not to the point of following them to write a book about it (in fact, no one was).

Maybe Cubs fans should do the same.

[tags]chicago cubs, espn, mlb playoffs, curse[/tags]

Tags: chicago cubs, curse, espn, mlb playoffs

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