That's dumb.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Are you saying the 50s don't count? Whenever I argue with Cub fans, I see them trying to have it both ways. On one hand both organizations are equally futile. On the other hand, "sustained excellence" is all that we can hope for and the Cubs are obviously in Year 2 of a huge sustained run. The second part may or may not be true, but the fact is that there is no real comparison between the two franchises post-WWII. The Sox have mostly played good baseball while the Cubs are the absolute worst team over that period.

I actually agree with Hank. The Cubs have had a successful season already. Of course the Cub fan will be disappointed if they don't win the World Series, but this has been a great season. The idea that there is one champion and 29 equal losers is relatively new (and also promoted tirelessly on the Score). But if you agree with such bullshit, you have to brace yourself for the very real possibility that the Cubs are very likely to be "equal" to the Sox this season. See how dumb that is?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

The point is they were contending every year for seventeen seasons. The Sox have contended in many years since WWII. You called 2005 "fluky". How can 2005 be "fluky" when they had strong contending teams from 2000-06? The current Cubs should hope to be that good over this seven year stretch. Isn't that all you can ask for? Or is that all you can ask Theo Epstein for?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Uhh... come on, JORR. Do you have me on ignore? This is what I've been arguing for the last day in multiple threads.

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that's not true, JORR. for one thing, the sox didn't win a world series during that stretch, and they only made the "post season" in 1958. sure they had 90+ wins a few times...but as you kept drumming last year...if the cubs "finished 3rd in their own damn division", then how can you anoint the 3rd and 4th place 1950's white sox? the eras are different, but the results are the same.

and--i know there was no true post season in the 1950's, because there was only the world series--but that's why it's not really appropriate to compare a team who did belong in an era of post seasons to a team that didn't.

It's an apples/oranges comparison because the Braves got to pound a shitty division all those years and the Sox were going up against the greatest sustained run any team has ever had. Beating the Yankees in '59 was monumental. Only two teams were able to do that between '49 and '64. I'm pretty sure if the Yankees of Mantle/Berra/Ford had played in the NL East during the 90s we wouldn't be discussing the greatness of the Atlanta Braves.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

yeah but it's unfair to put that yankees team up against any modern baseball team, besides other yankee teams.

the real shame is that if 1994 didn't get shitcanned, white sox fans could most likely be dropping "1994" and "2005" all over the place.

sini would be the one dropping 1994 everywhere

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

anyone know where leash has been over the last day in multiple threads?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Leash, in the "RELAX" thread:

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8 p.m. first pitch on Friday to accommodate a potential West Coast audience. Crap crap crap crap crap, memories of that funereal Game 1 against the Dodgers in '08 where the game didn't start till ~8:30 and everything felt ominous and grim before the players even took the field.

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Different team. Different feeling. I never enjoyed 2008 as much as the last two seasons.

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Those 2007 & 2008 teams were pretenders. They were never going to win anything.

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I absolutely hate this way of thinking. Nothing is guaranteed in this world except death and taxes. If you can make the playoffs with basically your whole team healthy and have had the best record in baseball almost the entire year I don't know how anything less than a championship isn't a failure. Just my thoughts.

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That's kind of become a narrative among Sox fans, as if a 1994 championship was fait accompli. I remember being scared of Cleveland. And the Expos had a really good team. We'll never know. But I didn't dare dream of a World Series in 1994. Hell, in 2005 I didn't think they were gonna win until Blum hit the homer in the fourteenth.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Real Fan.

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I never discussed failure vs success in my OP. 29 teams will be failures this year in the MLB if we are looking at the strictest definition of the word. If your kid was a salutatorian would you consider their high school academics a failure? Is Warren Buffet a failure because he isn't the #1 on Forbes richest list? Success and failure isn't as black and white as people are trying to make it seem.

I never said that I wouldn't be upset if they lose.

I'm just saying that I wont be cursing the gods and rending garments if they lose. I'll be pissed off but still able to look positively towards the future.

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I think everyone knew 2007 was bullshit, even on the heels of the Cardinals winning the World Series with 83 wins: that was an aberration from a core that had won >=100 in back-to-back years. Granted, I didn't see a sweep to Arizona coming, a team that seemed just as much a paper tiger as the Cubs, but that was house money all the way. 2008 felt like a team that could, if not waltz to the World Series, certainly give the Phillies a hell of a fight and maybe come out on top. That sweep to the Dodgers hurt a lot and was kind of the point where I outgrew baseball as a day-to-day concern if that was all it was gonna give me.

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My wife took all advanced classes and AP classes throughout high school and got straight As with the exception of a single B. Her high school didn't give weighted grades for higher level classes. In my high school an AP A was worth 4.25 or maybe even 4.50 and a regular A was worth 4.00. At her school both As were worth 4.00. She got beat out as valedictorian by a kid who got straight As in remedial courses. Worse yet, another guy from the dummy brigade also beat her out by percentage points so she didn't even get to sit on the stage. She's still sore about it to this day and will bring it up every once in awhile.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Sports are different Hank.

Sports are a competition to win a championship.

That is the ultimate goal.

Sure you can be happy about the season and think it wasn't bad if you don't win a title.

I think it's disingenuous for MANY to act as if not winning a title doesn't matter because their team was great during the regular season.

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I'm not saying it doesn't matter. I expect them to win one.

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Like I said yesterday, it's moot since they're winning this year.

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Naturally.

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I was very happy that this team achieved what they did in 2015. I didn't expect them to be this good this fast. They were the best team all year. They are healthy. They have proven they can't beat anyone at anytime. They have a possible Cy Young and a possible MVP winner on the team along with home field advantage thru the NL playoffs. I'll worry about next year in November hopefully after I come down from a WS victory.


I'm sorry if I'm on edge. I have all this nervous energy and I have to wait until Friday. It's killing me.

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I need a Sox fan to answer this for me: what does thinking something is a "failure" mean? Is it calling for the head of the executive? Is it pouting for a week longer than you normally would have because they didn't win it all?

I've made my stance clear many times, as has Hank... we will both be very upset if/when the Cubs lose. That should go without saying, anyway. But the common view by Sock fans is that we are in some position to do something about it. We are not GM's... we are fans. I root for my team in every inning of every game they play. I want them to win it all every year. The difference is not in that I value a championship less. The difference is that I believe the best way to accomplish this is to get in the playoffs every year. I wouldn't condemn Cubs' leadership simply because they didn't win a World Series this year. I believe the baseball playoffs are more random than most of you do. That's fine. But address it for what it is... not what you're twisting it to be.

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For me it isn't about one or 2 postseason. I think of it in terms of a regime.

If the regime never wins a World Series, I'd think they need to be viewed as a failure. Even if they make the playoffs and win 100 games 10 straight years.

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Cub fans going through an existential crisis about the meaning of failure!

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

If not winning a world series isn't a failure in the next 5 years then why is the century long streak of not winning it such a big deal?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Enjoy as much as you can, Sox jerks.

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