DISCLAIMER: the season technically isn't over, but this team is, ergo why I'm thinking this warrants a thread as opposed to going with the tongue-in-cheek-one from tuesday nights or thereabouts (when it was 1-0 indians)

these cubs truly had a magical season where they started off continuing on #Respect 90 because #WeAreGood and we're really gonna #TryToNotSuck [Hipster Glasses] because #ItsGonnaHappen because seriously #WHYNOTUS!??!

It's a damn shame that Bernstein won't be on the radio tomorrow to tell us all about how the Cubs are STILL the best team in baseball (which they are) it's just that the playoffs a total crapshoot, *especially* when you're up against a "Team of destiny" like your Beliveland Windians(TM) bercause HOLY SHIT GUYS, idk if you noticed, but these kicked kicked ASS in the playoffs... i dont think they had a deficit at all until game 4 the ALCS, and even then that was a blip on the radar and c'est la vie.

the frustrating part this year / this world series is that yesterday's game was a 1-0 affair that could have went either way after the 5-0/6-0 tradeoffs in games 1+2. and then tonight even tho you know francona is pushing everybody to start o 3 daus left go to to a rusty lackey and while he got you to, what, into the 8th only down 3-1 before the usual suspects of grimm,mike mo, and others all tack on tuns to the point that this ballgame was OVAH......and unlike the mets in last year's NLCS, man, it's not like you ran into a total buzzsaw of pitching outside of cy kluber (who showed you why he has as many cy young awards as the whole cubs pitching staff combimed (note lester's big fat 0, arrieta needing to go full on god-mode to get it, and yeah.

i avoided the game thread tonight and even baseball IRC channels during the game as i figured my presence might be a jinx (and last time i did that was the matt moore start in san fran where the glorious comeback happened and i stayed away from even score updates til 6am. i tried to do it again for you with game 2 WS and it seemed to work, but now you're in a metric assload of trouble because even tho the cubs presumably have lester/arrieta/hendricks going in the last 3.... man oh man, you have 0.0 margin for error... and while we talk about this team being a refreshing change of pace from the typical cubs of decades/generations passed by..... man oh man. these guys just ran into hawk harrelson's most loathsome sandwich in all of the world: THE HOT BALLCLUB.

sprinkle in terry francona having more experience WINNING world series and then the cubs having a vastly superior team (save bullpen, which really factored into this series.... esp when i said the cubs were gonn have 1 breakthrough against andrew miller and go figure it's a solo HR when millertime had his lead extended to 7-1? fuhgeddaboutit.

so yeah hey honestly i hope i'm wrong. i hope that the equivalent of a "Furious Hair" + "Curious Gay" type senti/mentality rises up to make veritable fools out of everyone re: the whole debbie downer scenario..... i really really came around on this team and got to the point where i was hoping they could rattle of a few consecutive wins and either win in chicago or maybe first game back in cleveland. but hey i DID technically pick rapture/armageddon/biblical-plague/extinction-level-event in 7, and a 3-1 indians lead means that game 7 has tyo happen for that stuff to happen and i really hope it does because man..... even tho a lot of cub fans fucking blow ("yes, you! aka "dude, of course not you!") and by and large i can do without any organ-I-zation forcing this W FLAG meme on us (if only because it doesnt cost jack squat diddly shit to license it for t-shirts/flags/swag/etc(

TLDR = this team has had one hell of an enjoyable season, even to an unbiased outsider like me who can see+look-forward-to some gay ol times on the horizon in wrigleyville (and hey they'll play a lot of fun baseball games too! *rimshot* >=) and hey, there's no shame losing into hawk's favorite sandwich: THE HOT BALLCLUB. and that's what you've got here... a team that's more than the sum of its parts with andrew miller playing bumgarner this year and HEY WHADDYA KNOW THE CUBS EVEN GT THRU TO HIM LIKE I SAID THEY WOULD..... pity it was in a 1-6 or 1-7 game. c'est la vie, no?

and i know you're gonna get sick of hearing it (while older guys like jimmy & WWN remind us that NOTHING IS GUARANTEED) --- but this team will be around for awhile. the cubs are only getting better, and don't forget they're STILL technically 1 or maybe 2 years ahead of schedule (as who had them being the clear/prohibitive/obvious back in 2011? anyone?

/me tips his expos cap and reminds all y'all, as always, AT LEAST YOU MOTHERFUCKERS STILL HAVE A TEAM!!!!!!!! #RIPYOUPPI =(

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Nothing is guaranteed.

How long did that rant take to write?

tl;dr

Seriously. Its too long, do not read this.

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Yeah, I keep hearing this mantra ("We'll be good for years."). They probably will, but ya can't pass up these opportunities.....so go get it.

MJ said that before Game 7 against the Pistons in 1990...."Isn't next year your year?" someone (possibly Jim Grey) asked him.

"Maybe, but we may never get to the conference finals again," MJ rejoined.

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Amen.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

Ever read the book about Harry by McCullough? Good book. (I skimmed some!) Good HBO biopic, too.

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I have not. I'm going to the Google machine now, thanks...

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

I thought that book bombed?

I remember seeing the HBO thing with Gary Sinise years ago. It wasn't bad if I remember correctly.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

I dunno!! I read it so long ago--mid-90s, maybe. I loved it (or remembering loving it), and have read little bits here and there. (I have an extra copy if anyone wants it, btw.) But it was amazing to see a guy go from nothing to working with the Machine to becoming President. He went from scratching out a living to sitting on the bomb and meeting with Stalin in twenty years...

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I was attempting a Hiroshima themed pun. I'll see myself out.

That book was great.

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You know me like that.

He was a haberdasher!

What a great word.

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You know me like that.

A newspaper ad from the 1910 World Series Cubs vs Athletics...

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

Why did anybody ever buy anything?

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You know me like that.

Good vodka and boredom. If they had a television set and electricity they were watching Ward abuse the Beaver.