(Bill Murray, the Cubs’ new batting coach, gives some advice before yesterday’s Marlins game. Unfortunately, they listened to him. Photos: Tom Cruze, Sun-Times).
I accept the irony of a Marlins sweep of the Cubs the same way 1950s Dodger fans used to say, “I know we can beat the Yankees. Why can’t we beat the Cubs?” Or, as Cub Fan #1, and hopefully the team’s new owner, Bill Murray, said in the Cubs dugout yesterday, “There is no time for being cautiously optimistic …That’s for losers. I don’t buy that. I’m very, very optimistic. This is Game 159? Why would I be cautious now? Look at how I’m dressed. Do I look cautious?”
”I might make him my bench coach,” Piniella told The Sun-Times Chris DeLuca. Me, I hope Murray is the new owner of the Cubs next year. While a Cubs parent company scribe at The Tribune, Rick Morrissey, asks if the Cubs play-offs hopes are going “over a cliff” this morning, I prefer to note the Brewers are a lot closer than the Cubs to that cliff. The Padres, desperate to clinch one of two positions (wild card or division), beat them handily in a 9-6 win that makes sense vs. the Cubs mysterious 10th loss to the Marlins, 6-4. The Brewers loss reduced their elimination number to 2, meaning a Cub win and a Brewers loss today ends the season for Milwaukee.
As to the talk of who will own the Cubs next year, Murray, a minor league owner for years, said, “‘I save, but I don’t save that much …But it’s interesting. I’ve heard from some people, but I’m not that organized.” When grilled by pessimistic Tribune writers who argued that a World Series win would change the Cubs’ character, Murray replied, “That’s like saying you wouldn’t be you if you were asleep … Isn’t that exactly what it’s like? I don’t accept that [theory] because the Cubs already have won five World Series, and they are the Cubs. Would the Cubs be the Cubs if they lost the World Series? That’s sick thinking. You have to watch out for people like that. I should be watching you.”
Can’t wait for someone to take over the reins. No one has more passive aggressive hate for the Cubs than the Tribco, as evidenced by their 25 years of shoddy ownership and today’s Rick Morrissey column:
After the 6-4 loss on Thursday, Piniella rightly pointed out that, in a sense, this is what the Cubs are–no, not a team that gags down the stretch, but a team that has been up and down most of the season.
And that would be a fine analysis if it weren’t for the fact that about a century of bad history is dangling by a thread over the Cubs’ heads.
“We’re playing baseball, we’re not thinking about history,” first baseman Derrek Lee said.
There are those of us who are sure Lee has it backward. The Cubs are playing history, and they’re not thinking about baseball. It’s not easy to face another team and historic ineptitude at the same time.
With three games left in the regular season, the Cubs lead the Brewers by
Why 7-Eleven hasn’t moved to sponsor this last series against the Reds is beyond me: Take a Big Gulp, Cubs fans.
“I don’t think anybody’s panicking,” second baseman Mark DeRosa said. “We trust each other.”
Reserve your trust, Cubs fans. Protect yourself.