Sac.Media Minute: Baseball Edition
There’s Always This Year. If you’re not a Cubs fan, this World Series sucked.
Look, I’m not saying this World Series wasn’t historic. Or exciting. Or that the Cubs don’t deserve it. Knocking out the Giants in an even year. Coming back from a 3–1 deficit to force a Game Seven. Winning it in 10 innings after a rain delay. This was undoubtedly one of the greatest postseasons in MLB history.
Still, if you’re not actually a Cubs fan, you saw the end of one of baseball’s greatest traditions: Making fun of the Cubbies.
For generations, if you needed a reference to sucking, or constantly being let down by something you love, you never had to reach far. The Cubs were always a safe bet.
The Cubs winning the World Series has always been synonymous with terms like “pigs flying” and “hell freezing over.”
Little League teams and politicians alike felt comfort in knowing that they weren’t the only ones who would have to wait another year for their time to shine.
Even when they weren’t in true Cubs form (read: they actually played well), the humor was still there. In recent years, the Cubs have put together some respectable seasons: they won the NL Central division in 2003, 2007, and 2008; and made it all the way to the NL Championship Series last year despite only earning the second wild card spot. Even then, and especially after last year, “There’s always next year” never lost its ability to draw a few chuckles.
And part of that is related to the fact that no matter how good they were, they never could quite go all the way. The Cubs have always been the real-life version of a cartoon cat chasing around the mouse, getting oh-so-close but forever having that championship ring remain just out of reach.
But on Wednesday night, when Kris Bryant fielded a routine groundball and tossed it Anthony Rizzo for the last out of the tenth inning of Game Seven, 108 years later, all of that came to an end.
No more will we get to poke fun at the the perennial losers.
No longer will failure and let-down have such an easily recognizable face.
Now, if you need a clever reference to sucking, you’re going to have to find someone else.
The world is in crisis. We need a new face for failure, and my vote goes to the Cleveland Indians. Or whatever they’re renamed next season.
