I Love Sports

Sports are great fun.  They are a great diversion, especially these days.  Sports are played in great arenas on beautiful fields, courts, and rinks.  And they are played by great athletes with unreal skills and incredible mental toughness.

One of the best parts of sports is that it is unpredictable.  Totally unpredictable.  Sometimes sport follows conventional wisdom, but just as often there is a complete surprise.  Just ask the Michigan Wolverines.  Just ask the Cubs. 

In Spring Training the Cubs looked like a good team with enormous power on offense and a deep and very good bullpen.  The big question was whether the starting pitchers were good enough.  Well...the starting pitching has been very, very good with the exception of the last couple of weeks.  It has been the most consistent part of the team from day one.  The offense has been the most disappointing part of the team and the hardest to explain.  Almost every player is well below their career norms.  If it wasn't for Aramis Ramirez's incredible June and July, there wouldn't be any offense.  The bullpen was horrendous the first two months of the season, but they have been great since then.

The Cubs had a horrible first two months and started June with the embarrasing brawl in the dugout and in the clubhouse.  We were 8.5 games behind and reeling.  I came close to writing off the season right then.  As Lee Corso says, not so fast my friend.  The Cubs, led by Carlos Zambrano and Aramis Ramirez, went on a two month tear and leaped to the front of the division. 

At the beginning of August it looked like it would be a nice stroll to the playoffs with the Cubs playing great, the Brewers in a 1969 like freefall, and the Cardinals way out of it.  Not so fast my friends.  Both the Cubs and Brewers struggled in August and the Cardinals, led by the best story in baseball this year, Rick Ankiel, got hot.  Now it is September and it is a dramatic 3 team race.

What now?  It doesn't look good for the Cubs.  Even though all three teams are tied in the loss column, the Cubs are in the worst shape.  We have to play 16 of our last 23 games on the road.  The Brewers have remarkably turned their season around even though they have suffered far worse late inning collapses than we did yesterday.  Braun, Fielder, and Gallardo have led them back to the top.  And Ankiel, regardless of today's news, has been a great story and the Cardinals have been unbelievable considering their injuries.

To me, the Cubs look like the least likely to win this division now.  And maybe that is just the way we want it.  Remember sports are unpredictable.  Maybe the offense finally claims its promise of spring away from the "Friendly" Confines.  Our streak in June started when Soriano got hot; maybe Fonzie's two HR's yesterday is the start of a hot streak.  Maybe Zambrano recovers his mid-summer form.  Maybe the rest of the pitching coninues to pitch well.  Maybe, just maybe, the Cubs get hot and win this thing. 

And if they don't, I'll be disappointed...until the next game.  The Bears, Blackhawks, Jazz, Weber State, Iowa, and Notre Dame can keep me entertained until pitchers and catchers report next February and our rose colored glasses see a World Series Championship season about to begin. 

I just love sports.