10.15.2003

Suddenly I feel like Charlie Brown...
...When Lucy VanPelt offers to hold the football for him so he can kick it. All Charlie Brown wants to do is kick that football. Every year he wants to kick it, and every year the only person willing to hold it for him is Lucy. So every year Charlie becomes the optimist. "So she pulled it away from me last year," he thinks. "There's no way she's cruel enough to do it again this year." Sure she's pulled it away every year for the past 50 years, but there's NO way she could be mean enough to do it again."

The Cubs' fans are Charlie Brown and the Cubs (though perhaps unintentionally) are Lucy Van Pelt. EVERY year the hope springs eternal. Every year the fans think they're going to kick that football (or, make it to the World Series). And EVERY year the Cubs pull away that football at the last minute, and we're ass over teakettle in the air, cursing their name, missing it once again. But I swear to you folks, I SWEAR... this time I felt football on my toe.

I REFUSE to blame the fan in the eighth inning of Game 6, Steve what's-his-name (though, as a Cubbie, I'm sure I'll know his name all too well by the start of next season). I REFUSE to blame Alex Gonzalez for the ATROCIOUS error he committed in the same inning. I REFUSE to blame Kerry Wood for letting a 5-3 lead in Game 7 turn into a 7-5 short coming. I blame the entity as a whole. I blame the Cubs for not finding the passion when it counted. For not coming up with the extra grit it takes to make a comeback work. And I blame myself for hoping against hope yet another year. But I swear this time, I felt the football.

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