Oh, so Braves fans are totally crushed, are they? And Dodgers fans, bless their hearts, are trying to pick up the pieces? And all as poor, dear Orioles fans are wondering aloud, ‘‘Will it ever be our time to be champions again?’’
How moving, all of it.
Oh, please. What a bunch of amateurs.
They don’t know from true baseball suffering. Whatever they’re feeling damn sure can’t touch what fans of the Cubs experienced on this night — October 14 — exactly 20 years ago.
Has it really been that long since Game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series against the Marlins at Wrigley Field?
Since that unforgettable, irreplicable night when Cubdom changed forever?
Yes. Yes, it has.
We needn’t relive nor relitigate the events that transpired on the field — and in the stands — as the Cubs went from up 3-0 with one out in the eighth inning, five outs to go to get to the World Series, to down 8-3 by the end of the frame. We know the headphones and the tantrums and the bobbles and the breakdowns like the backs of our hands.
But most of us probably haven’t done much thinking about how that mother of all heartbreaks on the North Side flipped some switches that wouldn’t — couldn’t — be unflipped.
For example: The concept of ‘‘lovable losers’’ died, to a large extent, that night and, of course, as the Cubs lost Game 7. Where once there had been only doe-eyed optimism among fans, now tempered optimism mixed with gallows humor and hardened impatience. Cubs fans were ready for that damn World Series drought to end.
The 2003 Cubs hadn’t been some juggernaut. A year after losing 95 games, they went 88-74 and somehow won the NL Central by one game despite their modest run differential of plus-41, nowhere near as impressive as the second-place Astros’ plus-128. The Cubs possessed remarkable young talent in their pitching rotation, but their offense was run-of-the-mill and the franchise still had won only a single postseason game since the NLCS disaster of 1984.
But the ’03 team was clutch — in one-run games, in extra-inning games and definitely in September, when the Cubs went 19-8 — and they had Mark Prior pitching like Bob Gibson in August, to the tune of a 5-0 record and 0.69 ERA. Prior was excellent in September, the month he turned 23, too, though perhaps beginning to show a crack or two. He was 5-1 in September but gave up 10 hits in two of those games as his pitch count ramped way up, pushing 130 on average in those six starts. Still, when the Cubs beat the Braves in the divisional round — their first playoff-series victory in 95 years — hopes and expectations absolutely skyrocketed.
The Cubs had Kerry Wood and Carlos Zambrano, Sammy Sosa and Aramis Ramirez, momentum and mojo and ‘‘In Dusty We Trusty.’’ At 54, wasn’t Dusty Baker due to win his first World Series as a skipper?
By the time Game 6 of the NLCS rolled around, Cubdom wasn’t merely bracing for a celebration; it was thoroughly convinced about the thing. That’s why thousands upon thousands of fans showed up outside Wrigley Field during that game, walking untold blocks to get there, like delirious zombies. They didn’t want to be there; they had to be there. They weren’t suckers; they were winners. Believing in the 2003 Cubs wasn’t a fool’s errand; it was destiny.
But then, well, you know.
Ever since then, things have been different. Attendance topped 3 million for the first time in 2004, setting a new standard that would be repeated for years on end. Ticket prices exploded. When the Cubs were supposed to win it all in ’04 — Sports Illustrated having predicted it on the cover of its baseball preview issue, a huge deal at the time — it was enormously exciting. But when they fell flat, blowing the wild card and breaking up with Sosa, it wasn’t the least bit adorable or romantic. Cubs fans were disgusted.
Hopes and expectations had been elevated, and that’s a good thing. Because do you know what isn’t lovable whatsoever? Losing. An unimaginably bad night 20 years ago helped drive that home.
