Wait ’til next century.
No millennium can hold the Cubs. The Cubs can dwarf time and invoke extinct franchises. The Cubs are bound by nature to reaffirm the futile and confirm the inadequate.
This is a thankless job, but someone has to do it. And now, 103 years after any National League team had managed to lose the first 11 games of a baseball season, the Cubs have matched the achievement.
“I really don’t look at that history stuff too much,” Cubs manager Jim Riggleman said. “Whatever streak that is, we’ll have our name by it. But we won’t be proud of it.”
Now that’s a gloomy way to look at things. Have a little self-respect in lowering the bar.
Would any of us have heard of the Detroit Wolverines without these Cubs, paid a bit of attention to the all-time flop standard? No, we would not have.
Would we have heard of the Exxon Valdez without Joseph Hazelwood?
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Why, that Detroit team from 1884 does not even exist anymore. But these Cubs, these honored few, have stamped failure with their formidable pedigree. And it will endure.
In another hundred years, these Cubs still will be around. Significant distinctions, like this one, should not be left to franchises that can’t take a century or two of torment.
Just to make sure, the Cubs ought to put the total out there, even beyond the Orioles of Baltimore, the major-league record-holders at 21, giving the thing some permanence and putting it out of reach of pretenders that might, by accident or mischief, get briefly lousier than the Cubs are eternally.
This is a history in progress, open-ended, as available today as it was yesterday, as long as games are scheduled and Jose Hernandez is trying to take a throw at second base.
The Cubs can lose pitching duels and slugfests, home games and road visits, in foul weather and fair, indoors and out. This is a team without alibis, so it is beneath the Cub birthright to suggest that 10 days rest is the reason Kevin Foster could give up six runs in three innings.
“I felt great,” Foster said, standing up to his responsibility. “But pitching behind in the count doesn’t make it easy to get guys out.”
Middle relief starts early at Wrigley Field.
I refuse to be one of those niggling natterers and negative nitpickers, condemning the Cubs for losing.
Look at the positives. Better seats, to start with. Tuesday’s crowd, announced at a generous 15,496, scattered itself like crash debris around the stadium, plopping where the wind or whim happened to put it.
There is less litter. The cleaning crew gets home in time for a reasonable dinner. The Cubs reach out to least of their number, and Shawon Dunston gets a home run.
Only the Cubs can make losing non-news.
“In Kansas City, we were 1-16,” Brian McRae said, “and it got better. We got close to .500. So I know it can happen.”
Optimism not only lives in Cub hearts, but holds its arms open to mediocrity.
When Sammy Sosa goes without a hit, he still identifies himself as “a professional baseball player,” and not just because he gets a salary.
This is the kind of attitude necessary to face the burden, to show up another day, to get through another evening.
“Whatever happens here,” Sosa said, “I don’t take it home to my beautiful family. I leave it here.”
And a lovely pile it makes too.
On a day they are out-homered 5-3, the Cubs score enough runs, if in any of the losses, to be 8-3, or just another contender.
“This is a horrible situation,” Riggleman said, “but 11 games is no time to make changes.”
Please, don’t. This is crucial duty the Cubs must suffer, the hapless, luckless, hopeless Cubs. Who among us does not know what it is like to be without luck or hope or hap?
Bless the Cubs, for they give us all a bottom line.