Mindset For The Final Six Weeks

When I started Barack Obama’s book Dreams From My Father last week, two passages stood out about a third of the way in. This is the first, recalled from a meeting when Obama was considering a move to Chicago to take a community organizer position:

He poured himself more hot water. “What do you know about Chicago anyway?”

I thought for a moment. “Hog butcher to the world,” I said finally.

Marty shook his head. “The butcheries closed a while ago.”

“The Cubs never win.”

“True.”

Published first in 1995, Obama recalls this scene from the mid 1980s -- good years for the Cubs, actually. Yet, though the butcheries closed, the Cubs still did not win the World Series. That tag -- "never win" -- was with them twenty years ago, ten years ago, and it’s not going anywhere any time soon, it seems sometimes.

Except that sooner or later it has to, right?

I’ve written at various points this year that the season has felt older than it was at the time. Two months in, it felt like we had endured a lot more than two months of drama. At the break, it felt like a lot more than than a first half was behind us. April games feel like seasons ago. I don’t know whether it’s all the microscopic attention the team gets, or whether there have been that many more deserving headlines this year, but this season has often made time feel sluggish.

I’m thinking about this because JMI (and others) point out that last year Houston began their run from a similar position. In fact, the FSN Houston announcers brought up this point before each broadcast this week. Part of me wants to believe that the Cubs could make a run like this, a run where time seems to go faster than usual because each game plants anticipation for the next.

No one’s ruling it out. At least I’m not. Yet, the other side is that there were reasons this season has felt sluggish. I don't have it in me to forget them in blind optimism. The Cubs still have weaknesses, and mid August hardly seems like the time to work on fixing them. But without improvement, a long winning streak would be rather remarkable.

One statistic I take note of each game is innings threatened, which I define as when the Cubs get a runner to second base with less than two outs, or to third base. In the last two (typical) wins, the Cubs threatened only 5 innings out of 18, and it’s not unrelated that they only drew 3 walks in the first game, and 0 in the second. Homeruns are great, but like wins for a team that depends on them, they come in streaks.

I don’t want to sound negative. I just want to point out that if we see the Cubs make a run, it will be because they start threatening 3 or 4 or even 5 innings a game. It’s too late to develop this approach, so either they have it in them -- lying dormant -- or they don’t. Otherwise, the pitching will have to carry them two games out of three like it did against Houston...for over six weeks. Homeruns can’t do it alone -- at least not once the Cubs leave Colorado for the homestand.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be hopeful. I’m just suggesting that we be aware of what we’re hoping for. I’m hoping for lots of innings with men on base. I’m hoping for opposing pitchers working hard more innings than not, and the Cubs wearing them down. I’m hoping for solid starts almost every day, and a few overpowering outings. Those are the sort of wins that will bring confidence, and then we can all start to catch the fever rather than the disease.

No time like the present, right? Here’s hoping the Cubs have it in them after all.

* * *
As for the other passage from Obama’s book, here it is, recalled from a scene in Manhattan:

The old fluted park lamps flickered to life; a long brown barge rolled through the gray waters toward the sea. I sat down on a bench, considering my options, and noticed a black woman and her young son approach. The boy yanked the woman up to the railing, and they stood side by side, his arm wrapped around her leg, a single silhouette against the twilight. Eventually the boy’s head craned upward with what looked like a question. The woman shrugged her shoulders and the boy took a few steps toward me.

“Excuse me, mister,” he shouted. “You know why sometimes the river runs that way and then sometimes it goes this way?”

The woman smiled and shook her head, and I said it probably had to do with the tides. The answer seemed to satisfy the boy, and he went back to his mother. As I watched the two of them disappear into dusk, I realized I had never noticed which way the river ran.

A week later, I loaded up my car and drove to Chicago.

It rings true, doesn’t it? We are often caught up with our lives in a particular way, such that we filter out the details we don’t deem pertinent. That’s one reason I like baseball: it takes me out of my own head. Baseball appreciation is in the details, not just the numbers. At least to me, it’s a helpful reminder after a season as long as this one has felt.