I Don't Want To Think About It

Well, it’s ten minutes to 1AM as I sit down to begin watching the game, and to write. Last night was pretty rambunctious, I guess you could say, with happy hour and then the Sonic Youth concert -- brilliant, by the way -- and my roommate and I stopped in for an extra beer to divide the walk home. So, tonight I’ve stayed clearheaded, and since I’m kind of wound up I figure I might as well meander along here and see what happens.

At sundown, there was a performance in downtown Austin called “Requiem,” and it was the kind of thing from which one walks away feeling better just knowing that there are people out there willing to create something like this. It was part opera, part dance, part acrobatics, and part light show. In downtown Austin there is a skeleton of what was supposed to become the Intel building, but Intel abandoned the building after completing only the frame. It’s sat there unworked on for several years. Soon, demolition crews will demolish it and builders will begin building a new city hall, but not before people got the bright idea to use it for something artistic. (http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2006-04-21/arts_feature3.html)

Better than artistic, actually. The angular geometry of the skeleton of a building contrasted with the high-wire dancers looping around was fascinating, and took us entirely out of our heads for a while. At times, it was almost as though you could see the world as if the z axis were actually the y. (As though the side wall of the skeleton were actually the ground.) The performance was graceful and beautiful and downright cool, and while maybe the designers had some sort of meaning in mind, really for interpretive or postmodern art like this to work I think sometimes it just has to leave one thinking, “Whatever that was, it was freaking sweet.”

I didn’t want to think about baseball, that’s for sure. As far as the Cubs go, I’m just... tired. Tired of being frustrated, tired of wondering what Dusty Baker is thinking, tired of keeping up with injury reports, tired of trying to project how many wins they need in the next few weeks to get back in striking distance, and tired of watching a team make mistakes. Just... tired.

At some point a bad stretch becomes a bad season, and it doesn’t happen in an instant. When it happens, though, it’s clear in hindsight, and with the Cubs, it’s happened. At this point, it would take a brilliant run just to get close to .500, let alone contend for anything. Nope, this one is a bad season, and the best they can hope for is to salvage mediocrity. Short of a miracle, this team will have underachieved.

And all I can do is sigh.

Most of the chatter these days is fully and angrily hurled at Tribune Co and MacPhail and Hendry and Baker, and there’s no one saying the chatterers are wrong. Facts are facts; losses are losses. I can understand that there is all this energy and since there’s nothing good on the field to channel it towards in celebration, it has to find another outlet. But I can’t get myself into that mode. My energy towards the season -- positive or negative -- is just deflated.

If they lose this one, the Cubs will have gone 14-35 in their last 49 games, a .286 winning percentage over almost a third of a season. Who can maintain anger for that long a term? As it stands the Cubs are on pace to lose 100 games exactly, and this is supremely disappointing. But when disappointing becomes exhausting, it’s time for me to recalibrate. Life is too good to suffer through exhaustion.

Although, I’m still watching, and it’s 1:20 AM.

Mark Prior is pitching, and even in a bad season there are good games and fine moments. Already we’re seeing signs that maybe there will be a few of those with Prior yet this season after all. His velocity is up and his curveball is working. It’s too little too late, of course, but since there’s no point in looking back and it’s too early to look ahead, I figure I might as well focus on it day by day.

Here, I guess, is the matter to ponder: is bad Cubs baseball better than no baseball at all?

The answer probably bleeds outside binary logic. Some days yes, some days no. Which means it’s probably more appropriate to un-ask the question, and just keep watching. Watch, but don’t think. For now, anyway.

Here’s the thing as far as thinking about accountability goes: there’s no way any one area could have caused things to go this bad. Tribune Co’s negligence is not enough. MacPhail’s budget and direction is not enough. Hendry’s management of the budget is not enough. Baker’s lineups and in-game decisions, or even his leadership, is not enough. Injuries are not enough. Poor fundamentals and lack of power are not enough. Even players underperforming is not enough. Not by itself, any one of those things, could one thus explain what happened. There is no single biggest reason the Cubs look like they are about to be 17 games under .500. It had to be all of them and more. And you can't fire everyone short of folding the ballclub.

So, is it time to clean house and start over? The sooner the better? Do you gotta start somewhere? I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. Or not. Whatever. Right now, I don’t care.

I just want to see a good baseball game now and then. For now, that’s enough.

It’s 1:54 AM, the 5th inning in TiVo time, and Prior has lost his keenness. Once he’s done pitching, I’m done watching. Until tomorrow, and the next day. In the meantime, I’d rather not think about it because as far as I can tell, that’s the only way to salvage some fun from this mess in the next few weeks. To think about the 2006 season is to exhaust oneself with a complex nest of interconnected problems, and I want to stave off exhaustion for at least a little while longer. To each his own, and that's my plan anyways.