It Begins

I know I’m not the only fan around of both the Cubs and Radiohead who feels overwhelmed at our good fortune this week. The Cubs are in the playoffs. Radiohead has announced the release of a new album, In Rainbows. The last year these both of these things happened was 2003. This time around, though, it’s all different. The world is different. Our culture is different. Technology is different. Slightly, but still changed. Four years is a lot longer than four years sometimes, except sometimes it feels like it all just happened.

I won’t dwell too long on Radiohead in this forum, except to say that in almost every way, I applaud what they’re doing. Releasing an album themselves, without a label or major distribution company, is fantastic, and they happen to be in the unique position of being able to get away with this because their fans will come to them. Offering a download version for literally a pay-whatever-you-want price is also great, because why would anyone violate copyright when you can get a licensed original source copy for whatever you’re willing to pay, no matter how small? Offering a box set version with double-disc, vinyl, art, lyrics and other things for a flat price is also perfect, because the people who really want to own the physical objects are overwhelmingly willing to buy the box set instead of just a regular CD. If nothing else, they used their position as—many argue—the foremost rock band in the world to buck the system, flipping it on its head.

The only losers for whom I feel sympathy are the small record stores. There are people like me who buy all their albums at the same locally-owned record store because we believe that these institutions have soul. That they have a soul. (I'm lucky enough that mine will even give you equal in-store credit for handing over your Best Buy gift cards, etc.) So, it’s fair to say that for a big album drop like this one, thousands of us would have gone to our record store to buy our copy. I like giving the store fair share of the margin they make on a sale like this one would have been. Taking internet orders only cuts them out of the chain, and I’d just as soon include them. The problem, of course, is that there’s no easy way to cut out the humongous chain distributors—some evil, some not—without also cutting out the locals. There’s a solution in there somewhere, and I hope some industry players find it soon. For now, one step at a time I suppose, and this is certainly a step in the right direction.

As for baseball, the point of writing here, I could tell that today was different the moment I walked into the law school and saw students who normally dress in a style you could call professional-casual—distinct from business casual because there’s a lot less buttons—wearing baseball gear. Jerseys, even, and lots of hats. Too many of the jerseys are Red Sox and too many of the hats are Yankees, but the Cubs are represented just fine. One of the things about a law school like Texas is that while there are plenty of Texans with very little baseball to celebrate, there are also students from around the country who wait—hope—for October to roll around with a chance to show their team pride.

I found myself in a baseball discussion yesterday in which I advanced a strange thought, first occurring to me: Impossibly, the Cubs might just be the least sympathetic team in the National League playoffs.

Now, I don’t know that this stands up to criticism, because the Cubs garner an awful lot of sympathy. (98 seasons???) But people also know that their payroll is pretty high ( $100M after getting Kendall, who is somehow their highest earning player this year). Plus, the Cubs just had their chance in the playoffs 4 years ago, and it sort of seems like less because of how everyone still talks about that series against the Marlins. (Example: the Dallas Morning News, in listing a one-liner for each team as they posted their end-of-season power rankings, said of the Cubs something to the effect, “Do you think that Bartman can get playoff tickets?” I mean, come on! That was 4 years ago!)

Each of the other three teams is plenty sympathetic, too. Out west, Colorado and Arizona have the fifth and fourth lowest payrolls in the major leagues, with rosters full of young, upstart players yet to embroil themselves in any scandals or have any tarnish on their image as guys who simply enjoy the game. If Todd Helton wasn’t making so much, the Rockies would be almost at the bottom, and who can’t help but enjoy the fact that Helton is FINALLY getting a chance to participate in playoff baseball after muddling out a career in Colorado, another reason to sort of cheer for them? As for the Diamondbacks, their highest paid player, Randy Johnson, hasn’t pitched since June. The rest of their roster is full of likable players, starting with Webb pitching tonight. So, there are plenty of reasons to like both of these teams.

And Philadelphia, well they haven’t been to the playoffs since 1993. Jack McCallum wrote a wonderful column that my father forwarded to me with a note, “its one of the best i've read all summer and is written the way a true fan feels.” I agree – this column captures why it is that “The 2007 Philadelphia Phillies would be [his] father's kind of team.” Plus, counting from and including their sweep in New York, the Phillies went 12-4 down the stretch to force an epic Mets choke. (And who didn’t like that?)

Really, all four NL teams are likable, and if I were a neutral casual fan picking a favorite for October, I don’t know where I’d go. Maybe it would be the Cubs, because after all, nobody has suffered longer. The first half of the Cubs unfortunate moniker is "lovable." But the case for lovable as compared to the other teams is less clear than it would have been in most years.

Today, in any case, it all begins.

As much as anything, I can’t wait for Kerry Wood to pitch. You can count on your fingers the number of pitchers who have the rarest fire smoldering inside, waiting to erupt, the way Wood does. We saw it last in a few moments of 2003: dominance and will. I can’t wait to see it again, even if only for an inning or two.

Past that, well, no point predicting because these series always veer in unexpected directions. Arizona is good. The Cubs are good. Who knows? As long as Zambrano gets through a solid first inning, and then concentrates in the fifth and sixth (I know, something of a big “if”) the Cubs will be in position to win crucial game 1. So let’s hope for the best and see what happens.

It’s October. It’s baseball. It means something. It means a lot. A few weeks from now, 2003 will either feel like a decade ago, or like it was last year (all over again). Tonight it begins. And I’ve got a good feeling.