So here we are. Part II.
As we begin the second half of what can only be called an abysmal season (well, it could be called a lot of other things, but this paper is supposed to be a safe place void of derogatory adjectives and profanity), there seems to be this low-key sentiment floating around about the Cubs and how the first half turned out. A theme in discourse began, reaching a crescendo after their series-opening 11-1 loss to the Mets on June 21. A feeling of empathy. Of people feeling sorry for the Cubs. About how things are and have been for them. Not anger but sorrow.
Wait. What?
“Oh, we feel sorry for the Cubs” — on talk radio. “It’s too bad the Cubs are having a season like this” — on social media. “The Cubs deserve better” — on Waveland Avenue.
Please. Stop. There’s no sorrow in Chicago baseball. Especially when all damages and wounds are self-created, self-inflicted and self-imposed. That 11 1/2-games-out-of-first, last-in-the-NL Central record is their own baseball act of suicide. No shade. No blame. All them.
One has to seriously work hard to find compassion for the Cubs becoming one of the more (most?) disappointing teams of the season so far. Somehow, there are some who have. Somehow, they’ve found being 25th in MLB in batting average (.229) and 24th in bullpen ERA (.455) to be worthy of condolence. Yes, the most recent four-game losing streak just ended, and probably sooner than later, there will be another one. Yes, their 10-15 record in June as of Friday night will more than likely repeat in July. Yes, bringing manager Craig Counsell over from Milwaukee and the Brewers being in first place in the division may be an omen (or evidence that Counsell’s bullpen management might be the worst in baseball). Yet we’re supposed to feel remorse for the seven-games-below-.500 grave they’ve dug?
This is a story about the power of promise. Of what expectations can do to a team, franchise, organization entering a season in which they openly believed — and accepted — one thing and now half-heartedly believe and half-ass accept that the next several months are about to be special.
The Cubs came into 2024 with dreams of being everything they in the current moment aren’t, of having a season comfortably the opposite of what this one has become. Now the whole “lovable losers” culture that shaped who they were for decades on decades has returned. And for the first time since 2016, they expect the rest of the city — as we’ve watched their arrogance be put on full display — to not accept the daily outcome of what happens game-to-game with them as is, but instead feel some sorta way about that game-to-game un-suckcess.
It would be easier for us to feel something for what the Cubs are going through had they finished what was supposed to be their story post-World Series. Had they won a second or third World Series after 2016, with everything they had in place to do so — something everyone in the city and in baseball believed they would — this moment of failure would have been easily met with mercy. They would have earned that.
But they didn’t. They achieved — once. Their underachievements ever since have become who they are. And it is this year when both the Cubs and the core of their fan base want the rest of us to buy them Hallmarks and send flowers.
Chicago, the Cubs are who they are showing themselves to be. We can’t be enablers to emotional victimization when bad managing, bad hitting, bad relief pitching and unsubstantiated and premature promises are the air they give us to breathe. This passive-aggressiveless approach to dealing with epic disappointment is not a good look. Not anymore.
Look, even south of Eden, where the other team has had one of the worst first halves of a season in the history of the game, there is no feeling sorry. The Sox and their fans kept it 10 toes down with who we were and what we knew this season was going to be. We all accept that the organization and ownership did all of this to themselves. To us. We don’t wallow in sorrow — we float in hate.
Up north? Different story.
What’s the saying? The lies you tell yourself are always the worst ones. Well, the Cubs so far this year have become baseball’s apotheosis of that. So, what’s it going to take to pivot? What’s it going to take for the Cubs to suck less in the second half and for the whining and self-pity to be gone?
Well, their first, best hope is for every other team to just suck a lot more. And then they come to terms with the hard reality that their losing is no longer lovable or worthy of our sympathy.