The day after the Chicago Cubs season ends is always a rough one, but there’s always a “next year’s our year” mentality that leaves fans clamoring for the day when you wake up and realize, the Cubs won it all the night before. Thursday October 22, 2015 had been the hardest of my young Cubs fan life, as I truly thought I was witnessing “the year”.
The entire season was filled with plenty of “oh crap” moments when things looked to turn rotten. Every seasoned Cub fan has experienced them. Some quick examples are:
- Derrek Lee breaking his wrist at the beginning of the 2006 season
- Mark Prior gives up 4 homeruns in his first game of 2006 to the Tigers
- Manny Ramirez golfing a playoff homerun out of Wrigley in 2008
- Milton Bradley throwing a live ball into the stands with two outs, then trying to retrieve it
- Anytime Alfonso Soriano took one of his terror-inducing bunny hops on a pop up.
Of course the entire 2003 playoff debacle could go on here, along with the curse of the Billy Goat, the collapse of 1969..and 1984….and 2004…..and 2009 etc. But a lot of that belongs in another level of awful, dumb Chicago Cubs luck, but the 2015 Chicago Cubs team has been resilient and with an incredibly deep well of talent.
Everyone knows how great Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo were, the surprise of Jake Arrieta’s dominance, how large an impact rookies like Kyle Schwarber and Addison Russell made on this team. Theo Epstein and Co. just kept (manager Joe) Maddon juggling more and more talent and it kept making the team better. The team was really starting to turn some heads in the MLB, going from a team getting off to a great start to being a legitimate playoff contender.
And then they faced the Phillies. And got no hit and swept by Cole Hamels and a Philadelphia team that would finish as the worst team in baseball.
That was the moment I thought the Cubs might return to their soul-crushing ways of terrible baseball. And they seemingly confirmed my thoughts that following Monday, in a game against the struggling Colorado Rockies. For 8 innings, the Cubs had been beating the Rockies 7-3, until a 4 run 9th inning put the Rockies up 8-7. The long, heartbreaking history for the North-Sider’s was starting to drag a dark, familiar cloud over Wrigley field on that warm Chicago night. Every Cubs fan at Wrigley that night was feeling that classic Chicago Cubs let down building up, always reminding us die-hards “you are not good”. I was lucky enough to be sitting in the seats that night, feeling the premature disappointment, when rookie superstar Kris Bryant stepped up with two outs, a runner on, and did this.
From that point on, the Cubs would never look back.
Cubs would go 44-19 from then on, ending the season with 97 wins for the first time since 2008. They would then win their first playoff game and series since 2003, and clinch a playoff series for the first time ever at Wrigley. But from there, things started to unravel. The Cubs ran into a very hot New York Mets team with some of the best young pitching ever assembled, to go along with Cuban crusher Yoenis Cespedes and postseason superstar Daniel Murphy. The Cubs were swept and the dream season was abruptly ended.
Currently, as a sulking Cubs fan, I hate twitter. I hate Facebook, with all my White Sox friend’s that feel validated that the Cubs “choked” again. (I was in such a depression, I had to take a week away from this article and come back with some composure, these emotions are real folks) I do not want to look forward to an offseason that should prove to be promising, or remind everyone that this team shouldn’t have been here. I just want to appreciate what I had. This Cubs team had been everything I could’ve wanted out of a baseball team, with 13 walk-off wins, hit 171 home runs, a 20+ game winning pitcher with no hitter from Arrieta, and so many young, new prospects coming and being core members of this team. Sustained success is what Epstein and Cubs want, and will have, but that inner Cub history ticker inside me says, “Appreciate this time” because this team’s entire history says otherwise.
The last time the Cubs won 97 games in 2008, that team was easily the best Chicago Cubs team I had ever seen assembled. The pitching was great led by still tolerably crazy Carlos Zambrano, solid lefty Ted Lilly, closer-turned-starter Ryan Dempster (a fan favorite, and great Harry Caray impersonator), with a strikeout machine in Carlos Marmol and Cubs legend Kerry Wood coming in late to close out games. The lineup was littered with All-Star power, from the leadoff homer god Alfonso Soriano, the big bat of Aramis Ramirez, a truly healthy Derrick Lee (playing his best season since breaking his wrist), Geovany Soto was thrusting himself into the ‘best overall catcher in baseball’ conversation with his great bat and stellar defense, Kosuke Fukudome mania was peaking (I got a detention freshman year when a teacher thought my jersey was a lame excuse to write the F-word on my back), along with super utility man and clubhouse great Mark DeRosa. This team was STACKED, sending 8 guys to the All-Star game in the new Yankee stadium that year, and featured Soto, Soriano, and Fukudome as voted in starters. As great as this team was, they still found a way to win zero games in the playoffs, being swept by the Dodgers in the NLDS. The following 2009 season would be hampered by injuries, only fielding their opening day roster 3 times all season, as the Cubs would lose a battle for the NL central title with the Cardinals, and be eliminated from the wild card spot in the last week of the season.
The Cubs had missed their window.
Back to present day, and the end of the baseball playoffs in only a few games away now. The offseason questions have started to form for the Cubs. Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have finished their 2015 evaluations and are ready for 2016. As hard as it is for me to totally put myself in a mental state of belief, the Cubs are going to be the favorites next year. The team is finally built to succeed and win multiple years instead of just giving itself a three year window to make something happen. There’s money to spend on quality pitching and maybe veteran bats if needed, but this team’s nucleus is already on the roster. There isn’t a big contract holding this team back from making moves this offseason. There isn’t a player who’s causing headaches in the clubhouse like Sammy Sosa or Carlos Zambrano. Nobody on this team (god willing) is going to get injured getting out of their hot tub. The Rickett’s ownership, led by a true ‘bleacher bum’ Tom Ricketts, has done a great job of balancing the needs of a current day ballpark, while also keeping the Wrigley Field traditions and history intact. Joe Maddon could not be a more perfect manager for this club, with his astute baseball moves meshing fluidly with themed travel day pajama parties or impromptu petting zoos (Warren the Flamingo for MVP). And as good as this team was in 2015, this was their version of “finding their way”.
With none of the Cubs’ young core participating in a playoff race before, it was those exact young players thriving in big moments, and were the difference makers in every playoff win (BABE SCHWARBER). And yet, as awesome as this season was, there is still a part of me that expects some type of doomsday situation to arise, destroying all of the Cubs dreams of ending this championship drought. But this team is different. And it’s the same reason they won that late July game against Colorado. This team isn’t like all those other Cubs teams.
This isn’t your grandpa’s 1945 or 1969 Chicago Cubs team (sorry if I insulted a few dads here) or your dad’s 1985 team or even the 2003 team. This is YOUR 2015 team. This is the team that changed everything. That proved you can win baseball games with a lineup relying on young hitters to produce. They proved you can win games playing small ball and also hitting the long ball. This is the team that seemingly plucked a struggling former top prospect from the orioles for basically nothing and turned him into a polished 20+ game winner. This team was 34-21 in games decided by 1 run, when only a year ago, they were 19-21. This team somehow struck out ungodly 1518 times and still registered an OBS of .321 and OPS of .719. This team was just fun, and though it might not have ended the way the Cub faithful would have wanted, this is still one of the best teams ever fielded by the Cubs. Now, with all this great talent, it doesn’t completely mean we are guaranteed a title now. This is baseball were talking about, and more importantly the Cubs, but then again its baseball and anything can happen.
Go Cubs Go.
Modern Barbershop 