Just wanted to offer hugs. You got so close. The baseball gods are cruel. I think I speak for a lot of people around the country when I say I would have been thrilled to see your guys in the Series. I couldn’t bear to watch the end so I flipped to our lo-cal news on ABC; the game ended during the sportscaster’s segment and he was actually handed a piece of paper with the news on it and when he said “…and the winner tomorrow night will face the FLORIDA MARLINS in the Series…” all the other newsmen and crew in the studio groaned in disappointment.
I know how they felt. Consider this thread a virtual shoulder to cry on if you need to.
Thanks. I’m 45 and have been a fan as long as I can remember – which is before Leo Durocher. Hard as it was to take the loss, I do have to say Florida played well and deserved to win. I wish them the best of luck in the Series and will be rooting for them. Especially if the Yankees win tomorrow.
And as much as I tried, I just couldn’t bring myself to hate Pudge Rodriguez. That is one hell of a ballplayer. You guys in Miami wouldn’t want to trade, would you?
my {}'s too. I’ve one very good friend in Chicago. She and I always go to games when I’m in Chicago. I had my Mark Grace #17 jersey on last night (game six) - even wore that to Shea Stadium once (last game of 2000 regular season - against the braves).
What a staggering, monumental collapse.
This was next year for the Cubs. This team was not another variety of ‘lovable-loser’ Cubbies “happy to be there”. They had the team that could have won it all.
The Cubs had three - count them one, two, three - chances to eliminate the gamefish when they were up three games to one.
Blame Bartman for the shift of momentum last night. Don’t blame him for eight runs. Good teams - winning teams - get over minor setbacks like a foul ball not converted to an out.
Gonzales’ error, Sosa not hitting the cutoff man (runners move up), Baker bringing in a pitcher who tends to be wild and right off calls for an intentional walk. Heck, even Bernie Mack singing ‘Let’s all root for the champs’ in the 7th-inning stretch was probably as much an inspiration for the gamefish as getting five outs and free bases in the 8th inning of game 5.
I can’t underestimate the Cub fans who bleed Cub-blue - yet I’ll be truly amazed if the chasm of their heartbreak mends by next year, or the year after that.
I was at Shea for Game five of the 2000 World Series (Yankees -v- Mets). I still haven’t quite gotten over seeing the Yankees celebrating a championship on my teams home field.
<charlie brown voice>
Can anybody here beat the Yankees?!
</charlie brown>
Take heart Cubs fans, you have two of the best young pitchers to come around in quite a while…along with a decent offence. I don’t really believe in curses so I’m fairly confident in saying that you’ll win one soon.
Hardcore Giants fan, but I was really rooting for an End Of The World Series. This is probably the hardest I’ve rooted for a team that didn’t directly affect the Giants.
Now, I can’t root for the Marlins, and while I obviously can’t root for the Yankees, I hate the idea of being forced into rooting on any American League team over an NL team.
Ugh. Baseball, as wonderful and glorious as it is, really sucks sometimes.
I’m not a Cubs fan, and I especially don’t care for Dusty Baker or Sammy Sosa, but do I feel very bad for the fans. I can’t imagine that the sight of them all fervently willing an improbable victory in the ninth inning could fail to touch anyone’s heart, regardless of one’s team allegiances. There’s always next year, but I don’t know that they’ll come as close as this any time soon. It’s just sad.
As a Boston fan, I’ll be rooting for the Sox tomorrow, but it’s just not nearly as much fun to be hoping they go on to play the Marlins (no offense to our Florida Dopers). Dammit, I wanted a Sox-Cubs Series!
They might not have made it all the way but they had a helluva season. That’s worth being thankful for. It was darn enjoyable for us all, even those that might root for other teams.
I don’t think being a Cubs fan used to be all that bad, because they rarely got close to anything good. The hard part of being a Red Sox fan over the years has been those agonizing moments of nearness to the prize: losing the WS in 7 in 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986; the Collapse of 1978, complete with the Boston Massacre and Bucky Dent’s homer; and of course the ball going through Buckner’s legs in game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
The 8th inning of game 6 of the NLCS was the Cubs’ Bill Buckner moment. They’d not really had one before, but they’ve got one now, and that’s gotta suck.
Haven’t watched a baseball game in over 20 years, but I watched the last 7 Cubs games…had two visitors from Germany who know squat about baseball and even they were rooting for the Cubs as well.
Talk about a team who had the masses rooting for them!
You Cub fans have got to seriously cleanse your auras and appease the baseball gods. First, admit that whole “Curse of the Billy Goat” thing is an urban legend dreamt up as a publicity stunt by by the bar owner and his buddy Mike Royko (Royko needed a column idea and the bar owner knew a good publicity gimmick when he saw one). If you say it’s true, produce a published reference to the curse prior to 1960.
Second and most importantly, and excepting those few of you who were baseball fans in 1945 for the last Cubs World Series visit, admit that you’re suffering isn’t any worse than the suffering of the fans of your cross town rivals, the White Sox, or of my team, the Indians, or of the fans of the Red Sox, Astros, Brewers, Padres, Rangers, Giants or Expos, other teams that have gone 30 years without a World Series championship. Get over yourselves already!
Thanks for the sympathies, all. It’s nice to know that all sorts were out there pullin’ for our Cubbies, including those two from Germany! It’s enough to give me back a wee smile.
