In 1984, when the Chicago Cubs blew a two-game lead in a best-of-five playoff series with the San Diego Padres, I allowed my disappointment to become a brief bout of depression.
I was young then -- well, all right, I was 41 -- but I suddenly grew older and wiser. The next day, I told myself that I would never again get so bummed out over a mere sporting event. If my team played an especially crucial game or vied for a championship or something, I would be greatly pleased with victory but not especially crushed by defeat.
After all, what difference does it make? The White Sox won the World Series in '05, and I was tinkled pink. But it didn't exactly affect my life much one way or the other. The great pleasure faded in a few days, and life went on.
This year, the Cubs started out poorly and then turned it around in June and finished their season with a division title. In the playoffs, they were bested by the Arizona Diamondbacks in three straight. End of story...until next year. It had nothing to do with a curse or with a 99-year history of not winning the big championship. It just happened. In baseball, any team can win three in a row from any other team. This time, the D-Backs did it.
But to hear some idiots, like Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti, tell it, the Cubs are guilty of some great moral failure. This is the same overwrought Mariotti who called for the resignation of the president of the University of Notre Dame when the school hired and then quickly fired a football coach who had fudged his resume.
To Mariotti and his ilk, everything in sports includes some dimension of abject disgrace. These people are eternal juveniles. The fools.
