Over the course of the year you get to see many bad teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Seattle Mariners from time to time. They all had their moments where you could have labeled them an offense to the game of baseball, that's how terrible they played. But last night's performance by the Cubs tops everything that you might have seen during the MLB season. The fans saw a lifeless team if there has ever been one and players that looked like the played the game for the first time ever. Bobbled ground balls, terrible at bats, frightened faces without emotion - it all added up as the Dodgers won the game 10-3 and took a commanding 2-0 lead in the National League Division Series. "It just wasn't good baseball, it was terrible", said Cubs manager Lou Piniella after the game. "These were propably our worst performances of the entire year. It wasn't fun to watch." No, it wasn't. It's no exaggeration to say that the Cubs faced a little more pressure than any other team in this year's playoffs. They are the team everybody dies to watch. They were the story that everyone wanted to see have a happy end. And given how the team played this year, with their 97 wins, the strong pitching and the dangerous lineup, it seemed more realistic than ever that they could finally bring that World Series title back to the city for the first time since 1908. This was a good team, maybe even the best in baseball. They looked immune against the talk from the outside, the ghosts of former failures and the heavy pressure to perform. Yet with the postseason on the horizon something changed within Lou Piniella and his troops. Who can say what it is, they might not even know themselves, but all of a sudden it seems like the team has lost all of it's confidence. All the smiles, the poise, the strong character from during the season - blown away. They keep it real to their franchise's history as if they want to prove that the Cubs can't win. They are the "lovable losers" and they can't come through either. But that is not true. A curse doesn't exist on the field or in a city. The curse exists in the people's heads and as the last two games proved, it exists in the minds of this team. This version of the Cubs is afraid to win, afraid to fail again and they don't believe in themselves. Despite proving all year long that they are one hell of a good baseball team. Now they fail to show that they have what every great team has and that is mental toughness. 
How come that they all of a sudden chase pitches way out of the strikezone after being one of the most patient teams all year long? How come they commit one horrible error after another despite showing good defense during the season? Why do the pitchers lose their poise? We could ask more and more of these questions and the answer would be the same. It's not because the Los Angeles Dodgers are the better baseball team or because the Cubs are a bad baseball team. You don't win 97 games if you don't know how to play. No, the reason for the Cubs downfall is that they bow down in front of a myth that has been part of baseball legends for so many decades. As a player you have to forget about that. It takes toughness under such circumstances to believe in yourself and to fight of the ghosts that have haunted so many players before you. After two games, these Cubs don't have that toughness. Actually, it looks like they never had it. No matter who you pick, if it is the struggling Alfonso Soriano, the declining Derrek Lee, the rattled pitchers, all rounder Kosuke Fukudome, they all showed the same fear, the same lack of guts and the inability to raise their game to the occasion. They dropped all their strongpoints of the year, their good, patient approach at the plate or their undying believe after falling behind. Nobody stepped up and put the team on his back either. Carlos Zambrano tried to do it but fell short. Lou Piniella could have tried it by moving a runner to third in the first inning with nobody out. He decided to let Ryan Theriot swing and strike out. It was a crucial situation not to score in that first inning as it only added to the doubts in his players' minds. In the end, they failed as a team in a monumentally bad effort from top to bottom. You could pick hundreds of symbolic situations or images from last night to describe the Cubs' state of mind. Mark DeRosa's postgame interview isn't one of them: "Don't count us out, stay with us. We're not dead." Well, even though it's hard to believe, he's right. There is hope. Like in 2004, when the Boston Red Sox were in almost the same situation as they Cubs are in now. Down 0-3 against the New York Yankees in the ALCS after decades of disaster and without any hope of bringing back the long wanted World Series Championship. That Red Sox team though fought back in a legendary comeback and later won their World Series ring. The talk was the same about curses, ghosts and losing. Yet the players stepped up, they showed their guts, their toughness and their heart. Even though they didn't have history on their side as no other team had ever come back from a three game deficit. This year it looks better for the Cubs actually. The Yankees once came back from 0-2 to advance against Oakland. So could we say history is on the Cubs' side? Not really as the history and how they deal with it is the reason why these Cubs are where they are right now. And they better find their hearts quickly or the lights at Wrigley Field will not shine again this season. For another year until the ride begins again. With another added year of weight on their shoulders...
No comments:
Post a Comment