The 2014 Cubs: Best of the Worst

I wrote this post at the end of the 2014 baseball season.  It is worth another look.  It’s about my Dad, a true blue Cub fan, and the team he loved.  The Cubs, two years after this was posted, are in the World Series.  My Dad, born in 1909, is gone.  But as he always said "You Are Where You Are."

My Dad made obvious statements impossible to refute.  He often brought universal truths into the open,  enjoying them immensely.  They were simple and pure, defying follow up questions or responses of any kind really.  One of his favorite lines was;

“Everybody’s got to be somewhere.”

It’s very hard to argue with that statement.  Mom might be at the kitchen table reading the Bloomington Pantagraph about some Danvers man was picked up for a traffic offense and be surprised at where and when the arrest was made. 

“What do you suppose he was doing that time of night on the South Side of Bloomington?” she would say loudly, implying he was up to no good.  To which Dad might reply;

“Well you know, everybody’s got to be somewhere.”

He never named EGBS, this concept in the acronym.  It could have been Dean’s law of random physical presence, the requirement that our bodies occupy space somewhere on the planet.  For him I think it expressed something deeply existential.  We heard that line and others so much we tended to dismiss them because they were so obvious.  He thought they were funny, and smiled as he delivered the lines. 

Its corollary, which is even better I think, is that sage bit of wisdom;

“You are where you are.” 

That’s certainly true, in every case, whenever said, but it implies something else.  YAWYA, which might be Dean’s law of unavoidable current habitation, carries with it the necessity of accepting your place but at the same time assessing your situation.  We don’t like to do that as Americans.  We like to ignore  reality and live instead in  possibility, as if we were at some place we are not.  Like a poor medical student without two dimes to rub together behaving as if he were already a rich doctor, living in a hovel drinking cheap beer but buying expensive crystal for the day he can enjoy fine wine.  Dad liked to call things as he saw them, encouraged his family and others to do the same, but at the same time offered hope.  He lived through a lot of bad stuff, my Dad.  I like to think he learned these things, YAWYA and EGTBS, the hard way and tried in his gentle way to pass them on to us.

But then again Dad may have learned these lessons as a lifelong Cub fan.

Born in 1909, the year after the Cubs won their last World Series, Dad never saw them as champions during his lifetime.  During his 77 years on the planet he loved to listen to the Cubs play on the radio, and after he sold the cows he insisted on getting a giant TV dish, which we mounted in concrete by the garden, so he and Mom could pull in WGN from outer space and watch the Cubs on Channel 9.  He loved to follow them but never do I remember him joining in the chorus of boos that has followed them all these years for being arguably the worst team in baseball during the last century.  I think he was comforted and helped as a Cub fan by those two principles he embraced.  “Everybody has to be somewhere” and “You are where you are.”

The Cubs finished an entire season of Major League Baseball last night by winning their final game and taking two out of three from the Milwaukee Brewers, as they did from the St. Louis Cardinals earlier in the week.  At the beginning of the season my friend Chuck Maney point out that the Cubs looked good, if they had been playing in the Pacific Coast League.  Sadly they were not.  They were a major league ball club with little resemblance to one.  Did Cub fans have high hopes for their team in spring training?  No.  We expected them to have a losing season.  It was called a rebuilding year from the start, which is a misnomer.  For the Cubs it was simply a building year.  They had nothing to rebuild from.  Rebuilding implies you once had a solid structure to restore.  The Cubs have been in shambles, as far as their won-loss record, since their last winning season in 2008.  They lost 101 games in 2012.  Winning seasons have been few and far between since 1908.  It’s a very sad history to own.  But such is the history of the Chicago Cubs.  They are where they are. 

The Cubs finished in the cellar for the fifth year in a row, firmly occupying last place in of the National League’s Central Division.  Their 2014 record was 73 wins and 89 losses.  Thirty teams make up Major League Baseball in America, fifteen teams in both the American and National League.  The best team in baseball, Numero Uno during the regular season, was the Los Angeles Angels with a record of 98 wins and 64 losses.  The Cubs, looking purely at wins and losses now and not beer sales at home games, tied with the Philadelphia Phillies as 23^rd best team in baseball with a winning percentage of .451.  But then, everybody has to be somewhere. 

For a time I had this crazy hope that the Cubs might claw their way past the fading Cincinnati Reds and finish fourth in the division.  Sadly, that did not come to pass.  They missed that milestone by three games.  The Cubs could be worse.  Several teams are.  The lowly Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West own the title of worst team in baseball and are firmly established there with a winning percentage of .395, 63 wins and 96 losses.  If the Cubs were playing in the West rather than the Central there would be two teams below them, Colorado and Arizona.  But, they aren’t in the West.  They are where they are.

My own personal goal for the Cubs, after they traded off Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hamel to Oakland, was for my club to be the best of the worst, The cellar dwelling team in Major League Baseball with the best record.  Though few recognize it, there is each year a king of the cellar dwellers, the team that happens to find themselves last in their division but with the best record of the worst losers.  It happens this year the Cubs tied the Phillies for the honor “Best of the Worst.”  You won’t find this kind of analysis on ESPN folks.  It’s a shame to allow the title of “Best of the Worst” to end as a tie.  I personally believe it should be decided by a one game playoff.

The Cubs almost made won that crown.  In fact, I’m sure legions of Chicagoans got a push on their bets with friends that one Chicago team or another would have more wins.  The Chicago White Sox also finished the year at 73 wins and 89 losses.  It was predicted at the beginning of the season that the Cubs had a shot at another dreaded negative reverse achievement, the ultimate disgrace, losing 100 games.  HA! Not even close.  Not even 90.  I know some teams have not lost 90 games in modern history, but we’re talking about the Chicago Cubs here folks.  Since 1945 they have lost 90 in a single season 21 times.  They lost 100 games or more three times since 1945, the last time in 2012 when they lost 101. This year they traded practically every pitcher with any value, played kids who may or may not have to shave during the second half of the season, and still won 73 games while losing only 89.  If you’re a Cub fan you hang your hat on that 89.  The Cubs have lost 90 games or more the last three seasons.    Not this year baby. 

I know it’s easy to read this as a Cardinal fan, or a Yankee enthusiast, who adopt as their own smoothly oiled organizations with storied histories and a roomful of pennants and trophies, and scoff.  Laugh even; loudly, boisterously, derisively. 

“Those poor Cub fans,” they say, wiping tears of laughter from their eyes.  “Why would you stay loyal to a team with such a miserable history, an organization that traded Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio, actually believed that Adolfo Phillips would one day become a hitter, and has not had a team in the World Series for 105 years?”  More laughter.  They can hardly stand up it’s so funny.  ROTFLMAO.

Well to them I say everybody has to be somewhere, and that’s exactly where the Cubs are.  Yes, they have a losing record (though not within the friendly confines of Wrigley field, where they won 41 and lost 40.)  Yes they traded away their best pitchers, anyone with actual with proven value except for Jake Arrieta.  And yes they still have problems with their old ball park.  But where are the Cubs exactly?

The Cubs are poised for success.  They have long term contracts with two young players who had solid seasons and are beginning to produce-Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro.  Rizzo finished second in the National League in homers with 32.  Castro was tenth best among National League batters in batting average with .292 and kept his head in the game all season.  They brought up four promising rookies, Jorge Solero, Javier Baez, Arismendy Alacantara, and Kyle Hendricks, a rookie who pitched himself into the starting rotation.  Who did they get for Samardzija and Hamel?  Addison Russell, yet another shortstop who in 2012 was baseball’s first round draft pick, Billy McKinney the 2013 number one pick, pitcher Dan Strahly and that perennial favorite PTBNL (Player to Be Named Later.)  The Cubs traded known talent for vast potential.  Samardzija and Hamel helped Oakland get to the playoffs this year.  Russell and McKinney may carry the Cubs there often in future years.

Even critics of the Cubs covet the young players now in the Cubs organization including Kris Bryant, Albert Almora, and C.J. Edwards.  They can be developed or traded.  Have you heard of these guys?  They haven’t played an inning of Major League Baseball.  Watch for them.  And miracle of miracles, the Cubs may have actually found an effective closer in Hector Rondon.  God help me if I’ve jinxed these young players. 

So yes it’s always true as my Dad was so fond of saying, that everyone has to be somewhere.  Where are the Cubs?  They finished in the cellar of the Central division with a losing record.  They did not have a good season in 2014.  But fortunately, you are where you are.  The Cubs are loaded with talented young players.  They still haven’t won, but I like where they are.  The “Best of the Worst” is a start.  I can hardly wait till next year.  But then, I’m a Cub fan.  What do you expect?  Dad if only you were here to see this.  The Cubs aren’t there yet.  But next year, or the year after, really could be the year.  Don’t give up hope.