Baseball Season's Under Way . . .

Pitchers and catchers have yet to report, but they're thinking about it.

There's a foot of snow outside my house, but some of it is melting.

I know a lot of people hate the song, but I still feel compelled to get ready for a brand new day.

Vegas is giving 14:1 odds that the Cubs will win the World Series, but they also gave Buster Douglas 42:1 to beat Tyson.

The ivy looks dead, but it'll grow back.

I haven't heard Pat nor Ron nor Len nor Bob in quite awhile, but I know the next "Aw, Geez!" is right around the corner.

Somewhere someone's arguing about how much money Ryan Theriot deserves, and somewhere someone in Wrigleyville is wondering if getting called out by an arbiter is considered a TOOTBLAN.

Yeah, we're in the middle of the Winter Olympics, but when I see Sean White's head crash into the snowboard halfpipe, I can't help but think of Sam Fuld.

The Cubs will not win the World Series, but I refuse to learn.

Hope springs eternal, and so does stupidity.

It's 30 degrees outside, and it feels like baseball.

Play ball.

Acceptance

The 2009 dream is over. Thankfully, we still have games to watch. But it's time to face facts. There will be at least 102 years between Cubs World Series Championships.

The standard denial is to lower that number by one. It comes with the silly notion that a championship lasts for a year. Sorry. The sad truth of the Holy Grail for which all Cub fans pine is that a World Series victory is locked inside an instant. As the old French ballad goes, "Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment / Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie." For you who don't parlez Français, it means the pleasure of a World Series lasts for but a moment, but the pain it causes lasts your whole damn life.

The Cubs won in the fall of '08. The soonest they'll win another is '10. That's the nicest way I can say the wait will be 102 years.

Go, Cubs. Just . . . Go.

Another Cubs loss, another step toward reality. The elimination numbers (WC and NL Central) are still in double digits, so mathematical hope lives on. But you can feel 2009 slipping away, a fragment of what it once was.

Maybe it's time for you to slip away into the "reflection" stage of grief. It's okay to feel alone, to walk that finely stitched seam between loneliness and solitude. It might be sweet joy to linger after a win with 40,000 friends singing or just tolerating "Go, Cubs, Go," as you all bask in the glee of your collective fortune. But after a loss that only serves to confirm the imminent dread crashing all around you . . . that's not the kind of misery you want company for.

I always think it helps to step outside. Enclosures are just containers for the pain. Step into the open air and let out the 2009 version of your hurt. Breathe in the air too new to know suffering or too ancient to care. It doesn't matter. You're unbound by walls or losses or underperforming millionaires. You are free.

I also find it helpful to hold a baseball in your hands. Resist the urge to throw it through a window. Just let its tactile spherical elegance take you back to the moment when you and baseball first fell in love. Don't worry about what went wrong. Just remember the joy of the best baseball moments and the people you shared them with. Remind yourself that baseball, particularly Cubs baseball, isn't about winning.

Oh that it was, but who are we kidding?

My Cubs Bio

I'm pretty sure I'm not in the Cubs media guide, but if I were, here's what I'd hope they'd say about me:

I'm not the biggest Cubs fan in the world. I don't collect memorabilia. I'm not a season ticket holder. I've never been to spring training. 

But I will say that visiting Wrigley Field for the first time may have been the defining moment of my life. It feels like home. The Cubs feel like family. And every game feels like yet another family meal that I'm not allowed to miss. 

I don't cheer for the Cubs because I want to, I do it because I believe I was born this way and I don't know what else to do. I will never give up on the Cubs. I will never be done with them. 

I've had "Go Cubs Go" in my head since 1984. 

I pound on things when the Cubs lose. 

I was among the 15,000 fans at the Kerry Wood game. I sat in the bleachers, a ticket for which I paid $6. 

I still like Sammy Sosa. 

I'm not an eternal optimist, but I never get all that down on the team. I don't like criticizing the manager or the management. I prefer to try to understand them and what they're doing. Except for Larry Himes. He was an ass. 

At some point every year I allow myself to imagine what I would do if the Cubs won the World Series. At some point later I always wonder if that's what jinxed them. 

Some part of me wants the Cubs to tank so we can return to the days when a spring bleacher ticket cost $6 and only 15,000 people would come to a game where the starter was some unproven gangling rookie. 

I will miss Kerry Wood, but I won't miss people calling him "Woods." 

I knew I could trust Tony on "24" because he drank out of a Cubs mug. 

I love white flags, blue W's, green ivy, and crooked yellow numbers on the bottom row of the scoreboard. 

I believe guest conductors should always start the 7th inning stretch with no other words than, "Alright, let me hear ya. A one, a two, a three. . . ." 

I hate the Cardinals. Go Cubs.