Curse of Cubs Fans pt. 3: No Pressure

Yesterday I suggested that pressure from Cubs fans is having a detrimental effect on the players' ability to perform. Today I'm here to tell you that I was 100% out of my gourd. That's not the problem with Cubs fans. For the past few years we've played the part of a fan base with great expectations, but let's be real: all the "this is the year" talk was just our dreams talking. Deep down we all knew the Cubs have no intentions of winning, but we don't let that dissuade us from cheering for the team. This song is our motto: I will always love you.



What's causing the Cubs downfall this year and every year is the genuine and firmly entrenched belief in the hearts and minds of all Cub players and coaches: We don't have to win. We'll still get paid. We'll still have each other. The fans will still love us.

The Cubs don't have to win. They don't even have to put a good team on the field. All the organization has to do to keep the turnstiles spinning is toss us a few Dora giveaways, a beanie baby here and there, and trot Denise Richards into the press booth for a rousing rendition of "Pay No Attention To My Voice, Please." Win and we'll buy everything you're selling. Lose, and we'll complain. But our numbers won't ever decrease, not really.

Organizationally, the front office merely has to create the illusion of trying. As long as there's at least one player who can hit 40 or so homers or one pitcher who can strike out a dozen guys (or draw Chuck-Norris style worship of him manliness) the club's cult following will remain intact. And if you don't touch the ivy or the scoreboard, the house of worship that is Wrigley Field will never lack parishioners.

Psychologically, the players know perfectly well that if they give their 75% best, the fans will cheer as though they're seeing Babe Ruth outperform his prime. If Derrek Lee can play like Bill Buckner, we'll applaud him like he's Lou Gehrig. Every now and then we'll boo to preserve the illusion, but come on . . . we love these guys through thick and thin. Not that we can remember what thick is like.

What incentive does any player or team have to succeed in Chicago? The best ever celebration if they do win it all? Big deal! Why go the extra mile of winning a World Series when they're lauded like kings if they win the Pirates series?

If we really want the Cubs to win it all, we've got to stop going to games altogether. Stop watching games. Don't even check the box scores until the division is clinched.

And when we do go, boo them mercilessly unless they win. By seven runs. Even then, mild applause is sufficient. We've got to stop being the Generation X parent who praises the simplest accomplishment. Do you really want the Cubs to carry around that sense of entitlement and inflated esteem? No! We've got to become the old-school parents of baby boomers who reward Nobel-worthy feats with brief respites from corporeal punishment.

Grand slam, Theriot? Congratulations. No belt to the back of the legs until tomorrow. You made it to the World Series? Okay, I'll disallow comments on my "Embalm Lou Piniella" post until you lose again.

The cheering, the love, the loyalty? It's ruining this team.

Grabow feels better. Will he be?

Grabow's back. See what I did there?

The Cubs have recalled John Grabow off the 15-day disabled list and sent Mitch Atkins to reexamine a career choice that has seen him as less desirable than John Grabow in the eyes of the Chicago Cubs front office.

John Grabow of the 9.45 ERA. John Grabow who has exactly one run allowed to match each of his 23 appearances. The guy with the 4.95 BB/9 innings rate. The one allowing opponents to hit .362, to reach base at a .431 clip, and to slug .611 against him. Barry Bonds had a career OPS of 1.051; batters facing Grabow this year trail Bonds only slightly with an OPS of 1.042.

Most fans are understandably irate that Grabow is returning to this team, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe, just maybe the problem in 2010 has been an injury that he's not bringing back with him. Because, if we find a way to wipe our memories clean of the filth that has been his season thus far, no one was this disappointed with John Grabow's status as a Chicago Cub.

Oh, I know all too well that many people hated the signing, which is why they always cite the total amount he's being paid over this year and the next ($7.5 million) as if he's being paid that much annually; that mistake is only half as bad as it's being made out to be. Still, many Cubs fans were unhappy that the Cubs paid that much money to a marginally serviceable reliever with a relatively lucky streak of late (at the time . . . clearly his luck has run out in 2010).

For his career, Grabow has had a WHIP floating between 1.2 and 1.5. In 2008 he had a deceivingly low ERA (2.84) because of an impossibly high LOB% (85.5). No one strands 85% of their baserunners. John Grabow did it that year. On the other hand, no one strands just 56.8% of their baserunners either, and John Grabow is doing it this year. His career rate is 73.4%, so 2010 definitely looks like more of an aberration than 2008.

That's just the thing. None of Grabow's career numbers are anything close to this bad. Something had to have changed. He's only 31. It's not a great leap to blame 2010 on an injury. Still, I remember thinking the same thing about Aaron Miles last year, and we all know how that ended up.

I'm not saying we should put supreme confidence in the guy, but it makes sense to give him a chance to prove he can still pitch. It's not like the World Series hangs in the balance, here.

Curse of Cubs Fans pt. 2: Too Much Pressure

Dennis Eckersley . . . had just been traded to the Cubs and seemed dumbfounded by the intensity and the atmosphere. Sandberg said he had a pretty funny moment with Eckersley.

"He just sat there and watched," Sandberg said, "and after the game I remember him saying, 'Wow, Ryne, is every game like this in Wrigley Field?' He just couldn't believe what he saw, the excitement of the crowd and everything happening."

Excerpt from Chicago Cubs: Memorable Stories of Baseball, by Lew Freedman

Cub fans love to hear that we provide a special playing environment enjoyed by our team and envied by visiting ballclubs. Even when wins are scarce, Cub fans somehow create a playoff atmosphere on a Tuesday against the Pirates. We need no jumbotron to incite an uproar when one of our pitchers gets a two-strike count on a batter. We autonomously rise to our feet when the Cubs get the chance to take the lead, even if it is the second inning. Well . . . sometimes. Other times we do the wave when the game is on the line.

The point is, Cubs fans have a reputation for being the most unconditionally supportive and vociferously optimistic cheerleaders in all of sports. When players come to Wrigley, they know they'll be taking part in a game where everyone in the building cares to the utmost of their very souls. And that's in June. When September and (with any luck not ruined by our jinx-happy fan base) October roll around, forget it. Wrigley Field is a pressure cooker.

And  maybe that's the problem. Every game. Every at-bat. Every pitch carries the weight of 10 million hopes and dreams. Maybe it is every player's dream to play in front of a raucous, wildly cheering crowd, but the pressure of living up to our expectations just may be too much for any team.

The obvious point of rebuttal plays in the Bronx. Yankee fans have higher expectations than Cubs fans, and they outnumber us, too. But Yankee fans merely ask their teams to live up to history. We're asking the Cubs to erase it.

NPR recently ran a story on the American Psychoanalytic Association's views on the mentality of baseball among fans and players. One quote in particular stands out, from Dr. Robert Pyles, who stands to be the APA's next president: "I never thought of baseball as a sport. I thought of it as a mythic struggle between heroes and bad guys." That's all well and good in the mind of a fan, but a player elevated to hero status has to feel enormous pressure from a teeming throng of blue-clad worshipers expects him to slay a 102-year-old dragon.

You can see it in the eyes of Mark Prior in the 8th inning of Game 6 or in Alex Gonzales's nervous hands or in Moises Alou's irate gesticulation. Leon Durham in '84. The offensive impotence of the 2007 playoffs or the complete defensive meltdown of '08. In all these instances, the pressure imposed by Cubs fans appeared to be simply too much for talented mortals to bear.

And that's just the positive pressure. Now that Cub fans have had a taste of near-glory, they've grown embittered to anything but perfection. The journalists in this town have turn to sadists. Bloggers are out of patients. The paying customers resorted to booing the youngest player in baseball on his Wrigley debut. Fan pressure turns a playoff team into a nervous mess, and it has turned an underperforming June swooning club into a steaming pile of mediocre.

The calls for Jim Hendry's head are on Cub-fan speed-dial. Lou Piniella is only half as old and tired as the fire-Lou meme. The Ricketts clan is so occupied by the team sponsor image reclamation campaign that they really can't be bothered with fan complaints. But if the fans really wanted to make a positive impact on this team both now and in the future, we'd cool the heck down, take a deep breath and enjoy the game.

Keep this pressure up, and the entire Cubs organization will need the number for Milton's therapist.

And don't worry if you disagree with everything I said here. I'll make the exact opposite argument tomorrow.

Curse of Cubs Fans: We're Jinxing Them

World's Greatest Fans = World's Worst Luck

Theodore Roosevelt Lilly stood atop the rain-soaked Wrigley Field mound Sunday night with a chance of realizing every pitcher's dream: a no-hitter. During any no-no, pressure mounts for the pitcher, all the players, and the fans with every passing out. But this one carried a unique flair as both starting pitchers stretched their hitless performances into inning number seven. At least for this fan watching and tweeting from the comfort of his living room couch and referring to himself in the third person, the pressure of seeing Lilly preserve his chance at history was greatly reduced by Gavin Floyd's pursuit of his own historicity.

The double bid seemed to cancel out the cardinal rule of superstitious baseball etiquette: don't jinx the no-no.

Now, one might think that recording 27 outs without allowing a single hit is impossibly rare, not due to the speech patterns of observing fans, but because of just how easy it is for a professional baseball player to get a hit, especially given almost 30 opportunities to do so. I mean, think about that for a minute. If an individual player slides into an 0-27 slump, fans would boo him mercilessly. Aramis Ramirez, as bad as this year has been for him, never went 27 at bats without a hit (though he did reach an 0-20 hole). Aaron Miles's colossal failfest in 2010 topped out at 20 consecutive hitless at bats. As bad as that looked, Miles never took a personal no-hit streak past the theoretical seventh inning.

So if it's that rare for a hitter at his worst to make 27 outs before recording a single hit, shouldn't we attribute the fall of a no-hitter to the overwhelming improbability of a pitcher retiring 27 batters without allowing even a remote base knock? Do we really need to add to the improbability by expecting all of humanity to refrain from saying, "no-hitter," until it's over?

Yes, maybe we do. A lot of people mentioned the no hitter, and it didn't happen for either guy. Obviously we screwed it up. I mean, come on, what are the chances that the no-hitters would be broken up by Alfonso Soriano (who had been 1 for his previous 22) and Juan Pierre (0 for his last 11)? That's gotta be roughly the same odds as Lady Gaga blending in . . . anywhere. Fate must have intervened.

Since I'm exploring the various ways in which Cub fans are destroying their own team, I want to look at more than just the disintegration of the no-hitter. What if the jinx goes beyond single-game probabilities? What if Cub fans are jinxing this team's World Series chances because we can't stop talking about 1908?

Obviously broadcasters aren't playing along. You can't go past the third inning of a nationally broadcast Cubs game (or, for that matter, an hour into any broadcast of any game in any sport in which either team is or has a chance of becoming the reigning world champion) without hearing a reference to the Cubs' championship drought. But broadcasters have a job to do and time to fill. You can't really expect them to shut up about it.

The fans are even worse, and I might be the chief among sinners. This entire blog is a shrine to the neverending chronicle of winlessness. Is it possible that every time I mention the (at least) 102-year span between championship celebrations, I lower the already infinitesimal probability that the Cubs might actually win it all?

Of course it's possible. You could say it's bordering on undeniable fact. All we have to do to ensure the Cubs end the curse of the billy goat (which is stupid and doesn't exist and every sensible person knows this beyond a shadow of a doubt) is to go an entire year without any of us saying anything about a World Series or 1908 or 100+ years or any of that. Because every time we do, we are angering the baseball gods. And, if you haven't noticed, the baseball gods are already pretty ticked off at the Cubs. If the Cubs were Ferris Bueller, the baseball gods would be Edward Rooney. But the Cubs aren't Ferris Bueller. They're Cameron Frye. They could be Abe flipping Froman, but it still wouldn't change the fact that they have to bum trophies off of people.

But look, I can't tell you what to do. Mention 1908. Don't mention 1908. Just know that by doing so, we're all jinxing the Cubs on a daily basis and we are killing this team's chances at a World Series. When you sit there scratching your head, yelling at your TV, or trying to suffocate yourself with a 1945 commemorative pillow wondering how this team could play so badly, just remind yourself that it's our fault. We're jinxing it with every passing mention of the legacy of futility and the for baseball absolution that comprises the anguish and unrequited anticipation that is Cub fandom.

Maybe We're the Problem

Hey, don't blame me. That's Pogo talkin'.

I haven't performed a psychiatric evaluation on baseball fans across the country, but if I did I'd expect the results to show that Washington Nationals fans are among the happiest in all the land. Yes, the Nationals are in last place (despite being 2.5 games ahead of the 3rd place Cubs . . . divisions are stupid). But fans of the Nats are excited to have the most electric pitching prospect to reach the majors since . . . well, you know.

Cubs fans know what it's like to be excited about a rookie pitcher (or two) with all-ever stuff and intergalactic potential and to be buoyed by the hope their rocket arms bring. We're also looking at those hopes in the rear-view mirror. The team we're looking at now inspires all the hope of a neoplastic skin lesion.

Looking back to the era of Prior and Wood leaves us with nothing but what if's and if only's, which aren't in the least bit comforting, and the mourner's favorite question: Why? We look for people to blame. Dusty Baker. Lou Piniella. Jim Hendry. Wood and Prior themselves. Steve Stone. Bartman, the goat, God, or anyone who believes in any of that. But what if we're to blame?

Maybe fan expectations caused Wood to falter and Prior to deteriorate. Maybe large attendance turns good teams into bad ones. Maybe it's bad luck to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," when Jim Belushi tells you to. It's quite possible that latent racism lowers outfielder slugging percentage. Reading anything Pepin le Bref writes in the Chicago Tribune may induce fail-wreaking karma upon your favorite baseball team. Buying that Cubs' jersey has been known to cause groin injuries . . . or it could be.

I don't know. All I know is, the Cubs seemed doomed to fail no matter who trots out onto the field. The only constant I can see across the years is . . . us. So over the course of this week, I'll be exploring all the different ways that being a Cubs fan hurts the team's chances. Should be fun.

Maybe Baseball's Just Not Your Game . . .

Ike = the Cubs
Poker = Baseball
12 Hands in a Row = 102 Years in a Row
Doc = Reality
Tombstone = the Only Thing Missing from the 2010 Cubs Team Picture

Aramis IS Back . . . on the DL

Rest easy, Aramis, and remember: lift with your legs, not your thumb.

Bruce Levine of ESPN Chicago is reporting that Aramis Ramirez is headed to the DL, according to sources close to the Situation. I still don't know how this situation or others involving sports teams develop sources outside of the team itself. It's not like this is NATO discussing Kosovo or anything. Ramirez's thumb hurts.

I also don't know why so many people are complaining that this move wasn't made sooner. I'm sorry, but I don't think that a sore left thumb was a seriously significant contribution to Aramis's woeful pitch selection and decreased contact percentage. He just hasn't looked like a guy who can find the baseball with his bat or his eyes. Unless it's a blinding thumb soreness, I'd say the thumb and the bat have been two different issues.

Naturally, the Cubs are expected to call up Chad Tracy, who has been hitting 8.000 and slugging 1.600 x 10^17 at AAA Iowa. You can pretty much count on the team to be in first place by the end of the month.

UPDATE: It's official now. Aramis is on the 15-day DL, retroactive to June 8. I knew I could trust Snooki.