The Late Show with Carlos Zambrano tops debate for fans with a Cubs vice
On a busy night for TV watchers, vice presidential candidates Sarah Palin and Joe Biden finish their debates by the time the Cubs Late Show with Carlos Zambrano gets interesting at Wrigley Field.
"I'm actually a government teacher, so I need to tape it so I can show it to my students," Romeoville High School teacher Stacy Soliday says of the historic political debate. The 30-year-old Plainfield woman watches the Cubs game live and in person Thursday with a much more animated crowd at Wrigley.
She isn't the only political observer to skip the debate in St. Louis to catch the Cubs playoff game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Conservative icon George Will is in Wrigley, apparently more interested in seeing Zambrano sneak strike threes past Dodger slugger Manny Ramirez or give up that monster home run than he is in seeing if the rookie Palin can hold her own or dish it out in the national spotlight against the veteran Biden. Given the recent televised performances of Zambrano and Palin, their fans might have reason to be nervous.
Soliday won't say whether she's rooting for Palin or Biden, but the teacher is outspoken about pulling for a Zambrano win. Wearing one of her Zambrano jerseys and loaning out another to her brother, Robert, 33, Soliday knows the score before the game starts.
"I'm 100 percent confident he can do it," she says of Big Z.
Her brother, a programmer at Argonne National Laboratory in DuPage County, hesitates when asked about his faith that the Cubs and Zambrano will win.
"I have ... hope," he offers, taking a buzzword from the politic arena.
While political parties can spin the debate to make it seem as if their candidate won, loyal Cubs fans don't have that option with the historic scoreboard towering above center field.
Just because the Cubs can see the promised land from atop their perch as the National League's winningest team doesn't mean that the franchise hasn't regarded a World Series championship as a totally foreign policy for the past 100 years.
Zambrano seems stable enough to win over fans, if not the game. But Cubs infielders stumble all over themselves. The Dodgers score 5 runs by the time Palin and Biden hit the showers.
"There's a debate?" jokes Mike Bitter, who sits behind the Cubs dugout with his friend, Bill Wilkens and Wilkens' kids Brendan, 10, and Shannon, 13, all of Hawthorn Woods. "I saw snippets of interviews. That's enough."
The 5-0 deficit before the Cubs can bat for a second time might be enough for some fans. But 13-year-old Shannon Wilkens knows the early polls mean nothing.
"I was at the game on May 30th," says Shannon, an eighth grader at St. Mary School in Buffalo Grove. "The Rockies were ahead 9-1 and the Cubs came back to win 10-9. It was amazing."
Following that script, the Cubs record more errors (3) than hits (2) to fall behind 6-0. As the Cubs game rolls past the 10 p.m. news and into late-night competition against Letterman and Leno, Cubs fans want their team to stop the Stupid Fielder Tricks and start compiling a Top 10 list. Instead, it's 7-0 by the seventh inning. Cheers turn to boos to heads-in-their hands resignation to a glimmer of hope when the Cubs finally score. The Cubs do fall behind 9-1, but there is no miracle comeback this time.
When the Cubs regular season ended, no one expected that the Blackhawks might be the next Chicago team to win a game at Wrigley. Losing the first two playoff games at home makes it tricky, but not impossible, to win a best-of-five playoff series.
The series continues with an even later start (9 p.m.) Saturday in Los Angeles. The Cubs need 3 straight wins to continue their campaign for glory - going from the favorites to make the World Series to the dark horse candidate to survive past the first playoff round.
On that, there is no debate.