An ultimate indignity in the making
This isn't funny anymore, though many nationwide are laughing.
In nearly a century of ignominy, the Cubs are on the brink of the ultimate ignominy, and not just because the National League pennant is there for the asking.
If the Cubs proceed to lose their NL division series to the Diamondbacks -- you might have heard they're a defeat from extinction -- it might be the most depressingly frustrating and frustratingly depressing development of all.
Think about it. Colorado is beating the Phillies in the other division series. A Rockies-Diamondbacks series looms for a trip to the World Series.
Now, it's insult enough for the Cubs that the D'backs already won a world championship in 2001. It's bad enough that the expansion Marlins won two since 1997.
Within the past 25 years the Royals and the Reds won a World Series apiece and the Twins won two. Even the Padres played in a couple.
What's next, the Schaumburg Flyers against the Kane County Cougars for the title while the Cubs sit home?
No, what's next possibly -- perhaps probably considering each leads 2-0 in its best-of-five NLDS -- is Arizona in its second World Series or Colorado in its first.
Meanwhile, the Cubs verge on their 99th consecutive season without a world championship and 63rd without playing for one.
Arizona wasn't even a state in 1908, the last time the Cubs won a World Series. Colorado was just learning to walk. Can either have long-suffering fans when it didn't have a team until the 1990s?
These are two last outposts on Major League Baseball's frontier compared to the Cubs. It would be like Mexico beating out Canada to host the Winter Olympics.
To illustrate exactly how ludicrous this is, consider attendance figures for the 2007 regular season.
The Cubs averaged 40,153 per game, fourth in the NL and sixth in MLB. Meanwhile, Arizona (28,598) was 12th in the league and 20th overall, Colorado (28,978) 11th and 19th.
Yet the Cubs, the team with the most faithful following, is in danger of going a full century without winning a World Series.
The Diamondbacks and the Rockies, who spent much of the season on street corners begging for fans, are threatening to qualify for this World Series.
The Arizona Republic newspaper quoted Diamondbacks pitcher Livan Hernandez as saying prior to the NLDS opener, "I wonder if the people in Arizona understand support is very important."
Cubs playoff tickets sold out, well, probably way back in spring training. D'backs' playoff tickets were available right up to the day of the opener.
If Cubs fans didn't fill about 5,000 seats in Chase Field, Game 1 might not have been a sellout. Game 2 wasn't.
"It's time the fans show up and give support to the team," Hernandez said. "The team made it, the fans made it, because the fans help the team win, too."
Cubs fans never need a pep talk. Almost to a fault, they show up at Wrigley Field anytime anybody even whispers, "Play ball!"
But here we are, looking at the Diamondbacks and the Rockies favored today to play for the NL pennant.
If that wouldn't be enough to send Cubs fans toward the ledge and over the edge -- just two years after the White Sox became champions -- what could?
Maybe the Flyers against the Cougars in the World Series.
mimrem@dailyherald.com