Reality is, make believe the way to go

Cubs fans have been going about it all wrong for more than a century.

They have looked outward for the Cubs to win a World Series when they should have realized that the whole show is inside their own heads.

Andy Van Slyke, a former Cardinals and Pirates player, of all things, is showing the way with a new novel, "The Curse: Cubs Win! Cubs Win! - Or Do they?"

The title is cumbersome and confusing, but the news release isn't: "Yes, the 2010 season will have a very happy ending for the Chicago Cubs."

Oh, how I have wasted my sports writing career waiting to cover the Cubs in a World Series. I could have written them into a fictitious championship and mapped out my own mental parade route.

I'm not alone in the oversight. For example, some great nonfiction authors followed the Cubs throughout the 2004 season to chronicle in book form the end of the Cubs' championship drought.

Only to be disappointed again, of course. Silly them; silly me; silly all of us.

As I often tell you, I accepted long ago that the real-life Cubs never will win a World Series in my lifetime.

Too many goats are out there, along with too many black cats and Bartmans, too many hexes and jinxes, too many curses and assorted other paranormal demons.

You know, too many big blown leads left over from 1969, too many Gatorade-splashed gloves from 1984, at least one too many geeky looking guys from 2003.

Bartman? No, that last one was a reference to former Cubs shortstop Alex Gonzalez.

Anyway, the mind is much more fertile than the Wrigley Field turf. All things are possible between the ears compared to between the lines of the old ball yard.

Like, in '69 space aliens could have swooped down and rescued the Cubs from the big choke.

In the '84 National League Championship Series the first female major leaguer could have knuckleballed the Cubs past the Padres.

In the '03 NLCS the ghosts of Tinker, Evers and Chance could have turned that fateful double play against the Marlins.

Impossible pretending is the only way the Cubs can win a World Series for the first time since 1908 or even play in one for the first time since 1945.

This season wouldn't be lost already if it were a novel. Not even being 11 games under .500 and 91/2 games out of first place at the all-star break would be insurmountable.

Imaginary options are limitless. My choice would be a college of retired wise men returning to counsel Lou Piniella.

Every time the Cubs manager throws up his hands, stutters and utters that he is out of answers, a panel of Earl Weaver, Sparky Anderson and Tommy Lasorda would provide him with guidance.

Weaver: "Listen, dummy, turn Derrek Lee into a switch hitter."

Anderson: "Pitch Alfonso Soriano in middle relief."

Lasorda: "Appoint Carlos Zambrano the team captain."

Trust me, the Cubs would respond with a 50-game winning streak, cruise through the NL playoffs and sweep the Yankees in the make-believe World Series.

Yes, folks, this would be one case where fiction is stranger than fact.

In fact, novel ideas are the Cubs' only shot at winning a championship.

mimrem@dailyherald.com