Rozner: Party at Wrigley only just beginning
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.
Ladies and gentlemen, attend or not, come in or don't, the party that began Nov. 2 has displayed not the slightest sign of slowing down.
It continued in Wrigleyville Monday afternoon, or in some quarters Monday morning, and went all day, the masses well-oiled and well-deserving by game time, by then having witnessed the season of their dreams raised in brilliant colors above the bleachers in center field, a banner to fly as an eternal reminder of 2017.
There was the unusual pomp and circumstance at a ballpark that has never known such a celebration, the standard arrangement for teams that have played this tune many times before.
It's why you can't blame any Cubs fan that hasn't come down from the high of Game 7, as if Cleveland happened yesterday.
The World Series victory may have taken place five months ago, but the parade won't end until rings are handed out Wednesday night in front of the Dodgers, whom the Cubs dispatched here at Wrigley Field in Game 6 when Kyle Hendricks bested Clayton Kershaw.
And it's why you wouldn't blame the Cubs themselves if they wanted to be done with it all, if it was becoming something of a distraction more than a week into trying to defend their crown.
But as always antithetical, this group seems buoyed by the incessant attention, the inevitable conversation and hyperbolic hysteria that surrounds every one of them, every minute of the day.
Young players can be unpredictable and the Cubs have a young roster, the youngest group of position players in nearly 50 years to win the World Series.
Young players can become satisfied or selfish. They get fat on life and thin-skinned without praise. They focus on making money instead of making the most of a great situation.
Or, they can want more from baseball. They can fuel their hunger with the desire to win.
That defines the 2017 Cubs, no less interested in dominating Major League Baseball than they were in 2016.
Is that abnormal?
“I think so,” Cubs president Theo Epstein told us on Hit and Run. “I don't think there's anything normal or usual about our group of guys and I don't take it for granted. It's really not the norm, especially for millennials, to be so self-motivated and so team-first and hungry. No, it's not normal, but we appreciate it.
“In a way, it's really those guys and their approach to the game that created an identity for the organization.”
The championship hangover that some teams suffer is real, both emotional and physical. Epstein tried to prepare for it, but he and his staff quickly found little cause for concern.
“We had an open dialogue about what happens when you win, and how there are dangers, but our guys don't really need it,” Epstein said. “They did a ton of preparation in the offseason.
“They're low maintenance. We don't really have to do much. They kind of manage themselves. We're lucky to have young guys so incredibly focused.”
Luck had little to do with it, but they needed a bit to open the season in Chicago, albeit two hours later and in 36-degree wind chill.
While rain delayed the banner ceremony Monday night, a full house stood as one and watched Game 6 of the NLCS on the colossal video board, this just hours after thousands stood mesmerized, watching a replay of Game 7 of the World Series on a huge screen in the new plaza.
As the tarp came up just past 8 p.m., and Cubs players started getting loose in left field, they stopped in their tracks to watch the giant video of David Ross dancing live on national TV.
And at 8:30, the entire team walked out onto the field and through the doors in the right field wall. As if emerging from the corn in “Field of Dreams,” they arrived on the other side and at 8:36 raised their World Series banner, 159 days after they captured the flag.
But the weirder it gets, the more normal life becomes for a group of players immersed in a circus that refuses to leave town.
Not even rain could, well, rain on the Cubs' banner parade, which may last many more months before everyone is ready to move on to 2017.
It was just two years ago that Opening Day was a disaster, bleachers closed and bathrooms unavailable as the national media - justifiably so - had plenty of fun at the Cubs' expense.
Since then, all they've done is rebuild a 100-year-old museum, make it a modern-day palace and win the World Series.
It's all lollipops and roses now.
And, oh yeah, rings.
Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's “Hit and Run” show at WSCR 670-AM.