The Wild Card of Love

 This might sound odd coming from a guy whose favorite team just went down in two in the NL Wild Card playoffs, but I like the WC format. There are two ways to get a slot in the WC in MLB. You earn it by coming on strong at the end of the long-ass season like the San Diego Padres did, or you default to it like my Chicago Cubs did by floundering at the end, defaulting to wins and losses. All through September it was a given that the Cubs had the WC in the NL Central Division. Their mission was to play for the best record and attain homefield advantage against their opponent. That's big. That's what the Padres fought for and that's what they got. The team with the better record gets all three games in front of the home folks. In any sport that's gold. Home cookin'! Everybody wants it. It helps. 

I didn't expect a lot from the Cubs back in Spring Training. Two of our star pitchers were hurt and out for the season. That's tough on any team. You don't make plans for October that involve playing baseball when you're saddled like that early on. You think about fishing, or golfing in Arizona. But the Cubs are a decidedly offensive team and the remaining starters performed better than expected. We put together some winning streaks- and some losing streaks. It was the ups and downs of baseball and for quite a bit of it, we were more up than down. Well, until September. The fucking bullpen just didn't seem to be on our side! They blew a lot of games. In the midst of a spectacular season by young, Pete Crow-Armstrong, the bullpen seemed intent on making other teams players look like our PCA. It was at times, painful to watch. 

But I have been at this baseball thing for several decades. I know how it works. I know there are thousands of guys like me in every major league city who have cheered and cried with their teams all their lives. It's hard to be a fan and love a team. You hang on every pitch, but you are watching it unfold. There's not a damn thing you can do about anything that happens on the field. The guys that I think are the worst? They are better than me. I still fucking hate them, but that's a fact. In my old age, I have long since abandoned hero worship in sports and other entertainment like movies and politics. It's best to just be appreciative of what people do in their work lives and judge them solely by that. We don't know them. Don't get too involved. They don't know you. They probably don't care about you either. Keep an even keel with people in life and you won't be disappointed. And you won't fall victim to obvious assholes like Trump either. That's important. 

I guess baseball taught me this. Well, it helped. It's been such a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mom brought me to Wrigley Field when I was five. She grew up in Chicago and was a Cubs fan due to her father taking her to Wrigley on the same bus she took me that day in 1962 when my baseball fate was sealed. See, that's part of the love of the game; the tradition. Family. Father's and sons. And yes, mother's and sons. I first played catch with my mom. Dad was on the road building bridges, tunnels and highways. Smart as he was, I don't think he understood baseball. I was alright with that. He paid more attention in his retirement and always made sure the game was on when his oldest boy came to visit. He was reading a history book, of course, but he always knew the score. 

So, I'm still watching as the playoffs proceed without my Cubs. That's the love of the game too. The anticipation of what might happen next. THAT is baseball. The only game I truly love. My first love.