This is the Year Cubs Fans, the year to wait....

First appeared on May 18th, 2010
in The Lebanon Reporter

With a final score of 4-3, the Cubs won Sunday. Other than cashing in a huge Powerball ticket or having the boss tell you to take the rest of the week off with pay, is there really a better way to start ones week? When the Cubs win on a Sunday the air just seems fresher, the flowers smell sweeter and the kids who ride their bikes in front of your car in the street are somehow less annoying. What’s that you say? Oh, their 6 games under .500 and 5 games out in the Central?


It’s hard to figure these guys out. Two years ago they supposedly wilted under the pressure of too many expectations, what with the whole 100 year anniversary deal. But this year, with absolutely no expectations, they are somehow wilting again; already. And it’s only May. This is not what they’re supposed to do. They are not supposed to be Completely Useless By September, until September.

History has shown the franchise should make a move. Fire somebody. Trade somebody. Shake things up. This has become the vogue thing to do in professional sports when the natives are restless. Standard operating procedure for the talking heads when they have absolutely no other answers.

But if Alfonso Soriano is any guide, perhaps the best thing for the Cubs brass to do now is simply wait. For two years now Soriano has been riding a roller coaster of favor with Cubs fans. His streaky power trips, magnet-like attraction for any pitch in the dirt and frighteningly minor league-like misadventures in the field have made him the target of much booing, beer tossing and cursing.

But don’t look now, just when so many Wrigley regulars were ready to pay for his plane ticket back to the Dominican, Soriano is surging. His .331 batting average, 7 homers and 23 runs batted in are second only on the team to free agent signee Marlon Byrd. Also at over .600 Soriano’s slugging percentage currently ranks 3rd in the league and, perhaps most unexpected of all, he does not lead Cubs hitters in strike outs.

Give Lou Piniella some credit. While he has made Fonzi play musical chairs in the batting order, the Cubs skipper has stuck by Soriano while so many others were in the streets burning his bobble-head dolls in effigy. Somehow General Manager Jim Hendry must let Piniella’s patience be the guide by which he conducts himself. This is the year after all. The year to wait.

So what’s the message here? Cubs fans need to find some way to wait this thing out. Give these guys two weeks. Take up needlepoint, read War and Peace or host a James Cameron movie marathon; whatever you need to do to waste two weeks just do it. Because after the next two weeks we will probably know what the season holds.

The next four series alone could likely spell the fate of the Cubs season. For, after they finish with Colorado at home, the next four teams they play all have winning records and two are division leaders (at Texas and at Philadelphia). We will either see the Cubs get buried under a hurricane of home runs and bungled ground balls or maybe, just maybe we will finally see some consistently inspired play.

I think we all know what Piniella’s rooting for. Because it’s almost academic at this point, if the Cubs lose badly over the next two weeks, Jim Hendry will likely be the one telling Lou to take the rest of the season off.