As the Cubs tempt fate, fans brace for the inevitable

First appeared on August 18, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

With Donald Trump still leading in the polls, Hillary forwarding Top Secret emails and the Cubs winners in ten of their last eleven; its official, the end of the world is upon us.

Turns out that uncle, the one with the ‘Licensed Sasquatch Hunter’ bumper sticker, was right all along. The world will end before Washington starts making sense. For years he took you out to the woods and showed you how to hunt and fish, claiming when the end comes, only the strong, those who can build fires, find fresh meat and tie a barrel hitch, will survive.

By firelight he told you how the moon landing was filmed in a California basement. A two-bedroom ranch owned by the Night Manager of a Denny’s in the San Fernando Valley. “Surprisingly huge basement for a Ranch.”

He swore the Soviets killed Elvis because there was a hidden capitalistic agenda in his lyrics and that cheeseburgers in American schools are green because the FDA was injecting them with human growth hormones. “Reagan was tired of losing to East Germany in the Olympics.”

But that was thirty years ago and not only are you older now, you are also wiser. You know the world most likely isn’t going to end anytime soon. You are also smart enough to realize the Cubs can’t win the World Series this year because this is the year of the sheep, which is basically a goat, and we all know how that’s worked out so far.

Still, the Northsiders are stirring the hearts and minds of this great nation and that’s the part the rest of baseball loves most. The rest of baseball, lounging in their monogramed Turkish bathrobes, sipping Arnold Palmer’s while leafing through dog-eared copies of an ‘Idiots Guide to Dealing with Post-season Success.’

And there they linger, in only the way they can, pretending to read but all the while waiting. Waiting with baited breath for that priceless moment the Cubs fall apart, crushing the hearts of millions, the eternally downtrodden, yet again. A train wreck indeed.

Meaningful baseball has become an oxymoron for Cubs fans, a mythical figure most have spent the better part of a lifetime searching for. There have been glimpses. Grainy images of a foul ball being prematurely snatched up from the stands and a black cat scurrying across an infield. For generations it has loomed on the horizon, just close enough to tease, yet somehow always gone by September.

It’s been over 100 years since a championship last came to the Northside. That magical run was witnessed by then U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. You know Teddy, the Rough Rider who charged up San Juan Hill, a feat so lasting he remains the answer to the most popular question posed to every Ranger stationed at Mount Rushmore. Exhausted families, sunblock pasted faces, herded together in khaki shorts and loud print shirts, cajoling their restless young ones to take in the powerful artistry that is Rushmore, all the while wondering aloud, “Who’s the one next to Jefferson again?”

But despite the Cubs’ newfound fortunes, don’t expect to find the four horsemen galloping down your street anytime soon, it is after all only the third week of August. There is still plenty of time for a full-blown collapse. One so monumental it triggers widespread earthquakes. Cataclysmic tremors that move mountains and cause rocks to fall down upon those hiding amongst them.

And while you’re thinking we’re in trouble either way, just remember the Cardinals are so far ahead of the rest of the National League they could take a couple weeks off and still wake up in first place. This means, Armageddon or not, the Cubs are once again destined to leave fans feeling undeniably inadequate.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

America's Pastime and her grand search for emotion

First appeared on August 4, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

When Wilmer Flores took the field before 50,000 screaming fans, he wept. He wasn’t a World Champion and he hadn’t just thrown a No Hitter and his wife hadn’t yelled “It’s a boy!” from the stands. The uncomfortable scene was begat by Social Media.

Twitter, Facebook, push notifications, text messages flying furiously through the air, invisible yet infinitely powerful. Word on the street was Flores had been traded, jettisoned like space trash from the only Major League team he’d ever played for.

A passing glance across a crowded room, a friendly wave, two people sharing a look that says far more than just hello. Emotion is glaring. It is unmistakable and powerful and can make you seem qualified for a job you have absolutely no business getting. It’s also noticeably missing from Baseball.

Like an image of a great mastodon stomping across the frozen tundra, his burly frame and impressive tusks the definition of raw power, we see a video of Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse at home plate and think “who would do such a thing?”

Today’s stars play hard, they play to win but despite some exciting young talent and the sudden rise of the greatest franchise in professional sports (we’re talking about the Cubs here in case your Google search returns something different), real emotion remains Baseball’s Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

Of course George Washington bears the brunt of the blame. With the size of today’s contracts, it doesn’t take a baseball insider to explain to we little people why playing with pure emotion and worrying over a career ending injury are by nature mutually exclusive.

Your scoutmaster said you wouldn’t get anywhere without a little emotion but you didn’t believe him because he smelled of stale beer and wore a really bad hair-hat your best friend said looked like the tail of a Pomeranian and he couldn’t even get the fire started for crissakes!

So you drifted after crossing that stage in High School and waited for the hand of fate to reach out and give you something to validate your existence, meanwhile that cousin, the one your mother always dotes on at Christmas, got that promotion in Milwaukee and there’s a lion loose in Milwaukee and a not so small part of you is rooting for that big cat to hunt your cousin down and gnaw his face off. That’s what emotion is. Sometimes it takes a successful cousin to give you a little kick in the pants.

In the end Flores wasn’t traded. Turns out 50,000 Woodward and Bernsteins could be wrong. But it's too late for Flores, thanks to our instant gratification-"hey look at this" world, Flores could hit a Grand Slam to win the World Series and pull a pregnant lady from a burning car on his way to home plate, and he will still always be the guy who cried at shortstop.

And while the real, not part-time-pretend media, is busy blasting the Mets for leaking a trade that hadn’t been fully consummated, we are once again missing the trees for the forest. Flores cares.

He’s not a machine powered by million dollar paychecks. He’s not a mindless robot detached from those dedicated to him most. He is a human being who loves his job and efforts to give something special to the fans every night. Something to the Construction Workers and Policemen, the Sailors and Cowboys and Indian Chiefs who pay their hard earned money to watch him. That’s why Flores cried.

And for that we should stand and applaud, for he is a great American, though your mother would probably argue not as great as your cousin from Milwaukee.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams