Cubs deliver more misery with inevitable postseason collapse

Geovany Soto and the Cubs followed up the franchise's best season since 1945 by getting swept out of the playoffs. AP Related Links Dodgers sweep punchless Cubs out of NLDS MARKAZI:: Dodgers find rhythm at right time

By William Wagner, Special to SI.com

This year, I was ready. I had a plan. Come hell or high water, I was not going to be crushed by the Chicago Cubs.

I knew it wouldn't be easy. After all, I had been living and dying with the Lovable Losers for as long as I could remember. I grew up in Wrigley Field in the 1970s, watching "players" like George Mitterwald, Pete LaCock and Dennis Lamp make a mockery of the great game of baseball. I watched in horror in 1984...and 1989...and 1998 as postseason dreams were transformed into jagged scars.

In 2003 I went to every home playoff game. My first reward? Looking as if I had been hit by a bus following The Bartman Incident in Game 6 of the NLCS. My final reward? Looking as if I had been hit by a bus and beaten repeatedly with a tire iron following the Cubs' exit from the postseason the following night.

The next year, I went over the edge. Barking mad, you might say. For reasons known only to God, I decided to write a book chronicling the Cubs' 2004 season. The book ended as you'd imagine: with an epic collapse in the final week of the season. The title of my tome? Wrigley Blues.

Still, I hadn't learned my lesson. I was there every step of the way as the Cubs won the National League Central title in 2007. And I was in the right-field bleachers with my 10-year-old son Cole on the day the Cubs were swept out of the playoffs by the Diamondbacks. It was young Cole's first trip to a Cubs playoff game. As for tired, old me? I vowed sometime during the Diamondbacks debacle that it would be my last heartbreak.

Yes, the 2008 season would be something completely different. This time I would outsmart these diabolical Cubs. The premise was simple: I might not be able to control what the Cubs do, but I could damn sure control myself. In other words, I wasn't going to allow myself to be sucked in. Never again would I be that schlub in the Wrigley grandstands who looked as if he had been hit by a bus, beaten with a tire iron and kicked in the stomach for good measure.

The Cubs quickly established themselves as the best team in the National League this season, and Wrigley Field was rocking. The wins piled up -- en route to a league-high 97, their best regular season since 1945 (the last time they appeared in a World Series) -- and everyone on the North Side was drinking the Kool-Aid: This was going to be the year that Lou Piniella's boys would bring home the Cubbies' first world championship since 1908.

But I knew better. I didn't go anywhere near the place. OK, I hung out in the surrounding Wrigleyville neighborhood during a couple games -- old habits die hard -- but let the record show that I never set foot in the Unfriendly Confines. During one stretch when I was out of town I instituted a Cubs blackout and went several days without even checking the box scores.

As my ultimate act of defiance I even cheated on Wrigley Field, taking Cole to New York City in August to pay homage to another shrine, Yankee Stadium, before it receded into history. Cole and I watched the Yankees play the Royals, but it wasn't the escape I had hoped for. The once-mighty Yanks seemed about ready to roll over and die -- in fact they looked suspiciously like so many of the Cubs teams I had suffered with over the years.

Through the ups and downs of recent seasons I had done much of my venting via an e-mail group that was comprised of eight friends. We called it the Party Line. Most of us had worked together for the magazine Inside Sports before it tanked in the late 1990s. Since then we had been furiously exchanging e-mails on all of life's important topics: sports, music, politics, beer and women.

We're all Cubs fans. Except for Brett. His allegiance is to that team on the South Side, the White Sox. When Brett and I worked together, I'd bring people by his cubicle, point at him, and say, "Have you ever seen one of these? It's a White Sox fan. We have one in captivity."

The White Sox, of course, had ended a sizable World Series drought of their own in 2005, and they crowded in on the Cubs' spotlight this year by winning the American League Central title. Out of principle, I exchanged some Party Line barbs with Brett before the two Chicago teams began their respective postseasons.

Me: Think the TV ratings of the Cubs' playoff games will be double those of the Sox? Triple?

Brett: Most of the 1.75 million fans at the White Sox parade [in '05] shouted themselves hoarse; most of the fans at the Cubbies' last parade were horses.

And so on. But before things could get out of hand, I took a step back and demonstrated that I finally had my priorities in order. I fired this shot across the Party Line bow:

Here's the way I've got it figured: If the most people can say about me after I kick the can is that I was the biggest Cubs fan they knew, then I will have lived a pretty b.s. life.

I was appropriately detached by Game 1 of the Division Series -- and, most important, I was nowhere near Wrigley Field. When James Loney hit a grand slam to give the Dodgers a 4-2 lead and set the stage for a 7-2 Cubs loss, I was on my couch at home. As cameras panned the Wrigley grandstands, I was almost amused by the poor fools who looked as if they had been hit by a bus, beaten repeatedly with a tire iron, kicked in the stomach and doused with beer for good measure.

The Cubs were down 1-0 in the series, but I wasn't worried. I was far enough removed from the action to be objective. The next morning I was the voice of reason on the Party Line:

Things will look a lot different tomorrow morning if Carlos Zambrano comes up big tonight.

I thought about it. Minutes passed. My fingers started tapping out another Party Line dispatch:

Who are we fooling? It's over.

I was beginning to crack.