In the end, a Cub is a Cub is a Cub.
Another season bites the dust. Bury it 6 feet under with the rest. Cubs lose … again.
No one else is to blame. No fan interfered with a ball. Lou Piniella’s guys lost just like Dusty Baker’s lost. The only goats were themselves.
Ernie Banks threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Piniella should have left him in there.
Rich Hill threw one pitch, and the score was Arizona 1, Cubs 0.
One batter later, Cliff Floyd lost a fly ball in the sun.
Bottom of the first inning: Ryan Theriot hit into a double play. Third inning: Aramis Ramirez hit into a double play. Fifth: Mark DeRosa, double play. Seventh: Derrek Lee, double play.
Oh, and here was the thrill-packed climax Saturday night to your 2007 Chicago Cubs season:
Jason Kendall led off the ninth inning by looking at a called third strike.
Daryle Ward came up to pinch-hit. He looked at a called third strike.
Alfonso Soriano, the $136 million man, went out a bust. He lofted a lazy fly to right — it made him 2-for-14 for the series — to put 42,157 bored, booing fans out of their misery.
Here are the unhappy totals, as WGN’s Jack Brickhouse used to say:
Six runs for the Cubs in an entire three-game series. A 6-for-38 no-show for Soriano, Ramirez and Lee is the reason for that. The choke’s on them.
Oh, there was good news:
No swarms of insects dive-bombed the Cubs’ park, the way they did Cleveland’s.
Otherwise, what a way this was to end a season. A total wipeout. An unqualified disaster. A 25-man meltdown. Poor pitching. Poor hitting. Poor managerial decisions.
What was the indelible image of the Cubs’ postseason?
Ted Lilly throwing a ball, and then throwing a glove. He flung it to the ground in anger during Game 2 in a way rarely seen since that little blond kid named Tanner did it in the film “Bad News Bears.”
A fitting image it was, coming as it did in a season in which Carlos Zambrano punched a teammate and Derrek Lee tried to punch an opponent.
Even during the final telecasts, what image did the Cubs have to show to the world night after night? Lou Piniella in a TV commercial for a brand of water, berating an umpire and throwing a base.
If only the Cubs could have played as hard as they fought and yelled.
Wrigley Field was supposed to be blue heaven. Theriot said before the game: “Obviously it’s an advantage to be here. We have an extra player on our team when we’re at Wrigley. The fans are pulling for us, behind us 100 percent.”
Well, maybe 50 percent. Or make it 25.
By the end, none of the Bleacher Bums was out there singing, “Go, Cubs, Go.”
Everybody in the house at that point was pretty much just glad to see them go.
As for that big Wrigley advantage, the Cubs now have lost six of the last nine postseason games that have been played in their own park.
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By getting broomed out of the playoffs by the Diamondbacks courtesy of a 5-1 loss, the Cubs didn’t get to run a single one of those blue “W” victory flags up the flagpole.
A permanent billboard on Sheffield Avenue was changed before this series to read like this:
00 61 98
Those numbers represent the number of years since the Cubs’ last division title, last National League pennant and last World Series championship. The “03” was updated to “00” because of this year’s Central Division crown.
But that “98” is about to become a “99,” as soon as Oct. 14, the anniversary of the 1908 championship game, rolls around.
Is it Bulls season yet? . Who would have guessed that what we had to look forward to was Fighting Illini football?
Cubs fans came to Saturday’s game expecting the team’s luck to change. It did. It went from bad to worse.
Those whose heads were turned to say “Yo, beer man” must have missed the game’s first pitch, which Arizona’s Chris Young knocked over the left-field fence.
Two other homers by the visitors would follow, one by Eric Byrnes, one by Stephen Drew.
LVP of the series: Ramirez, who went 0-for-October. He didn’t hit the ball out of the infield in the final game. He did draw a walk — the only time in this series that Ramirez got on base. So it’s the Diamondbacks who advance to the next round, possibly to play the Colorado Rockies for the pennant. Now there is a series that should draw huge TV ratings. (Not.)
“We’ll regroup,” Piniella said.
Ninety-nine years of regrouping will break Major League Baseball’s old record of 98, previously held by the Cubs.
“We made some nice strides this year with this team and we’ll do some things over the winter with this team and we’ll be right back this spring to get better and better,” Piniella added.
That ought to work.
Go, Cubs, go.
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