Dem Bums

I started thinking about this at some point between Anthony Rizzo's 6th-inning home run and Kenley Jansen's appearance in the Dodgers' bullpen. There is a part of me, as I type this, that still holds on to the impossible hope that Kyle Hendricks will suddenly lose his cool, Steve Bartman will climb over the left-field wall, and a billy goat will run onto the field and start gnawing on the infield grass. I understand that I will receive no sympathy for my feelings right now, as any torment I may be feeling, or have felt, over the past ten years, or even 28, pales in comparison to what generations of Cubs fans have suffered through. I don't deserve sympathy. I can't help but believe, though, that poor Clayton Kershaw certainly does. I'm sure Andrew Toles feels terrible about his first-inning error, but I am certain that the snake-bit Mr. Kershaw feels worse. It is Clayton who will be forced to endure another long, interminable winter being anointed with less-than-clever nicknames like Kerchoke or Chokeshaw (although, I do give credit to the Cubs fan with the "Curse-shaw" sign. Well played, good sir). That however, is the extent of any sympathy myself or my team will get. The Cubs were/are the overwhelming favorites, both on paper and emotionally, and the Cleveland Indians are not far behind in the sentimentality category. A quick aside: Cleveland, may I suggest you abandon the Jobu signage? Did you forget Jobu's fate? The Dodgers have the highest payroll in the league, a rival team in virtually every other national league city, a fanbase with a reputation (often well-deserved) for indifference, and a relatively short World Series drought, compare to the aforementioned teams. There will be no wet eyes tonight on their behalf.

Paul Buck - LA Times

As Kyle Hendricks leaves the field, cementing his place in Cubs' lore, and Kershaw has likewise cemented his own (although certainly a less-desirable one), I feel like it is my duty to "stick up" for these 2016 Dodgers. While it will not satisfy anyone in the stands or the clubhouse, 4 straight division championships is something to be proud of. I would trade them all for a World Series berth (stupid second wild-card), but much like the Atlanta Braves of the 1990's, the Dodgers have established a pattern of just-good-enough excellence that allows me to hold my head high and look forward with hope to 2017. The Dodgers faced much adversity this season, with 26 players finding time on the disabled list, including two months without ace Clayton Kershaw. That day on June 26th, they should have been buried, because truly, as go Kershaw's fortunes, so go the Dodgers'. But they were not buried; in fact, they coalesced, and roared back from an 8 1/2 game deficit at the All-Star Break to finish on top of their division.  After losing the money-grubbing Zack Greinke to rival Arizona, our smoke-and-mirrors rotation of spare parts performed admirably enough to carry us through. Corey Seager is a no-brainer Rookie of the Year. Justin Turner proved he was a real baseball player, not a flash-in-the-pan. First-year manager Dave Roberts set a major league record with an unbelievable 603 mound visits, proving to be a clever strategist and a effective motivator. 

The fact that the "curse" would be broken against the Dodgers is not lost on me. It couldn't have possibly ended against any other team. The Dodgers, for all their success on the West Coast, have traditionally been a heartbreaker, not unlike their counterparts from the Windy City.  For 20 years, the Dodgers of Brooklyn would come up just short against the juggernaut Yankees. They were known as "Dem Bums" of the Borough, and the mantra for Brooklynites was "wait 'til next year".  This is the same club that came out on the losing end of the Ralph Branca/Bobby Thompson "shot heard 'round the world", the team that was the first to get 3 straight shutouts thrown against them in a single World Series, the team that surrendered both Hank Aaron's and Barry Bonds' record breaking home runs, and the team that would win those 4 consecutive pennants, yet would be forced to watch their second-place wild card rivals win 3 championships in five years. 

I want to be angry at the Cubs. I want to want them to get brutalized in the World Series. But I know that's just sour grapes, and I don't have the energy to be salty. Congratulations to the generations of Cubs fans who have been waiting 3 lifetimes for this. I'll watch Eddie Vedder hug Theo Epstein, and I won't even be upset about it. I'll just sit here and meditate on the words of the the late A. Bartlett Giamatti:


“[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.”

Wait 'til next year....