This Isn't Really Happening, Is It?

Last night the Cubs lost to the Brewers, the second-place, division-rival, on-the-cusp-of-the-wild-card Milwaukee Brewers.

Any other season, this would be a time to panic. There would be screaming, crying, and trips to Cost Plus to stock up on bottled water and battery-operated emergency radios. If this were last year, last night’s game would have caused pharmaceutical-like side effects: vomit, diarrhea, weight loss, and bleeding from the eyes.

If this were any other time in the history of the Chicago Cubs, I would be worried that the Cubs were on the verge of another 2004, when they lost the wild card spot in the final weeks of the regular season. After all, the Cubs have to play these Brewers four more times, including the last three games.

But this isn’t any other year. Last night, I simply shrugged, and thought, “How cute. The Brewers won a game.”

Part of my laissez-faire attitude towards the Brewers is that I don’t think they are a very good team beyond their two aces, Sheets and Sabathia, and I’m as confident as a Cubs fan can possibly be that the Cubs would take the Brewers in a seven game series. Another reason is that I have tickets to the Dodgers first home playoff game, and if Milwaukee wins the wild card, then the Cubs will be playing in LA.

But the main reason I don’t care about last night’s game is because, for the first time in my life, I don’t have to. That’s right. There is a little over two weeks left in the season, and I’m not agonizing over the Cubs.

This year, the Cubs have taken the division without much adversity, and they’ve been the dominant National League team. At no time this year was there any real panic. Sure, the Cubs recently went through a slump and faced the possibility of losing their two best pitchers for the season, but that scare lasted only a matter of days. Cubs fans are used to suffering for months, years, even centuries.

The whole situation is almost anti-climatic. I’m sure Mets, Phillies, and especially Brewers fans are dying right now. Baseball is a frustrating sport.

Not for me. Not this year. It’s a very strange time to be a Cubs fan. There’s no worry to go along with the whole thing. This must be what it feels like to be a Yankees or Braves fan.

Of course, being a Cubs fan, I’m sure it will all fall apart rather quickly. We still have to actually win in the playoffs, something we couldn’t do last year. Plus, I’ve already cursed them by buying playoff tickets, not to mention writing this blog. But at least I didn’t buy Angels/Cubs World Series tickets. At least not yet.