If the Cubs lose tonight, I wouldn’t have been able to blog afterwards for two weeks anyway. Zorn gets it right
That Marlins’ 8th inning reeked of history, of pitiful stories we will tell our children’s children in 2045 during the centennial commemoration of the Cubs’ last World Series appearance.
…in aught three, we were cruising along, five outs away from the World Series, when a fan snatched a pop-up from Moises Alou. After that, of course, the floodgates opened and the team’s spirit was crushed….
The announcers and even some of the players who were saying "don’t blame the fan" for Tuesday’s defeat were guessing, at best.
You never know, of course, but the way I see it, if Alou catches that pop up, then we have two outs and Alex Gonzalez doesn’t rush trying to get a double play on the ground ball two batters later, fields it cleanly, and and we’re out of the inning still leading 3-1.
(Speaking of which, if there’s one person in all of Cubdom who’s secretly grateful to the foul-snatching fan, it’s gotta be Gonzalez, whose horrifying bobble is now just a footnote and not a new chapter in team history.)
And when they excuse the fan by saying, as pitcher Mark Prior did after the game, that "99 percent of the people" would have done the same thing, reaching out for a foul ball that close to the field of play, they’re simply wrong.
Most fans, good fans, smart fans know to lean out of the way–scurry if possible — when a guy from their team is running toward the seats with a bead on a foul fly.
And here’s the doubly mortifying allegation from an S-T story this morning:
"In the section where the ball fell….Pat Looney, 34, of the Northwest Side said… the (grabby fan) already had a ball from earlier in the game when Alou tossed one into the stands."
If the Cubs lose game seven tonight, their fans will never forget and never forgive.
It sounds ridiculous and petty, but it’s probably true that this young man will almost certainly have to leave town and start again elsewhere if he wants some semblance of a normal life.
If the Cubs win, he’ll be OK, a footnote himself, just that knucklehead who kept us all on edge for an extra 24 hours.
Not for his sake but for the sake of everyone who’ll otherwise spend the rest of their lives including him in their mutterings about goats, black cats and Leon Durham, I hope it all turns into a jolly anecdote:
…we thought the players would crumble under the demoralizing weight of it all, but, by golly, the next night….