Throughout the entire season, I attempted to convince a friend of mine that happens to be a Cub fan that the Cubs were really as good as their gaudy record indicated. I had a small legion of stats that backed my claims up. He would always dismiss them to me with three words; "They're the Cubs." In the end, maybe I should've listened to my friend. With tonight's 3-1 loss, the 97-win Cubs were swept by the Dodgers in the NLDS, ending their playoff run almost as quickly as it started.
In the end, the Cubs didn't even put up a fight. They gave up two runs in the first inning after a questionable call on a play at third and they never really even showed a pulse after that. They only mustered eight hits and one run with their season on the line with things ending as Alfonso Soriano failed to hold up on a check swing while Jonathon Broxton and company wildly celebrated.
In the next two days or so this series is going to be diagrammed ad nauseum while people search for a reason that the best regular season in the NL disappeared so quietly. In the immediate aftermath of this series, allow me to offer this explanation: the Dodgers were the better team. Rafael Furcal is back, Manny Ramirez is in the lineup, and Joe Torre is leaving Juan Pierre on the bench. The Cubs weren't even a match for them.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
I don't think that call at third was very controversial. Aramis just missed the tag because of the short hop the throw took, and by the time he got his glove down on Martin's shoulder his hand was in there.
It’s getting worse! Pray that the Cubs don’t win anything in 2009
The Dodgers beat the Cubs 3-1 late Saturday (October 4th, 2008) in Los Angeles to advance to the National League Championship Series. The surprising three-game sweep of the team with the league's best record in the regular season ends the Cubs' chance to win the World Series for the first time in 100 years.
Thank God the Los Angeles Dodgers swept the Chicago Cubs in the first round of the Major League Baseball playoffs! That means our $700 Billion (with a B!) dollar economic stimulus package has a chance of working; well, unless the Cubs get into the playoffs, or God forbid, actually get into the World Series next year. If they do - watch out World Economy! Watch out for a World War of some other calamity of biblical proportion!
You think I’m making this up don’t you! Sadly NO. Every single time the Cubs have gotten into the World Series, this country has experienced calamity. Just take a look at the points below and you’ll see for yourself what I mean.
I’m a baseball fan. This year I was lamenting the fact that the Cubs were in the playoffs. I was thinking about the fact that they haven’t won a World Series since 1908. I was thinking about this because, in my entire lifetime so far (and I’m in my early 50s), I thankfully have not had to witness a Cubs World Series victory; and I never want to. I knew they were getting closer every day and was listening to radio news. I wanted to celebrate the moment victory was snatched from them once again. This time, it looked like they were going to (oh God forgive me for saying this) – “make it”. There I said it.
As I was listening to various news reports about the Cubs progress, my thoughts were interrupted time and time again by other news reports concerning a U.S. economic calamity that was the worse since the great depression.
I knew the Cubs hadn’t won a World Series since 1908 and then it hit me! I’m not sure where it came from, (the hand of God I think), but I started getting the funny feeling that somehow, in God’s great providence, he has arranged things so that whenever the Cubs win; whenever they get close to or in the World Series, we have some kind of calamity.
At first, I thought I was going crazy. I shared my theory with my wife. She just smiled and said “you’re crazy!” but something pulled me to the Internet to research my theory and BANG! I was right!
If you take a look at the points below, you’ll see that every time the Cubs have been in the World Series, something awful has happened! Please pray for the United States! Pray that the Chicago Cubs don’t win anything in 2009!
2008 -- Cubs in playoffs but lose to the LA Dodgers. -- $700 Billion dollar bail-out plan passed. Housing crashes. If the Cubs get into the playoffs of World Series next year, we will probably go into a depression!
1945 -- Detroit 4, Chicago Cubs 3 -- Deficit spending has resulted in a national debt 123 percent the size of the GDP. By contrast, in 1994, the $4.7 trillion national debt will be only 70 percent of the GDP!
1938 -- NY Yankees 4, Chicago Cubs 0 -- 1. No major New Deal legislation is passed after this date, due to Roosevelt's weakened political power. -- 2.The year-long recession makes itself felt: the GNP falls 4.5 percent, and unemployment rises to 19.0 percent.
1935 -- Detroit 4, Chicago Cubs 2 -- 1. The Supreme Court declares the National Recovery Administration to be unconstitutional. -- 2. Congress authorizes creation of the Works Progress Administration, the National Labor Relations Board and the Rural Electrification Administration. -- 3. Congress passes the Banking Act of 1935, the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act. -- 4. Economic recovery continues: the GNP grows another 8.1 percent, and unemployment falls to 20.1 percent.
1932 -- NY Yankees 4, Chicago Cubs 0 -- 1. This and the next year are the worst years of the Great Depression. For 1932, GNP falls a record 13.4 percent; unemployment rises to 23.6 percent. -- 2. Industrial stocks have lost 80 percent of their value since 1930. -- 3. 10,000 banks have failed since 1929, or 40 percent of the 1929 total. -- 4. GNP has also fallen 31 percent since 1929. -- 5. Over 13 million Americans have lost their jobs since 1929. -- 6.International trade has fallen by two-thirds since 1929. -- 7. Congress passes the Federal Home Loan Bank Act and the Glass-Steagall Act of 1932. -- 8. Top tax rate is raised from 25 to 63 percent. -- 9. Popular opinion considers Hoover's measures too little too late. Franklin Roosevelt easily defeats Hoover in the fall election. Democrats win control of Congress.
1929 -- Philadelphia A's 4, Chicago Cubs 1 -- The strength of America's economy in the 1920's came to a sudden end in October 1929 - even if the signs of problems had existed before the Wall Street Crash. Suddenly the 'glamour' of the Jazz Age and gangsters disappeared and America was faced with a major crisis that was to impact countries as far away as Weimar Germany - a nation that had built up her economy on American loans.
1918 -- Boston Red Sox 4, Chicago Cubs 2 -- The 1918-19 influenza epidemic killed at least 40 million people worldwide and 675,000 people in the United States, far exceeding the combat deaths experienced by the US in the two World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam combined. Besides its extraordinary virulence, the 1918-19 epidemic was also unique in that a disproportionate number of its victims were men and women ages 15 and 44, giving the age profile of mortality a distinct 'W' shape rather than the customary 'U' shape, and leading to extremely high death rates in the prime working ages.
1908 -- Chicago Cubs 4, Detroit 1 -- Cubs win. The U.S. bank panic of 1907 and the Mexican depression of 1908-1909. - Historians have long recognized that the U.S. bank panic of 1907 was the stimulus for the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that was designed to regulate the nation's money and supply and credit by buying and selling government bonds and issuing Federal Reserve Notes.
1907 -- Chicago Cubs 4, Detroit 0 (one tie) -- Cubs win. The U.S. bank panic of 1907 and the Mexican depression of 1908-1909. - Historians have long recognized that the U.S. bank panic of 1907 was the stimulus for the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 that was designed to regulate the nation's money and supply and credit by buying and selling government bonds and issuing Federal Reserve Notes.
The Cubs can win 115 games in the regular season but when it comes to the playoffs they are goin to suck .You can put Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds on the Cubs team and it wouldnt make a difference in the post season there still gonna loose