The Cubs choke again

As depressing as it is for the the Cubs to have choked once again- just as they did in 1969 and 1984 and 2003 and 2007- this is even more depressing.

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Last year the Cubs collapsed against a very beatable (though very hot) opponent in the National League Divisional Series, and were swept out of the playoffs, scoring only six runs in the whole series.

This year, the Cubs collapsed against an inferior (though very hot) opponent in the National League Divisional Series, and were swept out of the playoffs, scoring only six runs in the whole series.

It was more depressing this year because the Cubs had a deeper and more talented team. In fact- though I was slow to realize it (it suddenly dawned on me late in the season) this was the most talented Cub team of my lifetime. It's even better than the 1969 team that featured four Hall of Famers (and should have a fifth in Ron Santo)- but collapsed in August. That the Cubs in 2008 were the best team in the National League- just as they were in 1969 and 1984, though probably not in 2003- simply is beyond dispute.

Except when it really mattered.

The Cubs scored more runs this year than any other team in the league. Yet for the second consecutive year, they were only able to manage six runs in the most important three games they played. Their defensive self-destruction especially in Game Two reminded me painfully of the Cubs of August and September, 1969, and seemed patently to spring from the same cause: an inability to deal with the pressure.

The Cubs have elevated the choke to an artform. Without taking anything away from the phenomenal second half the Mets had in 1969, talent-wise the New Yorkers didn't belong on the same field with them. Although the talent gap was smaller, they were clearly a better team on paper than the 1984 San Diego Padres, whom they not only at one point led two games to none in a best of five series but came within five outs of actually beating and advancing to the World Series. Neither is there much of a question that the Cubs were better than the admittedly underrated 2003 Florida Marlins, against whom they once again held a seemingly insurmountable early lead and blew it, once again coming within five outs of their first pennant since 1945.

An aside: the Marlins won two World Series in the first thirteen years of their existence. They have yet to win their first divisional championship. Any system under which that can happen is seriously warped. And in a game like baseball, which has to play a 162-game season and in which it's a given that even the greatest team that has ever played will lose more than a third of its games, to stake the question of which of two teams advances to the next round of the post season on a best-of-five series is nothing short of absurd.

Not that the Cubs would have won this year if the series with the Dodgers had been best of seven. A choke is a choke. Two years running, this team has simply fallen apart the moment the calendar turned to October. Granted, they had the misfortune in both of those years of playing the hottest team in the National League at a point in the season when they themselves were in a bit of a slump. But in this centennial year of the Cubs' last world championship- a year when, for symbolic reasons, taking it all would have been even sweeter than usual, and should have been quite do-able- the patience of Cub fans for excuses has long since run out.

As well it should. These are professional athletes, after all. They are paid good money to make the most of their talents. When they don't two years running, at exactly the same point of the season and in exactly the same way, it's time to look past excuses and begin to ask some serious questions about what's really going on.

This shouldn't be about blame. It should be about addressing an obvious problem. And the disappointing thing about the Cubs' press release linked to above is that it shows no indication that the Cubs even have a clue that they have a problem.

I don't blame Lou Pinella, who is one of the best managers the game has ever seen. Few others have taken teams from both leagues to the World Series. In fact, Casey Stengel, Tony LaRussa and Sparky Anderson are the only other ones I can think of. And only one other manager- the Cubs' Frank Chance, in 1906- has ever managed to win 116 games in a single regular season.

One bit of hope, I suppose: perhaps, come to think of it, the World Series loss of Chance's 1906 Cubs to the White Sox was really the greatest Cub collapse in history, and it came the year before the Cubs' last world championships, in 1907 and 1908.

At the same time, Lou's 2001 Mariners couldn't get the job done against the Yankees in the ALCS, either. But as Pinella himself has pointed out, managers can't go out on the field and play the game. Lou has won two pennants and two world championships. All his players have done is choked two years in a row.

The press release is right: the Cubs will be the hot stove favorites to win their third consecutive National League Central Division championship next season. They will undoubtedly tweak things a bit, and have an even stronger team in 2009 than they did in 2008.But that is cold comfort. Who cares whether the Cubs win 100 games in 2009, after 97 in 2008? Who cares if they win 117, and break the record their franchise and their manager share?

None of it matters a bit if they lose the divisional series again next year. And unless something changes, they will.

When a team as good of the Cubs has this cataclysmic a collapse in the first round of the playoffs two years running, to expect that things will change in the absence of a conscious effort to change them is nothing more or less than doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

The real obstacle next year will not be the Milwaukee Brewers, the Cubs' most formidable rivals within the division. It won't be any of the teams from other divisons, either. Heaven knows it won't be anybody in the other league.

It will be their perrenial nemesis, the enemy that did them in 1906 and 1969 and 1984 and 2003 and 2008: the choke.

If there's a single glimmer of hope here, it's that Frank Chance's 1906 chokers-perhaps the greatest chokers of all- won the World Series the next two years. Maybe once in a blue moon doing the same thing and expecting a different result actually pays off.But it would be foolish to count on it. When this happens two years in a row, there's a reason. Bad luck in drawing "hot" opponents may be part of the explanation, but not close to half of it.

I suppose it's too much to expect that a team that won 97 games, led the league in runs scored, was second or third in pitching, and established its National League supremacy so convincingly in the regular season should make major changes during the off-season. But that's exactly what the Cubs need to do. A tweak here or there won't cut the mustard. The Cubs need to trade some of those guys who seem to lack the mental toughness to get the job done when it counts the most, and get some gamers- players who will get the job done, even when the pressure is on.

Sadly, they would also be well-advised to part with some players who deserve better. Derrek Lee was the one Cub regular who didn't fall apart during the NLDS. But his numbers are declining, and given the fact that the Cubs have a capable rookie replacement in Micah Hoffpauir, they need to trade Lee for what they can get while they can still get something good.

Kosuke Fukudome, who begain the year with such fanfare and actually produced during the first half of the season, needs to be gotten rid of somehow. If the Cubs can't get rid of his contract, he at least needs to ride the bench until he can re-learn the knack of hitting major league pitching. I'd put Mark DeRosa in right field, and play Mike Fontenot at second.

Alfonso Soriano is said to be a good influence in the clubhouse. But on the field, too many hits that should be triples end up only being doubles because Soriano just doesn't hustle. Besides, he's an inconsistent, streaky hitter- exactly the kind of player a team with a history of choking and which ought to be preparing not so much for the 2009 season as the 2009 post-season doesn't need.

Jim Edmonds, who made a welcome and memorable contribution this year, will probably retire. Somebody else needs to be brought in to platoon in center field with Reed Johnson. Felix Pie- the most recent of a series of supposedly "can't miss" prospects counted on for entirely too long to eventually be the solution in center- shows every sign of being the most recent washout at that position. He'll offer us no help until and unless he learns to hit- something that seems less and less likely as time goes on.

2009 will bring new hope. There will be a new owner, hopefully Mark Cuban. Especially if it's Cuban- or someone else with both the resources and the committment to do whatever needs to be done- hope will spring up once again in the hearts of those of us who bleed Cubbie blue next spring, right along with the flowers.

The Cubs email group I run is full of people vowing to swear off the Cubs. Many, like me, have had their hearts broken over and over and over again. But no matter what they say now, they'll all be back next year. You don't walk away from being a Cub fan. Once you're hooked, you're hooked for life. But the anger we're feeling is legitimate, and it needs to be taken seriously. It's based on common sense- common sense I sincerely hope the new owner, whoever it is, shares.

I, for one, don't plan to even pay much attention to the Cubs before October 1. What happens to them before that date simply doesn't matter to me. I would rather that they not make the playoffs at all than lose again in the first round.

The Cubs' new ownership needs to recognize that that long-suffering loyalty we have for our team needs to be returned by doing whatever it takes to see to it that if- as seems likely- the Cubs are in the post-season again next year, their roster is composed as far as possible of players with a proven record of being able to handle the pressure of the post season.

The Cubs may well lose again next year (may? Probably will). But it is utterly unacceptable that they choke again. Not when it's possible to get rid of players who simply can't handle the pressure, and replace them with players who can.

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