That does it!

After fifty-two years as a Cub fan, I have finally had enough.

I didn't think it was possible for my disgust with the Cubs to exceed what I felt when, after a spectacular season, they laid down and died for the Dodgers in the first round of the playoffs last October, swept out of the post-season in the first round for the second time in as many years. I said at the time that as far as I was concerned, the 2009 season would begin in October.

Division championships no longer thrill me. Been there, done that. I am one of many Cub fans who at long last has gone through the salutary transformation which Boston Red Sox followers experienced a decade or two ago, and decided that my loyalty deserved to be rewarded by a competent and earnest effort on the part of the organization to which it was given. I decided a couple of years ago that any season in which the Cubs failed to at least reach the NLCS would, as far as I was concerned, from henceforth be a failure. Boston's fans decided that they would no longer tolerate incompetence either on or off the field, and they have been rewarded by two world championships they waited for almost as long as we Cub fans have waited for our next one. Many of us who grew up rooting for the North Siders have reached the same point in recent years, and it's more than about time.

My disgust after last October's second annual autumnal choke only deepened this winter when I (like every Cub fan I know) was demoralized by the news that General Manager Jim Hendry had traded Mark DeRosa- last year's starting second baseman, capable of playing third and the outfield at need as well, and with little drop-off from their regular occupants- to Cleveland for a couple of second-rate prospects. Hendry's lame excuse: DeRosa- a key member of last year's division-winning team, for whom no comparable replacement was on hand- batted from the wrong side of the plate.

Hendry then signed a closer from off Florida's disabled list- Kevin Gregg- and Milton Bradley, who was supposed to plug the one remaining hole in the Cubs' starting lineup (before Hendry opened the one at second base by trading DeRosa and turning the position over to the distinctly mediocre Mike Fontenot) for enough money that if these turned out to be mistakes, cutting our losses would not be an option. They both turned out to be mistakes. Last year's closer, long-time Cub favorite Kerry Wood, had (understandably, perhaps) been let go in order to cut salary. DeRosa's utility position was to be filled by Aaron Miles, who- like Gregg (and most of the team, for that matter)- also turned out to be a complete dud this year. Bradley has had more luck hitting Gatorade machines than baseballs, and was ordered out of his uniform and the stadium for it by a disgusted manager, Lou Pinella, the other day.

The team that figured to run away with the National League Central (one magazine predicted this Spring that they'd clinch the division by August) turned out to be a complete mediocrity. Player after player who starred last year apparently forgot over the winter how to play the game. I don't suppose you can blame Hendry for that.

But from the disappointment that began with last year's unceremonious ouster from the post-season, to Hendry's indefensible trading of DeRosa, to the signings of mediocrities like Milton Bradley and Miles and Gregg for enough money to essentially preclude any turn-around for at least a couple of years, to a season of ineptitude even from players from whom we could reasonably have expected far better up and down the roster, being a Cub fan has been a constant torment for the last eight months. It has long since been clear that my decision not to bother with the Cubs until October meant, in essence, that I didn't have to bother with them at all. It's been clear for a long time that they'll be watching the first round of the playoffs on television this year, right along with the rest of us.

Cub fans have gone from the exhilaration of thinking that we had a team that would contend for world championships for years to come, to the heartbreak of October's second consecutive post-season collapse, to the all-to-familiar feeling of betrayed outrage at inept personnel management by the front office over the off-season, to the new, bleak prospect of mediocrity during the very time span we had reasonably had hoped for glory-and all of this in eight, agnonzing months. During that time, the Cubs have gone from shooting themselves in the foot on the field, to doing it in the front office- and likely murdering their future over the short term. But today, the ultimate insult was added to the injury.

The hated Cardinals traded for Mark DeRosa- and I hope he takes them to a World Series.

I won't be watching the Cubs when the play the Cardinals next week. If I were, I'd be tempted to root for DeRosa and the Cards.

Tom Ricketts and the new ownership will take the Cubs over eventually. Maybe I'll start paying attention again then. The firing of Hendry- whom I have defended vociferously ever since he first got the job- would be pretty much a non-negotiable for me to give a damn about the Cubs again.

One thing, though, is certain: the season I said last October wouldn't begin until this October is doubly over for me now. For the rest of this season, and quite possibly next, I'm done with the Chicago Cubs. After the mediocrity of the Fifties, the repeated heartbreak of 1969, the early Seventies, 1984, 2003, 2007 and 2008, I've finally come to the point where my disgust simply has overflowed my capacity to care.

Until further notice, I have ceased to care about the Chicago Cubs one way or the other.

ADDENDUM: It gets worse.

The scuttlebutt is that Hendry had decided to make a bid to get DeRosa back at the trading deadline. But he procrastinated- and the Pestilential Ruddy Fowl did not.