Chicago Thwarted in Game 7 As Florida Reaches World Series: Marlins 9, Cubs 6
By William Gildea
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 16, 2003; Page D01
CHICAGO, Oct. 15 -- By the way, it's the all-but-forgotten Florida Marlins who will be representing the National League in the World Series.
A more unlikely underdog than even the Chicago Cubs, a team not only less celebrated but often ignored, the Marlins completed a dramatic comeback of three victories in a row to win the National League Championship Series on Wednesday night and end the Cubs' season of promise with a crushing thud.
Before a stunned Wrigley Field crowd of 39,574 and uncounted others on rooftops beyond the fences, the Marlins rallied from a two-run deficit to finish off the Cubs in Game 7, 9-6, and win the NL pennant that the Cubs so desperately wanted but let get away. Right-hander Josh Beckett, Sunday's Game 5 winner, pitched four sparkling innings of relief to help deflate the Cubs. Now the wild-card winners will await the outcome of the American League Championship Series, which also will be decided by a Game 7, Thursday night in New York between the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.
Staff Editorial
We are tempted to write something like "Cubs fans took the news surprisingly well. Perhaps inured to disappointment over the years, perhaps having braced themselves when the previous night's collapse signaled to all but the blind that the series was effectively over, Cubs fans around the Chicago area returned to their daily lives, purchasing straight razors, gossiping at drugstores about the right barbiturates to go with their vodka, and shopping for shotguns, plastic sheeting, and stationery."
But we, nudged by NPR's broadcast of al old interview tape, remember the words of the immortal Chicago sage, Mike Royko, who routinely -- and accurately -- predicted Cubs failures, collapses, and implosions over the years. Royko knew that the Cubs, for all of their inability to excel, were the most human of all teams, because most humans didn’t excel either. He cited the continuing excellence of the New York Yankees as an unnatural departure from the norm of human experience. Royko was a man addicted to the truth, and to the humor inherent in reality.
The staff of Muskrat news first learned about politics by reading Royko's column regularly. Mainly interested in his annual Cubs quiz, we were hoodwinked into getting a first-rate education in politics, culture, law enforcement, and the mechanics of corruption. In the meantime, the Cubs were giving us a life-long lesson in the grim reality of the odds against happy endings, the high ratio of losers to winners in life, and the improbable possibility of enjoying the game -- and life -- regardless of the score.
We were sincerely hoping to be able to write the headline "Hell freezes over," and we had some good material for the story. But no such luck. The devil and a guy named Bartman -- who may be the same person -- foiled that. We're not happy, but we're here. And we'll be here tomorrow, with more crude and cheap humor.
Remember, Kids, the part in bold is actual 100% news-flavored media product.
The rest is the fakey part.
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