If you follow the Cubs, you know that the mystical contract you signed with the team offers the enticing promise of tomorrow.
That promise has been enough for many of you. We know this because, despite nearly a century without a World Series title, the Cubs sell out almost every game. It’s possibility you like — the possibility that tomorrow will be a better day because yesterday stunk and today likely will let you down. This is a world view shared by Cubs fans and people in war-torn countries.
There’s really no other explanation for the compulsion. There’s no way to explain the steadfastness of the true believer other than to shrug and say, “He can’t help himself.”
The Cubs’ history suggests this season will be like the others, with heartburn and heartache going head to head for headlines.
But something else, the crazy infatuation with a fat, round number, suggests that this season could be different. That number is 100. A clean, even number, 100 is. It has been 100 years since the Cubs won a World Series, and the number gives you the feeling that something has to give. Numbers like 97 or 82 just make you want to sink in the morass and continue to think dark thoughts. But 100 says, “Enough is enough.”
What’s odd about this 100th season is that the Cubs actually have a good team. It’s as if the members of the management team got together, asked themselves how they should commemorate such a milestone and came up with the radical idea of fielding a winner.
And somebody in the marketing department agreed the idea “has traction.”
The Cubs will open this historic season Monday afternoon against the Brewers, unless, you know, the Earth flies off into space and eventually disintegrates, which is entirely possible.
But it’s also possible that the Cubs, with ace Carlos Zambrano leading the way, will get off to a good start and go on a roll that leads them to the World Series. Sports Illustrated, which has about as much luck with its picks as Karl Rove has in a barroom full of female Democrats, has the Cubs losing in the Fall Classic to the Tigers.
(Cubs fans see the words “Fall Classic” associated with their team and instinctively think “classic fall.”)
But let’s try to imagine the World Series at Wrigley Field this year (yes, involving the Cubs and not a team that had to temporarily relocate because of a natural disaster). A virtual World Series, if you will. Let’s warm up for it, shall we? Let’s stretch muscles that haven’t been used since 1908.
The ivy on the outfield walls is red. This being October, the cool breeze has an edge to it, but the fans don’t notice it. They’re looking at the red-white-and- blue bunting stretched across the upper deck. There’s some- thing almost august about it, something that evokes an official state visit.
The fans have very real feelings of being in the wrong place, of not belonging, which is natural. Except for 1945, when the Cubs last went to the World Series, 100 years of history tells the fans they don’t belong here.
The first pitch by Zambrano is accompanied by a thousand points of light from the flash of cameras in the stands. It’s on. It’s really happening. And then …
OK, let’s stop. Even imagining a World Series game in Wrigley is too much for some of you, and the rest of you probably believe it’s bad luck to be talking about something that’s more than 162 games away. You know all about bad luck.
But the point of the exercise was to put you in the right frame of mind, to let you know that there is no such thing as a curse and to remind you that bad omens are superstitious nonsense.
Thunderstorms are forecast for Monday’s game.
The Cubs obviously need a lot of things to go right this season for their Saharan dry spell to end. Players need to stay healthy. A few other teams have to be not so healthy. The Cubs’ starting rotation has to be good to very good. New right fielder Kosuke Fukudome has to be for real.
But these are not outrageous requests for the defending National League Central champions. They are doable. The Cubs have a capable team, a team that can make a lot of noise in a very noteworthy season.
Manager Lou Piniella has told his players to ignore all the talk about 100 years, but that’s like asking someone to look at a Superfund site and visualize Cancun. It ain’t easy, folks.
The story begins Monday. And if not Monday then another day. And if not then, there’s always what is commonly referred to as “tomorrow.” The problem with “tomorrow” is that it sounds suspiciously like “next year.”
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rmorrissey@tribune.com
