The Cubs already blew it, the Red Sox are about to. Dan Nied saw this coming a mile away. Now, is there any point for a fan to dream?
When Cubs' pitcher Kerry Wood tied the seventh game of the National League Championship Series at 3-3 with a two-run home run in the second inning Wednesday, the curse was all but officially broken, right?
Guess again.
While he dramatically tied the game early, on the mound Wood turned in what may have been his worst outing of the season. In turn, the Cubs couldn't find the runs to keep up with the Marlins and lost 9-6. Now, instead of seeing the Cubs in their first World Series since 1945, we get to see the Marlins in their second since 1997.
It was all too predictable and it was all laid out on the table like Sunday dinner placemats. The Cubs, up 3-1 in the best of seven series, needing one win in three games to get to the World Series, having Wood and Mark Prior -- two of the best young pitchers in the sport who hadn't lost back to back starts all season -- on the mound for games six and seven. The collapse was set up perfectly because the win seemed too good to be true. The curse strikes again.
This time it was more than just a fade down the stretch of the regular season. This time it was Cubs' fan Steve Bartman, in the eighth inning of game six with the Cubbies up 3-0, getting his mitts on foul ball that was destined for Cubs' left fielder Moises Alou's. It was Cubs' shortstop Alex Gonzalez, normally with a sure hand, inexplicably botching a surefire double play ball on the next batter. From there it was an eight-run inning that left the city of Chicago in a daze that is nowhere near ending right now.
This time it was Wood on the mound giving up three runs in the first inning. Wood? Three runs? The first inning? Impossible. That is, unless he was cursed. Even when Wood tied up the game with his shot that seemed destined for baseball history, the curse was just teasing Cubs fans.
Lets face it, the Cubs had no chance. At least not with supernatural forces controlling the baseball gods.
Speaking of no chance, as the Cubs were falling to a power higher than themselves, their east coast foils, the Boston Red Sox, were celebrating a come from behind game six victory which kept them alive in the American League Championship series against the Yankees. Game seven takes place today and the results are more predictable than last night's NLCS.
Either Pedro Martinez blows a rotator cuff at the pregame meal and Tim Wakefield is called in to start or Martinez throws nine no hit innings until Alfonso Soriano lays down a bunt in the 11thand three Red Sox errors allow him to touch ‘em all on a ball that never leaves the infield.
No matter what happens our dream as sports fans are dashed. Instead of the drama and the apocalyptic circumstances of a Cubs/Red Sox World Series, we'll get the Yankees and Marlins with all the charm of an antique outhouse. The Yankees will win and the powers that be in baseball, who or whatever they are, will all laugh at us for believing that the impossible can happen.
Maybe next year.