Seriously, the World Series

[Editors Note - Yea, you get Bob twice this week. Be sure to show the appropriate love]

By Bob Rehak

As a Cubs fan, I’m nervous. As a father of two Cubs fans and the husband of one Cubs fan and the owner of a dog who’s a Cubs fan (she better be if she plans on any more walks); I’m downright petrified.

With more than half of the season gone, the Cubs are still in first place, and have a legitimate shot at the playoffs. The playoffs seem inevitable, given the recent acquisition of Rich Harden and the subtraction of all things named Patterson from the roster. What scares me is that everyone else thinks so, too, and is looking past the playoffs, towards the World Series.

Pull back on those reins, Willie Shoemaker. Didn’t all the experts predict a World Series appearance last year once the Cubs won the National League Central? Everyone had them meeting the Phillies in the NLCS, and both teams got booted in the first round of the playoffs. While all signs may point towards another postseason for the Cubs, there are three factors that could delay the trip to the World Series, and none of them involve cute, smelly petting zoo animals:

The Brewers: Sure, Milwaukee acquired a great pitcher in CC “as in EE Cummings” Sabathia, but he can only pitch every 5 days. What should worry Cubs fans is the Brewers’ offense. Players like J.J. Hardy (think he’ll drop the periods?), Prince Fielder, Cory Hart and Ryan Braun are all top-flight offensive threats, even if you can’t find a normal first name in the bunch. And the Brewers always give the Cubs a close game. Yes, the Cubs should be able to beat the Brewers, but think about this: the Cubs play the last 3 games of the season in Milwaukee, and the Cubs are under .500 on the road this year. Let’s hope those last 3 games are meaningless to the Cubs. In a good way.

Also consider that the Cubs and Brewers have the two best records in the National League at this point, meaning that if one of them is the Wild Card team, and both teams survive the first round of the playoffs, they will meet each other for the pennant in the NLCS. That’s like Christie Brinkley accidentally getting on an elevator alone with Peter Cook. Very uncomfortable.

The Unbalanced Major Leagues: There are 30 teams in Major League Baseball, with 3 divisions in the American League and 3 divisions in the National League. Now, any third grader can tell you that 30 teams divided by 6 divisions works out nicely to 5 teams per division, with no remainders, as we used to say in the 3^rd grade. So why in the over-extended, pretentious name of PricewaterhouseCoopers are there 16 teams in the National League and only 14 teams in the American League? The National League Central division has 6 teams, while the American League West division has only 4 teams. If your favorite team is in the AL West and it can’t make the playoffs at least every other year, you might as well root for the Patterson brothers to reach their potential.

So while teams in the AL West only have to beat out 3 other teams to reach the playoffs, the Cubs have to beat out 5 other teams, if you include Pittsburgh as a team. What doesn’t make sense is that the Brewers used to be in the American League and moved to the National League, effective creating this traffic jam in the NL Central. It really doesn’t make any sense to have this unbalanced mix. Oh sure, having an odd number of teams in each League would mean that there would have to be at least one interleague game every night, but so what? Doesn’t everyone just get all giddy during interleague play anyway? Well, instead of a calvacade of games in June, why not just spread out those games so that there’s one every night? We get permanent interleague, and the National League Central gets a fair shake.

God’s version of “Punk’d”: Your God, whether he’s an Almighty deity, a Buddha, a cow, or Morgan Freeman, likes to laugh. At the very least he likes to see Cubs fans squirm.

In 2003, He brought us to within 5 outs of the World Series. That was just a teaser.

Because when you think about it, the past 4 World Series, ever since the Cubs came within those 5 outs of the Series, have been won by the Cubs’ fans worst nightmare teams: in 2004, the Red Sox broke their “curse”; leaving the Cubs and White Sox with the longest Championship droughts. The very next year, God took care of the White Sox and handed them their rings. With those two teams out of the way, He went for the middle of our hearts in 2006: the hated Cardinals won it all with an overachieving team and a couple of DUIs.

So last year seemed like a perfectly natural segue for the Cubs, right? Nope, He said give the Red Sox a SECOND championship, and make sure that pillar of salt gets ground into our wounds with a jackhammer.

So why should we expect anything less in 2008? Who would be our next, least favorite team to win a championship other than the Cubs? Why, the Brewers of course! The only difference this year is that we’re onto God’s hidden camera, so we can’t get punk’d if we see it coming and tell Him so.

Like a little brother getting a 5 year long noogie, I’m willing to cry “Uncle!” or “Supreme Being!” or whatever He wants to hear before He lets me up off the carpet.

I give. Now let us win one, for Your sake.

Next week: how I think the White Sox will do the rest of the year. Just kidding.