Part V, October 9-October 15

Psychosis is a temporary mental state. A person experiences a psychotic state for a while, then they come out of it.

One or more of the following six things usually characterizes a psychotic episode:

“The Edge…there is no honest way to explain it, because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”

It’s just past midnight. Meghan and I got back from Ann Arbor about four hours ago. She went to sleep. I’ve been up thinking.

To say that I passed a breaking point today as a sports fan would be putting it nicely. Today’s game against the Cleveland Browns sent me over the edge…maybe not The Edge, like the one that Hunter Thompson described, but certainly an edge, perhaps a few actually, ones that I probably knew existed but never realized were this close. It was the kind of experience that people who actually live on the other side of The Edge would probably recall fondly over tea one afternoon. People like Hunter Thompson, Sylvia Plath, Jim Morrison, Ernest Hemingway…I’d imagine that people like this have their own personal favorite breakdowns, tales of hellacious drug-induced weekends in which they wake up on the kitchen floor Monday morning in a mess of broken plates and bowls and discover, if only accidentally, that one of their thumbs is missing…and the very fact that I’m not entirely shaken by my comparison of my own mental state to that of four people who were known for their destructive lifestyles and suicidal deaths should tell you just how far along I’ve gone. It was that kind of day.

Is diehard sports fandom a destructive lifestyle? Should we be put on medication? I’m sure that there is a psychological explanation as to what took place inside my head nine hours ago; it may have been chemical, or it may have been just a mental and emotional breakdown. No matter the case, I know one thing for sure, and I say this with absolutely no trace of humor, irony, or fun: for about twenty minutes, I was not of sound mind and body.

The day began innocently enough. I awoke on Heldman’s couch around 10:30, and for the first time ever found myself overjoyed to be on Eastern time, meaning that we had two and a half hours to shower and dress before the Bears. I did so, and threw on jeans and my Robinson jersey, and although the Bengals weren’t playing until 8:30 at night, Heldman threw on his Rudi Johnson jersey, just for good measure. We met Meghan, Robby and Weiss and the Buffalo Wild Wings, and when I arrived Meghan came over, and the three of us headed to Buffalo Wild Wings[1] I immediately locked eyes with a Browns fan, who gave me a half “hello” and half “you’re going down” look. I returned the look, and had a seat nearby.

Then came trouble. Rather than having the TVs organized so that fans know exactly where to sit to see their game, it was a free-for-all with every person in the place asking the manager to flip the station, and the manager was rushing around with his headset on, trying to please us all. The Bears game began, the big screen right in front of us showing some air purifier infomercial. I missed kickoff, and then the first play, and then another, as I squinted across the room to the appropriate television.

“Everyone’s asking the manager to change the station. I’m missing the Bears.” And with that I walked over to the other TV. The game went to commercial, and I went back to our seats just as the manager was coming over. He switched the three regular-sized TVs to our game, and changed the big screen to Lions-Ravens. I can’t stand being out of state.

“Meghan, I have sixteen chances per year to watch the Bears,” I said, answering a question she didn’t ask. “That’s sixteen games times three hours a game, which is 48 hours. 48 hours a year. Two full days out of 365. That’s it.”

Of course I knew that she knew this. She knew about the “sixteen chances” angle and all that it entailed. In retrospect, I was clearly on my way at this point, and as I have dissected every aspect of my meltdown, I’ve concluded that my problem was mostly my own astute observation that all of the Bears’ “X-factors” were on display, and that most of them went the way of the Browns. This was a Revealing Game, one that revealed all of the problems that the Bears need to overcome if they want this season to be a success (read: playoffs). The Bears’ X-factors:

All four of these X-factors revealed themselves in this game, and those revelations, mixed with the pain of the final outcome, was, I think, more than I could handle.

Early in the first, Trent Dilfer killed a Cleveland drive when he lofted a careless pass towards the endzone, well over the head of his intended receiver and into the waiting hands of Charles Tillman. It was Tillman’s first pick this season, and as he had missed nearly all of last season with an injury, it was his first pick since the “Randy Moss Pick.”[2] That was December of 2003, the day the rookie Tillman became a legend, and since that time the man they call Peanut has had one season lost to injury—thus allowing him to keep his “big play” “shut down corner” rep—and the early part of another season in which his weaknesses have only slowly been revealed. His miscues against Cincinnati were written off as a bad game, rather than the possibility that Peanut has more work to do. Because he can be that guy, that corner we all think he can be…but he’s not there yet.

All of this was going through my head as the Dilfer pass fluttered, sputtered, and fell meekly into Tillman’s hands. Bad throw, easy pick, good for us but nothing special.

The Bears drove 24 yards to their own 28, but that drive ended when rookie receiver Mark Bradley fumbled after catching an Orton pass. Shades of Cincinnati, our second receiver being careless with the football…First Gage, now Bradley. I was angry, but no more emotional than I am at any play like this. In the early going, I’ll usually let other people ride the waves while I stay on the big picture. I’ll always be vocal—the Detroit game was a prime example—but only down the stretch do I really start to explode either way. Still, something was bubbling…

Cleveland kicked to go up 3-0. We traded punts, and then...yuck. After gaining 28 yards on seven carries, Thomas Jones was sidelined in order to “work Benson into the lineup.” Many NFL teams use two backs, but this was not Lovie and Ron Turner bringing the rookie in as the “change of pace.” Let the swift Jones burn the defense outside, and then bring in the bruising Benson to pound the middle. This wasn’t that. This was an effort to give Benson a chance to be a starter, and it was disastrous. After a completion to Bradley for a first, the Bears went to Benson on four straight plays. His yardage: 5 yards, 4, negative 1, zero.

But the Browns returned the ball and the momentum soon enough when Mike Brown picked Dilfer for 73 yards. I was up yelling, high-fiving every Bears fan in the place, all of us carried into high spirits on the Brown pick. But typical Bears: Jones squirted into the endzone off a swing pass only to see the score nullified by a personal foul on Roberto Garza. We kept going backwards until we had fourth and goal from the 26, forcing rookie Robbie Gould to kick his first NFL field goal. I didn’t even realize Doug Brien was out. The score was tied, the penalty brutal. Cleveland got one last kick on a 44-yarder to make it 6-3, and Orton kneeled the game to halftime.

And yet I also had an uneasy feeling, one that was building up, one that was unlike the casual disappointment after the loss to the Redskins or the full-on malaise after the Bengals’ blew us out. The first loss was chalked up to “a rookie QB’s first NFL game,” as well as the unfathomable three straight false starts. The second was just a beat down; Cincinnati was clearly the better team, and that was that. This game, however, had a different feeling to it, a feeling of something unholy…

In the second half, Thomas Jones took over. After gaining 50 yards on 12 carries in the first, the Bears wisely fed TJ over and over to start the half. And he produced. Carrying the ball seven times for 73 yards, TJ busted off runs of 23, 15, and 25 as he took the Bears down to the Cleveland eight. But there was more to it than just a guy who was running hard and running well. There was more to all of this than science, more to it than the right play call and the line creating holes and the running back using his speed and vision to gain yardage. That may be what the other Bears fans at Buffalo Wild Wings were responding to when they stood and cheered and high-fived each other, but while I had those same surface reactions, I saw more. This was not just a running back “doing his thing.” This was a man—a football player—who was strapping his team on his back and taking them some place special, and along with the team he was inviting all of us to come along. It was that look in his eyes, a look that I called out to everyone around me, although no one at our table seemed to hear what I said. It was the look of a man with a purpose, a man making the transition from a player who is just filling a position to a leader who is using that position to make a statement. Thomas Jones was no longer important because he was our best running back; Thomas Jones was important because he was Thomas Jones. On that drive, I saw in him—in his eyes—the look of a man who was determined to make his team a winner. It was the look Brett Favre has, that Ray Lewis has, that Tom Brady has, that Donovan McNabb has.

The drive was capped off with an eight-yard swing pass to fullback Marc Edwards, who gleefully finished off everything that Jones had started, and while it would’ve been nice and fitting to have Jones score, it did not matter. What mattered was what had been said by Jones on that drive, the confidence he had injected into his teammates, the duties he had so obviously taken over in such a powerful and meaningful way that there was no use debating it: Thomas Jones was the Bears’ offensive leader. With him went the team.

But then, back to the “Benson plan,” and more sickening results. After a Cleveland punt, the Bears gave Benson another chance to be “worked into the lineup.” Never mind the display Jones had just put on five minutes earlier, or the fact that he was ready to put another long TD drive on the board, ready to put the game out of reach. The Bears went back to Benson, and he responded with a fumble. Cleveland recovered. I seethed.

There were people around me who were as outwardly upset as I was at the Benson fumble. “Benson sucks!” were tossed around the restaurant with a casual anger…perhaps if I hadn’t watched that previous drive, perhaps if I hadn’t seen the look in Thomas Jones’s eye, perhaps if I didn’t know exactly what was at stake and what was happening, then I probably would have been just as flippant as everyone else. But I knew. I saw the Bigger Picture and Larger Trend. I saw Jones’s ascension into the team-carrying pantheon, and I saw the Bears’ coaching staff meddling with that in an effort to pay off the Benson-investment, and the whole scene made me physically ill. There was a Walter Payton-type effort being put out there today, and the Bears were canning it to see if Curtis Enis could make the grade. Granted, Thomas Jones is only equal to Walter Payton in position and team, and Cedric Benson has my confidence in playing a career with much more of an upside than Curtis Enis…but that’s how it felt. This was bigger than just some running backs succeeding or not succeeding, bigger than touchdowns and fumbles, bigger than coaching strategies and coaching decisions. This was the opportunity for something magical and legendary to be created, the opportunity for a football player to take his team and his fans someplace that we could not get to without him, and it was being sullied in the name of a business investment, and nobody seemed to notice it but me.

Still, we went into the fourth with a 10-6 lead, and a defense that had been stuffing the run and keeping Dilfer off balance all day. I suppressed all of these thoughts and focused on the game. Browns punt, Bears punt, Browns punt, and then came the bad news: after getting stopped for no gain, Thomas Jones was leaving the game with a bruised knee. It didn’t look serious—he sat on the sideline with an ice pack—but he did not return. This was the kind of game that needed Jones, the kind of game that seemed destined to be put out of reach with a long Jones-led drive, capped off by a Jones touchdown. Instead, we got an Orton fumble that Kreutz recovered, and some nice runs by third stringer Adrian Peterson, but nothing long or sustained. The Bears punted. Dilfer then moved from the Cleveland 46 to the Chicago 33, and struck with a 33-yard TD pass to Antonio Bryant. 13-10 Browns.

The Bears were in their Cover-2 defense, meaning Tillman took Bryant for the first five yards, and then sat in his zone while safety Chris Harris mounted the coverage. But Harris was late to cover, and with a nice double move Bryant slanted in front of Tillman before running a fade to the back left corner. I was angry but calm. There was still time to win. But on our next drive, Peterson knocked into Orton as he ran forward to pick up a blitz. Orton fumbled again, this one recovered by Cleveland, and on their second play following the turnover, Dilfer went back to Bryant for a 28-yard touchdown. This time he just beat Tillman to the endzone, and I lost it. After screaming profanity, I began shaking a bit, and then out of frustration that I couldn’t throw anything in a public place, I smashed my Coke—a regular fast food cup with a straw—down on the table. At this point, as Meghan pointed out to me later, people were definitely looking at me and talking about me. I was in a complete and total rage. I knew there were people around, but I was operating at such a primal level that I wasn’t concerned with them. (Although I do wish I had been able to curtail the loud, public cursing. I don’t like swearing in public, particularly if there are kids around.)

The Browns now led 20-10, having scored two touchdowns on basically the same play to the same receiver burning the same corner in 38 seconds. My mind raced right back to my earlier thoughts on Charles Tillman, thoughts I had ignored because they weren’t a direct factor, but ones that none the less were clearly brewing in my mind. Once they were unleashed after the back to back Dilfer-to-Bryant-past-Tillman’s, there was no containing my emotions. On the next drive, Orton threw what looked like an interception, the Cleveland defender diving for the ball and then dashing nine yards with it. The Bears challenged the pick, and as the head official peered upon the replay, FOX put the play on a loop and continuously showed the same “Game Summary” graphic which informed us again and again that Jones had been amazing but was out with an injury and that Benson had been terrible and that the Browns had just scored fourteen points in a half a minute, and the FOX announcers went on and on about how the Bears had given this game away, and still the official was in the booth for what must have been four goddamn minutes, looking at the replay, the one that FOX kept showing us, the one the announcers kept telling us about, back and forth, again and again, and finally I got so fed up that I picked up the empty chair next to me, restrained himself from chucking into the screen, and instead held it an inch off the floor and slammed it down.

The call was reversed, and the Bears got the ball back. and after a Bobby Wade personal foul backed us up 15 yards, our drive ended on fourth down with an incomplete pass to a very frustrated Muhsin Muhammad. A big group of Bears fans got up and left in disgust, and some Browns fans left too, high-fiving each other as they went, with one of them actually looking at me and smiling in a “We got ya that time” look.

“No. The game’s not over yet,” I said, staring stubbornly at the game clock as it ticked away, knowing that nobody was going to stop it, that it was just a formality at this point, that the Bears had lost. “There’s still 47 seconds left.”

We sat until the clock ran out—just as I always do—and when it hit 0:00 I stood and went to the bathroom. My mind was painfully focused; the pain of the loss, the bang-bang fashion in which it happened, the revealing nature of the game and all of the mistakes…I was a mess. Inside the bathroom, small TV’s sat on the wall over the urinals with Game 4 of the Astros-Braves series in the eighth inning. As I stood there, a Packer fan walked in draped in a Favre jersey and a Packers hat, fresh off the good feelings of Green Bay’s first win of the year, a 52-3 destruction of the New Orleans Saints. We didn’t exchange dirty looks; he was happy that his team finally won, and respectful that my team did not. We stood there, peeing, watching TV, and as the ESPN announcer plugged the Cincinnati-Jacksonville Sunday Night Football game, one of them began talking about the Bengals offense, and what they did two weeks ago to the “fourth best defense in the league, the Chicago Bears.”

“We didn’t look like the fourth best today,” I said, with no trace of fun.

The car was parked in a garage, and when we got there, I realized I was holding back tears. This was now extraordinarily unusual, far beyond my normal emotional response. I’ve cried after games before, but only a few times, and always on big occasions when I was much younger. I cried when Northwestern lost the Rose Bowl, I cried when the Pistons beat the Bulls in 1990, and I cried in fourth grade when the Orrington School flag football team (us) were eliminated in the playoffs by the Washington School flag football team. I didn’t even cry when the Cubs lost Game 7. But a regular season football game? Week 5? A game that left us only a game out of first place? This isn’t the playoffs, and it’s not a mathematical elimination. But all throughout, this game against the Browns felt like more than just a game, and when I am that angry, I often cry.

At halftime, Meghan asked me if I would do the first stretch of driving back to Indianapolis since she was tired. I said fine. After the game, we didn’t even have to talk about it. Meghan was going to drive. I was in no state to do so. When we got to the car, I was in such a rage that I kicked the bumper twice with the heel of my shoe, and then pounded on the trunk with my fist. She looked at me; I did not look back. She got in the car, and I had her open the trunk so that I could make sure that we had everything and didn’t need to go back to Heldman’s, but really I was just trying to compose myself. It worked for a bit, but once I got into the car, I got upset again, and I punched the dash board. She looked at me, waiting for me to calm, and then she drove away. I was still very much in my own head with a lot on my mind, and I wanted to get it all out so that I could see the entire situation for what it was, and allow myself to step away from it. I began telling Meghan all about what I had seen during the game, about the four X-factors, and conclusions I’d drawn.

1. Kyle Orton—All things being equal, Kyle Orton is not going to win games for you. He’s not ready yet. He is a terrific rookie quarterback, nowhere in the league of Ben Roethlisberger, but also nowhere in the league of Ryan Leaf. Give Orton a good running game and solid pass protection, and he will be able to make enough plays and avoid enough mistakes to get the win. He showed that in the Detroit game, as well as the Washington game, in which we were in a position to win if it weren’t for the false starts. However, he’s no Brett Favre. If everything else is even, and Orton’s play is to determine whether the Bears win or lose, they will lose. He has the potential to develop into a terrific quarterback, but he’s not there yet.

2. The Thomas Jones/Cedric Benson backfield—Thomas Jones can carry this football team; Cedric Benson can hardly carry the ball. Simple as that. If the Bears want to use Benson as a change of pace back, that’s one thing. But the “work him into the lineup” approach is not working.

3. Charles Tillman and the Bears’ secondary—Tillman can be a great cover corner, and although the word out of camp was that his battles with Muhammad had made him a tremendous player, I’ve yet to see the results. He’s got the attitude of a shut down corner, as well as the confidence of his teammates, but he’s yet to produce like one. Too many pass interference calls, too many blown assignments. We can stop with the Pro Bowl talk with Peanut until he proves otherwise…which I think he will, but he hasn’t yet. Going along with that, with the exception of Mike Brown, the Bears’ secondary is vastly overrated. Tillman is not a Pro Bowler, Azumah is a wonderful football player with a great football IQ and a terrific return man, but he is not one of the best corners in the league, and Chris Harris is a hard hitter who is still learning a lot of the nuances of the position, which figures, since he is a rookie. Harris may be a starter, but as of right now, it’s been more about Mike Green losing his job than Harris winning it. Nathan Vasher is a terrific nickel back, but hasn’t been able to win the job from either Tillman or Zoom. The Bears began and finished the game as the NFL’s stingiest redzone defense but lost because they allowed the Bryant touchdowns.

4. The #2 receiver slot—First it was Wade, then Gage, now Bradley, with Bernard Berrian waiting on deck. These are all talented guys, but they all seem better suited as a #3 than a #2. Regardless, one of them is going to have to improve and take over that job if the Bears are to be successful. Moose cannot be Orton’s only target. We don’t need Rice and Taylor, Swann and Stallworth, Moss and Carter, Carter and Reed, Smith and McCafferey, or even Harrison and Wayne. What we do need is for one of those four guy to solidify the second receiver slot and loosen the defense off Muhammad.

When I finished my rant, I felt better, but I was still beyond sanity. It was about twenty minutes after the final tick on the clock, and we’d stopped at a gas station to fill up. I was nearly frothing at the mouth from anger when we pulled up, and then a wave of euphoria came over me, and I slipped into some kind of delirium. All of a sudden, I felt like I’d gone mad. I couldn’t stop laughing. Perhaps I was seeing the humor in my getting so upset over a regular season game. Perhaps I’d just gone off the deep end. Whatever it was, Meghan made me go in and buy a Coke so that I would walk around some and get my head straight. It worked. The way I deal with my emotions is I like to push them as far as they can go so that nothing is ever suppressed, and then I release them completely and move on. The bigger the emotional situation, the stronger the emotions and the longer it will take me to let go of them. This was obviously the case here. With such a powerful amount of sports-related pain and frustration, mixed with the acute insight of exactly what was happening with the Bears and why, plus the annoyance that nobody else was seeing it, I just went over the top. But I got some water and a candy bar, and I got back in the car, and felt better. It was clear to me what had happened, and that I had peaked and was now back to normal. Meghan, on the other hand, looked upset.

“Are you kidding? You were screaming and swearing, you slammed down your drink and picked up a chair--”

She paused, and then looked at me, and then almost said something, and then didn’t, and then looked at me again.

But she didn’t say anything. Her eyes darted a bit around her head. She was clearly thinking about something, something that required delicacy.

“…and I know that you’re going to put this in your book and I’m going to end up looking like a villain or a traitor or something, but baby…”

“I mean, I’m a Cubs fan. I love the Cubs. Maybe not as much as you love the Bears, but I love the Cubs. When they lost two years ago, I was upset, but I wasn’t cursing or throwing things or anything like that. You lost control of yourself today.”

“No. It’s just a game. It is fun, and yes, it’s important, but it’s just a game.”

Is it possible that I’ve taken sports too far? I hate to think that’s the case, and yet I know that my actions and emotions during and after the game today far exceeded anything that would suggest that I have sports in their proper context. It can be difficult to keep a good perspective on the importance of a single play, a single game, a single season, particularly when your entire being is totally involved in that play or that game or that season. How do you remove yourself and remind yourself that “it just doesn’t matter” and still go through the full experience, an experience that requires your full submission? How do you detach while remaining attached? How do you pour your heart and soul into a team, and then let go? Perhaps my emotions got the better of me earlier today, but I’ve always been a person who believes in experience first and analysis second…involvement first, perspective second. Because of that, my fear that I may have “overdone it” today is eclipsed by my faith in gut reactions. Certainly a person who wants to make the most out of sports must be willing to face the possibilities of embarrassment, public obscenity, and subtle hints of violence. Well, shouldn’t he?

The Sox continued their incredible postseason by splitting the first two games of the ALCS at the Cell against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim from Southern California Which Is Near the Ocean (The Pacific). Game 1 was a battle, and for the first time in the playoffs, the Sox were outpitched. Granted, Jose Contreras threw a great game. When the Cuban righty handed the ball to Neal Cotts with one out in the ninth, he had not allowed a runner to cross the plate since the third. Cotts then took down both batters he faced.

But the Angels were just a bit better. It all started with Garrett Anderson, their star from their ’02 team, who gave them a 1-0 lead on a second inning solo, a lead they would never lose. (Sven, after the Anderson home run: “Garrett Anderson is really annoying. He doesn’t look like he’s trying, and then when he does something good he looks like he doesn’t care.”)

Paul Byrd got the win, allowing only two earned runs on five hits over six innings. Byrd plunked Rowand to start the seventh, and then Scot Shields came in and was lights out over the next two innings, allowing only two base runners, both on singles. Francisco Rodriguez, AKA K-Rod (one of my favorite nicknames, incidentally), entered in the ninth to protect the Angels’ 3-2 lead. The Sox had a chance: Everett led off and reached base on an error, and after Pablo Ozuna entered to pinch-run for Everett Rowand squared up for a sac bunt. But the bunt missed and Ozuna was thrown out at second. A.J. lined out, Crede K’d, and that was that. Angels 1, White Sox 0.

Mark Buehrle pitched on Wednesday, and he was rather good. The story of the game, however, was not Mark Buehrle, nor was it Angels’ starter Jerrod Washburn, who was rather good himself. The story was Pierzynski, the catcher making One Of Those Plays, the kind that leaps out at us, calling us, telling us to Take Notice lest we miss history. You know, One Of Those Plays. And as it turned out, Game 2 was One Of Those Games. If these 2005 White Sox win the AL Pennant, and certainly if they win the World Series, Pierzynski’s play in the ninth inning of Game 2 of the ALCS will be one of the key points that fans point to in bewildered excitement, the point at which they say: “I don’t know how we did it, but however it happened, this certainly helped.”

The White Sox went ahead 1-0 in the first off of pretty much nothing. Podsednik grounded to Washburn, but the pitcher’s throwing error allowed him safely to first and second. Iguchi sacrificed Pods to third, Jermaine drove him in on a groundout to short. No hits, no walks, one run. Just like that.

Then to start the fifth, a guy I’ve never heard of named Robb Quinlin hit a solo. Rare is the postseason player I’ve never heard of; rarer still is the one that homers off Mark Buehrle. But it happened. Game tied.

And that’s pretty much where it stayed. From the sixth inning on, Buehrle faced 13 batters, one more than the possible minimum. Tied at 1, into the ninth, Kelvim Escobar on the mound, pitching brilliantly. Everett grounds out. One down. Rowand strikes out. Two down. This was a game that felt like extra innings; we were all sure of it.

Pierzynski to the plate. 0-2 with a walk thus far. Escobar digs in, throws. Ball one. Another pitch, and A.J. swings and misses. Another ball, and then a foul, and then a third ball. 3-2 on Pierzynski, two outs, nobody on, nobody in, game tied at 1. Escobar heaves the 3-2, a biting curve that breaks downward in front of Pierzynski, enticing his bat, leaving it empty. And then…well, what happened? As I watched the pitch, it seemed as if the ball hit the ground before reaching the catcher’s mitt. Oh, and the catcher just happened to be Josh Paul, the only man to play for both the 2000 White Sox and the 2003 Cubs, the last two Chicago baseball teams to go to the playoffs. Meaningful? Maybe. You never can tell with baseball.

The ball reaches Paul’s glove, home plate umpire Doug Eddings gives a “strikeout” motion, and Paul rolls the ball back to the mound as Escobar walks towards the dugout. Pierzynski turns, moving towards his dugout, but then…well, sometimes you just need to go for it, and that’s exactly what Pierzynski did. He went for it. Suddenly, Pierzynski spins around, and now he’s running straight for first base. Nobody quite knows what is happening. Pierzynski is standing on first. Eddings says “safe.” The Angels are confused and angry. The Sox are confused and overjoyed. Did he just do that? Not even the people involved can give a clear answer.

Pierzynski: “I thought for sure the ball hit the ground. I watched the replay 50 times and I still don’t know. The third strike is in the dirt, you run. I didn’t hear him say out, Josh didn’t tag me.”

Paul: “Customarily, if the ball is in the dirt, say if we block a ball for strike three, they usually say, ‘No catch, no catch, no catch.’ I didn’t hear any of that. That’s why I was headed back to the dugout.”

After much review, Pierzynski was ruled safe. The Cell was going nuts, the Angels looked dead. We were done. We had them. And now…THIS. Instead of trying to win in extra innings, the Angels now had to buckle down and close out right now. Of course, baseball-wise, nothing much had happened. There were still two outs, and the game was still tied. But that’s the thing about Those Plays. They have a funny way of charging up one side while deflating the other.

Ozuna pinch ran for A.J., who trotted off the field to a thunderous applause. And then Crede came to the plate, and then Ozuna took off and stole second. And then Escobar threw, and Crede swung, and then the ball landed for a double, and Ozuna scored, and the Sox charged the field.

But, again, the Sox are not my team, and they have not consumed me, and while Luke and Sven and the rest of them soak up their full White Soxness, my attention is drawn elsewhere. Even during Games 1 and 2, I was playing Madden, flipping over during commercials. I would never flip during a Cubs playoffs game. My Madden franchise is in full effect in Year 4, incidentally, which is nice because it helps to balance off the actual Bears, who are, at present, floundering at 1-3 despite talent that reads 3-1. (Could a typical 1-3 Bears team pull together a game like Week 2 vs. Detroit?)

Meanwhile, I’m busy gearing up for the return of YOUR! Chicago Bulls, who are about to knock out yet another For-The-First-Time-Since-1998, because for the first time since the 97-98 season, the Bulls have preseason postseason expectations. Exciting times...

...but also thoughtful, as this 2005-06 season begins without Eddy Curry, who just nine days ago was sent to the Knicks in a sign-and-trade. This whole Curry thing has been odd and challenging. Rather than just being about basketball, a person’s life was at stake, and in the end Curry’s heart condition figured heavily into Paxson’s decision to deal him.

This was a very complex situation, and as I cannot dissect its intracicies any better than did ESPN.com’s and Chicago’s own Scoop Jackson—who did so in his October 11^thcolumn—I will briefly sum it up:

1. Paxson protected his interests by requesting the DNA test. Had he not asked and simply resigned Curry, and had Curry’s condition worsened, he would have left the Bulls vulnerable to a rather large lawsuit.

2. Curry protected his interests by refusing the DNA test until after he has a contract, and in New York he found a team that would sign him no questions asked.

Never before have I seen the full weight of what sports mean to the people who play them than I did during this Curry situation. Wrote Jackson:

Will the Knicks make Eddy Curry take a DNA test? No. It’s against the employee laws in New York.

Will they suggest that he take it? Yes. They, like every other team, would like to know if something is seriously wrong and/or whether Eddy is predisposed to the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that took Gathers and Boston's Reggie Lewis away from us.

Now that the results of the test are no longer part of a negotiation, are no longer a part of how his immediate future will be decided, are no longer looked at as the end-all-be-all of his professional basketball career, I’m pretty sure he wants to know, just like everyone else: What in the hell is really going on inside this body?

And regardless of the results, in one year with the Knicks, he’ll make half of that Bulls’ offer of $20 million over 50 years. If the results come back positive, he’ll triple it in less than six.

And for those of us who’ve never had that opportunity—you know, had that lifelong dream come true of not just making the NBA, but of getting to the second contract, the one that sets you and your peoples up for life—to judge Eddy Curry’s decision to ignore the inconclusiveness of the cardiologists, to ignore the irregular heartbeats, to ignore the recent deaths of 22-year-old Shawntinice Polk of the University of Arizona or 22-year-old Thomas Herrion of the San Francisco 49ers…it basically shows our ignorance more than his.

To understand the fourth side, simply use Jay Williams and Grant Hill as criteria. Here are two kids who had the lives that Eddy Curry dreamed of, who experienced things at an early age that Curry probably still hasn’t experienced. They know that basketball does not equal life.

But do they act like they don’t know? No. They are still doing everything humanly possible to play. Regardless of what every doctor has told them. Regardless of the hand God has dealt them.

If a degree from Duke doesn’t make them smart enough to pull away from the game, what in the hell do you think a diploma from Thornwood High School is going to do?

And when put in perspective, their injuries weren’t as severe as Curry’s, and the risk is not the same. But the principle is: Losing this game in their lives is equal to losing their lives.

So Curry is gone, leaving a rather sizeable hole in the middle of our lineup. And though I’ve maintained that Curry’s value is limited if he does not score 20 a night—how hard can it be for an athletic seven footer playing 28.7 minutes a night to drop in two buckets and a free throw per quarter?—his presence, limited as it may have been, was undeniable. Overall though, I’m very happy with this trade, though I’m disappointed that we had to give up A.D. That’s a shame. But Sweetney seems like he could be a very solid interior scorer, and obviously the prospect of getting New York’s 2006 first rounder and swapping picks in ’07 is a delight.

On the morning of Sunday, October 12, 2003, I woke up on the couch in my TV room. I was sleeping on the couch because my visiting parents were sleeping on my bed. I’d crashed out on that couch before, but that was the first time that I purposefully went to sleep on it. I think that’s what threw me. That brief moment when I was just coming out of a night’s rest, and I opened my eyes just a bit to see, not the walls of my room, but rather the TV and front door. For that split second, I did not feel like I was where I was supposed to be.

It was my senior year at IU, and my parents had come down to watch the IU-NU football game in Bloomington. Northwestern had pulled out the big win, beating the Hoosiers 37-31 in overtime. We left the game happy. Back to my apartment for cards, a movie, and although they were originally planning only to stay for the Bears-Saints game, I talked them into staying for another: Game 5 of the NLCS.

Game 1 was a dizzying back-and-forth affair at Wrigley that Florida eventually won in the 10^th.[3] After that, the Cubs took three straight. Took? Actually, that’s putting it nicely. The Cubs obliterated Florida. Game 2 saw a 12-3 pounding with Prior allowing only two earned in seven innings. Meanwhile, the Cubs first three batsmen—Lofton, Grudz, and Sammy—combined for a 7-of-13 with 5 RBI and 4 runs scored. Game 3 was close, the Cubs pulling out a 5-4 win in the 11^th…and then came Game 4.

The season almost hadn’t seemed real up to that point. The Cubs won the division, and then beat Atlanta in five games, and then after losing Game 1, they took two in a row in the NLCS. Then came Game 4, the key game, where a loss ties it up and a win puts you a game away from the World Series. You almost couldn’t believe it was happening, because we never had a big lead during the season—we were under .500 after the All-Star break, and we didn’t clinch the division until Game 161—and then all of a sudden we’re in Game 4, and we didn’t even realize where we were until we were there…which was exactly how the game began, because Lofton, Sammy, and Moises all walked, hey look at that, bases are loaded with one out, and then Aramis came up and BOOM! clocked one with his big open swing, and like Pudge Fisk watching the ball drift high down the line, damn, he killed that ball, and now Aramis is just looking at it, and I’m looking at it, and everybody is just looking at it, and then it goes fair and Holy Hell! Did you see that? Aramis just hit a grand slam! We’re up 4-nil! And it’s still the first inning!

And that was the series. That was the season. That was how it felt. Everybody just watching, not really thinking about the full meaning of it all, and all of a sudden we realize, “Wait a second. Did the Cubs just go up 3-1 in the NLCS?”

All of a sudden, before we’d even realized it, we were up three games to one in the NLCS, one game away from a World Series appearance. Could it be? Was it possible? My folks came over for NU-IU, and then we hung out, and finally we went to bed, with me cuddling up on my couch with my sleeping bag and pillows, and then I woke up Sunday morning, and I opened my eyes, and instead of my bed I was on my couch. And that probably did it. My eyes adjusted, and the first thought of the day flashed through my head, a thought that frightened me perhaps more than it should have, a thought that would end up haunting me until opening day of 2004…Right now, at this very moment, the Cubs are FAVORED to be in the World Series…

Never the less, I shook it off and put it behind me. My parents and I got ready and split out to Yogi’s for a double header. Bears-Saints at noon, Cubs-Marlins at three. SANTO 10 unbuttoned over ROBINSON 88, Bears hat on top. We got to Yogi’s, got a table and some food. I was amped. But the Bears were a bust, a lethargic 20-13 loss to New Orleans, leaving me anxious but focused on Game 5.

It wasn’t to be. Josh Beckett threw a complete game shutout, allowing only two hits, bolstered by three Florida home runs. The Marlins won 4-0 in a game that was Beckett’s all the way. When you get beat by a good pitcher who was just too good, you don’t feel quite so bad. Plus, we were going home for Games 6 and 7 where we would have Prior and Wood pitching and a chance to wrap the series in front of the home crowd, and damnit! If we can’t win one game with Prior and Wood…well, maybe we don’t deserve to win. (We didn’t actually believe that, of course…)…and so we were confident with our two aces headed for the mound, and as much as I wanted to celebrate the Cubs pennant win with my parents, they would be headed back to Wilmette as the Cubs headed back to Chicago for Game 6. Ah well. So it be.

It had been a fun weekend of sports and family, the kind of weekend that really makes you feel like an American. Sports and family. My folks went home, and the Cubs headed back to Wrigley. Prior and Wood. The home crowd. The way it should be.

…who are a game away from (easy Jack…don’t say it…don’t say it…) going to the World Series. (Gulp.) Yesterday’s hero was Jon Garland, the young starting pitcher who has been teasing the Sox and their fans with his potential since 2000. Garland was brilliant; in his first career postseason start—one that came after a twelve-day layoff—the right hander put together a complete game, allowing two earned on four hits while walking one and striking out seven. The Sox offense gave him a 3-0 lead in the first, adding a run in the third on Carl Everett’s bat and another in the fifth on Konerko’s. The Angels scored two in the sixth off a two-run shot from Orlando Cabrera. And that was it. After giving up the two runs, Garland locked it down, retiring Anaheim’s final ten batters. ALCS: White Sox 2, Angels 1.

And then Game 4. After one close loss, one miraculous win, and one workmanlike win, the White Sox put together a thumper, winning 8-2 earlier today. Once again, the Sox scored early: Ervin Santana walked Podsednik and hit Iguchi to start the game, and after Dye rocked a deep sac fly to center to move the runners over, Konerko went yard. 3-nothing Good Guys. The Angels worked some runners on and around to score once in the third, and after the two teams traded runs in the fourth, the score stood 5 to 2 with but five innings left to play. Everett singled in a run in the fifth, Crede singled in two in the eighth, and the Sox rode yet another complete game to victory. This time it was Freddy Garcia. And yes, for those of you scoring at home, that’s three consecutive complete games for the White Sox. And the bullpen that shut out Boston in 7 1/3 IP? All but shutout in this series, save for the two outs recorded by Cotts in the ninth inning of Game 1. I doubt they’re complaining.

So now it’s off to Game 5 tomorrow, with the Sox looking to capture their first AL Pennant since 1959. This was my thought as I watched the Sox finish off Game 4, sitting on the very couch that I slept on the night before Game 5 in 2003. And then I realized that one of two things was about to happen: either the White Sox are going to the World Series, or they are about to choke and blow a three games to one ALCS lead. And yes, it has occurred to me that tomorrow is Sunday, and the Bears will be playing a noon game as a lead-in to a Chicago baseball team’s attempt to clinch the LCS in Game 5 on the road. And yes, it freaks me out.

Holy Cow! Despite a setback in Game 5, the Cubbies have a chance to grab the National League Pennant tonight at Wrigley Field, the way it should be. With every twirl of Dusty Baker’s toothpick I get more and more excited about this season, and the distinct possibility that in four days Kerry Wood could be pitching Game 1 of the World Series. My giddiness has started to override my paranoid superstitions and has gotten to the point where I lay in bed for hours thinking about Sammy and Kerry and Harry and ivy, and the other night it got so bad (or good) that in order to quench my Cubbie thirst I had to pop in my tape of the 1998 one-game playoff against the Giants. Yes, despite the South Siders late-season collapse, baseball is alive and well in the Windy City, particularly at 1060 W. Addison, where the Cubbies have their 95-year-old fans thanking God for yet another chance to see a World Series champ at Wrigley.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, home of your World Champion Chicago Cubs!”

Does that sound right? Until Joe Borowski struck out Andruw Jones to send the Cubs to the NLCS, I never actually believed the Cubs could win the World Series. And I don’t mean never this year. I mean never. Not in ’89. Not in ’98. Not after we clinched the NL Central. But after that final out in Game 5, I mapped out the probable pitching matchups for the NLCS, and that was the first time in my life that I’d ever seriously considered the idea of the Cubs playing in the World Series.

My world view hasn’t been the same since.

For years, I could always imagine the Cubs in the Series, but I never actually believed it. And now that it’s more than a dream, it’s frightening. I’ve crossed into a new level of being. I’d imagine that it’s similar to dying. Logically, everyone knows that at some point they will die, but most people don’t live their lives thinking it will happen. And then one day, you’ve got a disease or you’re really old or you’re about to crash into an oncoming Mack truck, and you realize that death can happen. You begin to deal with that sensation realistically, and your world is never the same. This is how I feel about the Cubs playing in the World Series. If it does happen, my entire perception of what it means to be a sports fan in Chicago will be altered.

To make things crazier, the equally cursed Red Sox are trying to win the American League, to set up a Cubs-Red Sox series. A lot of fans are hoping for this “dream series,” but let me tell you something: Cubs-Red Sox is bad news. Both teams are trying to break curses, and if the Cubs beat the Yankees or the Red Sox beat the Marlins, then the curses will be defeated. But if the Cubs play the Red Sox, one of those teams has to win. Neither team has a chance to beat the curse, but instead one team will be mathematically forced into victory. That freaks me out.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This is still the Cubs, after all, and if the curse really does exist, then there’s still time for something terrible to happen. At this point, I have to believe in the curse, because if I don’t, it means the Cubs have been fielding a crappy, uncursed team for 95 years. I think we’ll win tonight, but beyond that, I refuse to guess. Writing this column was bad enough karma, so I’m going to stop before I jinx us any further.

*Taken from the pages of the Indiana Daily Student on the morning of October 14, 2003 (also known as the morning of Game 6, AKA the Bartman Game).

It was back to Yogi’s for Game 6. Luke, a bit distraught at this point, did not wish to venture out in order to watch the Cubs advance to the World Series, and so I went to the bar by myself, quickly sniffing out some legit Cubs fans and settling down to watch.

The Cubs scored first…once again, it was Lofton, the guy who, to this day, I feel was the key piece to the ’03 Cubs. He hit .327 for us during the regular season and just never stopped. After a leadoff single in the first, Lofton scored on a Sosa double. 1-zip Cubs on Lofton’s eighth run of the series. Amazing. And the chit-chat begins.

So where are you guys from?...Oh cool…A senior…Yeah, I’m glad to be nearly done with it all…

Prior gets Miguel Cabrera to fly out to center to end the top of the third. Still 1-zip Cubs. Prior through three innings: two singles, one walk, one strike out, four runners left on base, no runs scored.

…oh, that’s cool. How do you like that?...Understandably. Where did you say you were from again?

Sixth inning. Prior taking over. Powered by a pair of strikeouts, he retires Florida 1-2-3. Marlins still haven’t scored…and then it’s back-to-back singles for Sammy and Mo to start the bottom of the sixth. Aramis grounds into a double play (and yes, at this point, he was on First-Name as well), and then it’s rookie sensation and (sort-of) former Cub Dontrelle Willis in to relieve Carl Pavano. Willis gives up a wild pitch to Karros; Sammy scores from third. 2-zip Cubs.

I see. Interesting. One sec…Let’s focus here…YES! YES! YES! (And then, almost under my breath, afraid to say it too loud…) Holy crap! We’re nine outs away…

First up for Florida in the seventh: Mike Lowell. Game 1’s hero flies out to Alou. Eight outs away… Next up: Jeff Conine. The lone remaining member of Florida’s ’97 World Series team flies out to Lofton. Seven outs away!... And finally: the other Alex Gonzalez, and right on cue he flies out to Sosa in right. Three batters, three flyouts, left to center to right, Alou to Lofton to Sosa. Prior after seven: 26 batters faced, three hits (all singles), two walks, six strikeouts, no base runners allowed since Pierre’s single in the fifth, no runs…and oh, by the way…

Man, it was so exciting! Backup catcher Paul Bako singles to start the bottom of the seventh. At this point, I am standing up, my fingers gripping the back of my chair-like bar stool, and then off as I high-five my new Cubs friends, nearly holding their hands…Prior bunts Bako to second, Lofton K’s, and then it’s Grudzielanek singling in Bako, and now the Cubs lead 3-0. Climbing, climbing, building…

Sosa singles, but then Alou flies out to end the inning, leaving Sammy on first. And now we go to the eighth inning, six outs away. I can still feel it…

Mark Prior takes the mound to begin the eighth. He has been spectacular—no…brilliant—and now he is getting set to take us to the World Series. The World Series! I’m nearly jumping with every pitch now; I’ve taken my Santo jersey off due to sweating, and now it’s slung around my neck John Thompson-style, and I’m squeezing it and holding it to my face in Anticipation and constantly rubbing the stitches around the “C” on the chest for good luck. Mike Mordecai to start things off, and he flies out to left, to Alou, and there’s one out in the eighth. FIVE OUTS! FIVE MORE OUTS!

Pierre doubles to left. He’s a rather slippery fella. Still, one out, Cubs up 3-0, top of the eighth, Game 6 of the NLCS, eventual-Cy Young winner—(assuming he doesn’t win it this year…he is incredible!)—Mark Prior on the mound. I’m applauding, I’m jumping, and the entirety of Yogi’s is watching, but I’m not at all concerned with them, focusing instead on my karmic connection with Cubs fans around the country…and Chicago…always Chicago…

Up walks Luis Castillo. Pierre at second. One out. At this point, I couldn’t even follow the pitches. I had no idea what the count was on Castillo…all I knew was that each additional pitch meant that we were that much closer to an out, and each additional out meant that we were that much closer to the World Series…

…and now Castillo swings, fighting off a Prior pitch, and the ball floats into the stands…that’s out of play…and now Alou approaches fast, and now he leaps so high, and now the air is shattered by the hands of some poor guy…

It was so confusing. And of course, Alou made it worse. When he slammed his glove to the ground in disgust, it was the signal to the rest of us that Things Were Bad. And so we began yelling and shrieking and looking around in a panic. If we were in the stands, we began pointing at the headphone-wearing fan, who sat silently, possibly just as confused and panicked as we were, though maybe for different reasons. And if we were watching on television, we were pointing as well, waiting for the announcers to tell us that, perhaps, just perhaps, fan interference would be called. But wasn’t Alou’s glove over the wall? Ya know, in fan territory? Hold on, they’re showing it again. Yeah, it was. So that’s not interference, right? And plus, he’s a Cubs fan. They won’t call anything, right? Right?

Castillo walked on a wild-pitch. Pierre took third. First and third, one out…we’re still up 3-0, right? I mean, they haven’t even scored. We’re fine…right?

And then Cabrera bounced to short…YES! That’ll do it…No! No! No! Gonzalez booted it!...please let this be over…if I close my eyes, maybe it will be over…

If we had been watching with Clear Heads, perhaps we would have turned and blamed Gonzalez for the whole thing. After all, it was still just three to one. Months later, we would hold him almost entirely responsible, but not yet. Still confused by the Unidentified Fan—(and to think, he was actually “unidentified for that first 24 hours)—we shook ourselves, trying to understand what was happening, and we looked at the fan, who was now being pelted with beer and napkins…and now he’s being led out of the park by security…what’s happening to us?...and then, with the bases loaded from the Gonzalez error, Derrek Lee rips a back-breaking double to left field, the ball dropping in front of the still-flustered Alou. Two runs score, tie game. Just a tie game. Cubs still have two more chances…And now Dusty is going out to get Prior, who looks spooked, and now it’s Farnsworth, and one after another, the runs come pouring in. Second and third, Lowell intentionally walked, Conine sacrifies to score Cabrera. 4-3 Marlins. Todd Hollandsworth pinch-hitting with the runners again at second and third, and again it’s an intentional walk to load the bases and set up the force…please don’t hit it to Gonzalez again…and now it’s Mordecai…aw crap. They’ve batted around…and Mordecai doubles to clear the bases…7-3 Marlins…and Mordecai is standing alone on second base, elated, and now there is no doubt, and Remlinger comes in for the Farns, and Pierre singles to score Mordecai, and Remlinger gets Castillo to pop out to second, and the Cubs go six up-six down the rest of the way, and now it’s on to Game 7…

“We’re driving up tomorrow. We’re going. We’ve got tickets. You can come if you want.”

I remember that even in my complete state of shock, I still thought that the Cubs would win Game 7. This was just a setback. I knew it. I remember really appreciating the offer, but feeling like driving in for Game 7 was a desperate move…and who needs desperation? We aren’t desperate! We’ve got Woody tomorrow! This is a setback.

Had I known how things would turn out, would that have changed my answer? I don’t know. But at the time, missing class to drive up to Chicago in an effort to help coax the Cubs into the World Series seemed like too bold a move. The team was fine. We would win tomorrow…

…and so it was back to Yogi’s the next night, this time running into a few guys who graduated with me from New Trier. SANTO 10 once again on my back, and this time, a different section of the restaurant. Pierre triples to start the game, Castillo flies out, Pudge walks, and then Cabrera unleashes a monster shot to give the Marlins a three-nil lead, and our hearts sink, and it feels as if we are about to be forced to trudge through a leach-infested swamp, barefoot and pantless, just to get to the the guillotine that awaits us…

But then, in the second inning, things turn around. Karros singles with one out, Gonzalez doubles Karros to third, and then Damian Miller grounds into the fielder’s choice to score Karros. 3-1 Marlins, with Kerry Wood coming to the plate, and he works the count full, and after two consecutive balls, BAM! He launches one to left-center…shades of Game 1 against Atlanta…and as the ball sails high I swing my feet up to the top of the waist-high stool, and now I’m squatting on it, and the ball doesn’t bang off the wall but flies over it instead and now I am standing on top of the bar stool screaming like a child and actually jumping up and down on top of a high bar stool, and my loose jeans fall to my knees and I don’t care. Nobody else does either. Three to three, and Wood puts the Marlins down 1-2-3 in the third.

Up come the Cubs, and after Mark Redman plunks Sosa on what would have been ball four, Alou comes to the plate. First pitch: ball. Second pitch: a swing and a drive and OH MY GOD THAT BALL’S GONE! CUBS LEAD 5-3!

At that point, I was absolutely convinced that the Cubs would win. It made sense. Finally, things are different. I felt certain that the Bartman play was going to go down as the turning point, the play that, in past seasons, would have killed the Cubs. But not this year. Not in 2003. That’s how I felt.

Brad Penny replaces Redman for the fourth, retiring the Cubs in order. Brian Banks pinch-hits for Penny to lead off the fifth, and in his first AB of the series Banks draws a walk. Come on Kerry. Not now. Keep it together. Pierre flies out, and Castillo works the count full before getting Wood to walk him. And then Pudge…always Pudge…Pudge comes up and doubles to score Banks, and then Cabrera grounds out to score Castillo, and now the game is tied, and then Derrek Lee singles, and now it isn’t. 6-5 Marlins.

Josh Beckett—hero of Game 5…and later, hero of Game 6 of the World Series[4]—replaces Penny for the fifth, and ends up pitching four innings, striking out three and giving up one run on one hit, a solo home run from Cubs’ reserve Troy O’Leary with two outs in the seventh. Florida had already added three runs at this point—all three runs coming off of the stale and crusted Farnsworth—and so O’Leary’s shot only makes it 9-6. Remlinger and Borowski fight off Florida in the eighth while Beckett brushes aside Grudz, Sammy, and Moises, and after Borowski gets the last out of the top of the ninth, Beckett hands the ball over to Marlins’ closer Ugueth Urbina.

Did I believe in the curse? No, not really. I come from a fairly supernatural family, but as far as sports are concerned, curses are kind of silly. To be fair, I probably used the curse more as a fall guy, perhaps as a defense mechanism to deflect the feeling that, quite often, this team has been very bad as well as very unlucky. No, there was never a curse, and there isn’t one now. What there is, however, is a horribly negative energy mixed with some bizarre and twisted luck. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all…

The negative energy at Cubs games is a brutal force. What makes it particularly powerful is the fact that Cubs fans at Wrigley are generally overwhelmingly positive and hopeful. We’re not like a bunch of Philly fans out there, always expecting the worst all the time. We are usually expecting the best. And so, when something bad does happen, everything flips. The sheer speed of the turnaround is frightening in and of itself. Oh no. What now? We’re up ten with two outs in the ninth. Why does that single bother me? How are they gonna blow this one? How will it happen? How?

That’s the big one. How. Hitting the Nervous Point is bad enough. When it comes in a way you didn’t see possible even when you’ve already seen everything that is possible, well, it’s unsettling. And over the past twenty years, Cubs fans have been unsettled many times, most notably:

1. The Cubs blowing a two games to none lead in the ’84 NLCS to the Padres, including…

2. …a pre-Buckner Buckner error from Cubs first baseman Leon Durham in the seventh inning of the decisive Game 5 that led to four runs.

3. Maddux winning a Cy Young with the Cubs in ’92 as a 26-year-old and then being allowed to leave for Atlanta, where we watched in horror as he won three more Cy’s and a World Series.

When your recent history contains all that—not to mention plenty of losing seasons and horrible yet unmemorable games—watching one of your own fans knock away what appears to be a sure out when you are only five outs away from your first World Series appearance in 58 years…well, you can see why we would be nervous. And then Alou’s outburst confirmed our fears, and we all went just a little bit crazy. And when over 40,000 fans in a contained space all go just a little bit crazy, that’s when trouble happens. After all, if a team can thrive on the positive energy of its fans—and they can (and do)—then certainly they can be somehow affected by a sudden shift in fan-mood. What affect did Bartman have on the players that night? Who can say. But it’s probable that, at the very least, they noticed our collective nervous breakdown. Bartman didn’t do anything, but he definitely felt like a sign of Things To Come. Perhaps our energy distracted Prior just enough to get him to throw the ball four wild pitch to Castillo. Or perhaps it made Alex Gonzalez antsy, causing him to over-think on the Cabrera ground ball. Again, it’s hard to say.

A sports-curse—any curse, for that matter—is all about design and effect. What will the embodiment of the curse look like, and what will be the ultimate effect of the curse? The negative energy thing explains the effects of the Bartman play. As for the design, I always found it interesting that the ball ended up where it did. If you watch the tape, there are a bunch of fans reaching for the ball. It could have hit any of them. But it hit Bartman, a 26-year-old white male with a sad-sack face, a distinct outfit, and a memorable name that was easy to pronounce. Would fans have been so quick to attack him on the spot if he’d been a woman, or a kid, or an old person, or a minority? Would he have been as memorable if he didn’t have the Cubs hat, glasses, and grey turtleneck? And of course those head phones…not just any head phones, but very specific head phones, the old ones with the thin silver connector piece that arches across the top and the circular black felt. And what about the name? His name could have just as easily been Swearingen or Syrjamaki or Larrecq or McCarthy-Frankenheimer or something crazy with a bunch of consonants all in a row that nobody could pronounce. But no. It was Bartman. Sounds like a cartoon character…perhaps a super villain even. And then a “Steve” right in front of it. Easy to remember, easy to say. It may not have been the result of a curse, but everything about the play stood out. It was almost too obvious, like a bad movie director sacrificing subtlety in an effort to create Something Memorable.

[1] For Week 2 of the 2004 season, MJ, Meghan and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings in Lawrence, Kansas to watch the Bears beat the Packers, and four weeks ago, it was a trip to “B-Dubs” for the Bears-Redskins game. I’m 1-1. Now this one.

[2] Tillman had already won the starting job earlier in the year, emerging as the Bears’ top corner ahead of the veterans Azumah and McQuarters, and after a day of going head to head with arguably the best receiver in the league, Peanut made the play to win the game and launch him into our hearts and minds forever, the image of the rookie Tillman dashing out of the endzone with the ball high in his hands in celebration, like the sad sack little league right fielder who sticks his glove up and, to his own surprise, makes a catch to end the ball game.

[3] This is not hyperbole; the game was actually dizzying. The Cubs scored four in the bottom of the first, followed by five Florida runs in the top of the third. The Marlins added a run in the sixth to make it 6-4, and then Alex Gonzalez drove in Randall Simon on a two-run shot in the bottom half to tie the game at six. The Cubs brought JoBo in for the ninth, and he promptly loaded the bases and then gave up a two run single to Pudge. Now we were nervous, but Lofton doubled, and with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Sammy blasted a game-tying two-run shot to straight away center. It was crazy. The tension combined with the hit combined with the power of the hit…wow. And then, to have Lowell win it with a pinch-hit solo in the 10^th…well, after watching that game I was not out of breath so much as my head was simply loose and wavy. I had this small, black, plastic mirror that I’d gotten for camp in ’96, and after nearly shaking in the bathroom, I suddenly blasted the mirror with a real sharp right-handed jab. Then I felt better.

[4] Come to think of it, Beckett’s 2003 postseason was one of the most impressive playoff performances I can think of. He started five games and pitched in relief in one, going 2-2 with two no decisions and a 2.11 ERA. Take out the first inning of Game 1 against the Cubs, though, and his ERA drops to 1.30. Wow.