Tonight, Arizona’s adopted baseball sons, the Chicago Cubs, invade Chase Field to face its homey D’Backs in the opening game of the National League Division Series. And whether Cubs’ baseball admits, acknowledges or even likes it, 99 years of bad luggage has joined them for the trip.
It’s a heavy burden, indeed.
This may be the 2007 Chicago Cubs, but they’ll be joined on the diamond tonight by a new teammate - history. Ninety-nine years of it to be exact. When history takes the field this evening it will carry the names of Santo and Durocher, Sandberg and Sutcliffe, and yes, even Sosa.
History will hold the 2007 Chicago Cubs accountable regardless of this evening’s outcome. Just like it has for the previous 14 Cub teams that have reached the post-season in the last 105 years.
And that’s the beautiful thing about history. Curses, legends and what-ifs aren’t considered in its impartial eyes. It’s about strikeouts and errors, hits and misses. It’s simply actions in words on the tablet of the Baseball Gods to be analyzed and scrutinized by generations of baseball fans now and to come.
What’s lost in translation is our gift - as Chicago Cub fans. Moreso as fans of the greatest game on earth. Because tonight, in the Arizona desert, we will watching history as much as the Cubs will be making it.
For win or lose these 2007 Chicago Cubs are in the books as Central Division champions and participants in major league baseball’s post-season. The names Carlos Zambrano, Derrek Lee and the 23 others on the playoff roster are of a select group who can’t rewrite Cub history, but certainly can begin a new chapter.
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