Chicago Cubs Baseball

Without a whimper or a bang. No, I’m not describing the end of my 2007, although I well could be. Instead, I’m referring to another chapter’s close in Chicago Cub baseball lore.

As much of Cubdom knows by now, Mark Prior parted ways with the Cubs last month when neither party could reach a contract agreement.

The idea the oft-injured Prior won’t be slinging melons in a Chicago Cubs uniform again isn’t surprising. The quiet manner in which it transpired was.

The parting was silent. It was efficient. Like a sniper’s bullet.

It was a far cry from his 2002 debut as the second overall pick by the Cubs. If he was the second coming of Kerry Wood, Prior’s spectacular 2003 season certainly cemented it. Like the best expoxy.

He was aces, two thumbs up and beyond all else - the next great Chicago Cub hope. Prior represented the best of the Cubs past. But he was here now - and would be Cubdom’s future.

Little did we know this wasn’t Gorilla Glue holding the Chicago Cubs future intact. It was more like bubble gum and a ball of twine.

In the four following years following 2003, Prior appeared on the disabled list nine times - missing last season entirely. It’s doubtful any one could have guessed the fragility behind Prior’s body - and mind.

The fanfare following that one and only all-star season was only equaled by the year-in, year-out disappointment of finding Prior once again battling injury. How much of it was real, how much of it imagined?

That was the $3 million a year question. It baffled both Chicago Cub baseball fans and, I’m sure, upper management alike. Whatever external demons that bothered Prior - whether an Achilles tendon (2004), right elbow inflammation (2005) or strained left oblique muscle (2006, twice) - could only be matched by our own internal struggle to decide one simple question: Do we believe him?

It seemed Cubdom’s cynicism only grew with each passing year and each new injury. And in the end, Prior the Boy Wonder, became simply Prior the Boy Who Cried Ouch - Too Much.