Chicago Cubs Baseball

For Chicago Cub baseball fans, the first week of June finds its favorite team with the best record in baseball.

That’s the good news. Unfortunately, that’s the bad news as well.

The Cubs, winners of 10 of their last 13, currently sit atop the major league baseball heap with a 39-24 record and a .619 winning percentage. That’s a full game better than the defending world champion Boston Red Sox, who at 39-26, is winning at a .600 clip.

While there’s too much baseball to be played to draw comparisons between the two teams, it’s worth noting that similarities exist.

It wasn’t that long ago that when it came to the discussion of baseball success neither the Cubs nor the Red Sox were part of the conversation. After all, up until 2004, Boston’s last World Series success wasn’t much better than the Cubs’ current 100-year drought.

But as winners of two of the last four World Series, the Red Sox now know what’s it’s like to have a bullseye on their back. For the Cubs, who’s track record includes an even deeper furrow of futility, they’re just learning.

Imagine. For only the second time in the last 100 years the Chicago Cubs enter the month of June with the best record in baseball. Those include the years when there were far fewer teams than the 30 that populate major league baseball today.

The Cubs, believe it or not, are the front runners of the entire National League. And to bring Ripley even further into the discourse, Chicago’s Cubs are the marked team - for now.

And that’s where the real test begins. Whether the Cubs can continue to stand tall in the spotlight is the question that waits on the horizon. All the fundamentals - and the good luck - that brought the Cubs to this point are meaningless if the cracks that showed in yesterday’s loss to the Dodgers remain.

If you thought it was tough being a Cubs fan when the club were merely the “lovable losers” of baseball, just wait. The Cubs are baseball’s darlings today - with a bullseye on their Cubbie blues.