Ghost-talk

Fall is the most beautiful season in Chicago, autumn colors tinged with the melancholy of approaching winter.  Each day grows shorter, and closer to the cold that can grip a person close to death.  When the wind rustles what leaves remain on the tree, I swear you can hear the voices of those who have gone before.   It’s nearly mid-October, and hardly any of the leaves have fallen.  The ghosts have a lot to say.

The Cubs did away with the Cardinals yesterday and await their next opponent, either New York or Los Angeles.  Listen closely once the drunks exit Wrigleyville, and you can hear Ron Santo—it has to be the Mets, to reverse the Curse of ’69.  If the Cubs move onto the World Series (yes, White Sox fans, I think they will), they should be given a dispensation to pick their next foe, which would have to be the Tigers.  That would do away with the Billy Goat of ’45.

But the baseball gods won’t bend the rules that much; it’s enough for them to give the North Siders home plate umpires who call the friendliest of strike zones.  What could happen, what I fear will happen, is that the Astros will emerge as American League champs.  Talk about karma.  Houston could end up the first team to lose a World Series in each league, both times to Chicago, in 2005 and 2015.  Those are the whispers I hear.