Hog Heaven

Nothing like a phone call from your daughter as she screams at the Pittsburgh Pirates to “hit the ball!”  Alas, the Buccos did next to nothing of the sort against Jake Arrieta, he of the 0.37 ERA since August 1^st, and the Cubs are in the playoffs.  Good news is, I talked my daughter off the ledge.

That done, I settled in to watch the local TV coverage.  The three network stations weren’t satisfied to devote most of their regular 10 PM newscast to the game; no, this momentous event, which didn’t even exist until three years ago, needed another half-hour to do it justice.  Anchors and reporters were like pigs in their favorite substance.

The game itself mattered a lot less than how “fans” reacted to it—tell us how you feel.  The coverage felt like one huge selfie: Look at us!  The Curse is over! Who’s Cuno Barragan?  Coverage fed the crowd that gathered outside a shuttered Wrigley Field, and who wanted to miss out on all that fun they were showing on TV?  This will be a recipe for disaster should the unthinkable happen and Cubs win eleven more games this year.  A whole bunch of twentysomethings will think they’re back in college and entitled to tip over that car, just like they did back at U State.

The temptation for me is to complain that the White Sox never got this kind of attention in the playoffs, but that misses the point.  The Cubs are a story that keeps on giving.  The story lines are built in—generations of loyal families, superstitions, triumph over organizational ineptitude, heroes in Cubbie blue….The local media is nothing if not lazy, and a nice long playoff run—in any sport—makes their lives easy and simple:  How do you feel?

If I’ve achieved any wisdom on the subject of identifying with a professional sports team, it’s this—win or lose, your team will not be helping you with the insurance and tuition bills.  Those, like personal seat licenses, are on you.  That realization helps me keep a little perspective.

And Jake Arrieta is having an incredible run, there’s no denying that.