they say, so… so much.
This is the saddest “sad sack” story you will ever read if you’re a sports fan. Mets fans don’t have anything on this. Nobody has anything on this.
CLIPPER fans don’t have anything on this.
To quote my nephew, ‘This is why I’m a Laker fan”.
Patrick
Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.
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on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024Oh yeah, if the baseline polls are cooked...so are we.
on The Way Through is Donald Trump for PresidentThus proving my point.
on The Way Through is Donald Trump for PresidentI'm sure that's exactly how Justice Alito will see it.
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024Here's the line that should make you take a little bit more of the covers tonight: "The irony, as I…
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024It's pretty sad that people's inability to understand poll results leads directly to polls purposely… on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024Nate Silver has a post on herding. I knew that something like this was happening but I never knew it… on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It BackThree hundred! I can't even imagine! on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It BackWe leave a bowlful on the porch. I arranged them in the bowl in a pattern (circles by type) that wou…
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024At least after they got hit with the clue stick enough.
on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It BackTrans Atlantic would definitely be cool. Normally I'd say it's probably nicer to ship out of FL than…
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on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It Back on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It Back on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It Back
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024 on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It Back
on Weekend Plans Post: We’re Getting It Back on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024
on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 10/28/2024
I can’t make it better, but I offer you this in tribute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w_1ZEk4mdsReport
Actually, I am starting to have the sad, creeping feeling that now that Jerry’s son has taken over the business, this will be us in the next 5-10 years.Report
SHUT.
IT.Report
Dude, somebody has something on that: Cubs fans. 1908! There are only a handful of people alive today who were alive when the Cubs last won a championship. No one who was an adult at the time is alive today. Think about that. In 1909, Cubs fans were excited because their team had just won back-to-back championships. It’s good to be a Cubs fan! What do the Cubs do next? They go more than a century, and counting. Nothing can top that. I don’t care how incompetent the Warriors management has been, nothing can top that. I’m not sure how the Cubs still have any fans at all. It’s not like Chicago doesn’t have another team that has won a championship in the last 100 years (two, to be precise).Report
Thing in baseball is a team can be pretty good and still not make the playoffs, in the NBA and NHL, it feels like everyone does.
For pure franchise ineptitude over a long period, it’s hard to top the Detroit Lions from the 60s up until this year (maybe). The relative paucity of NFL trades would make for fewer clearly awful decisions and a lot more little bad ones.Report
The Cubs were only in the Series in 1908 because the umpires totally blew the Fred Merkle call. Their fans should count their blessings.Report
Depends on who you ask. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for sure whether he touched second.Report
That’s not really the issue, compared to
1. Was that rule generally enforced at the time? The answer seems to be “no”.
2. Was the ball that was eventually used to tag second base the one that had been in use? Almost certainly not.
Anyway, the Cubs have been suitably rewarded for that bit of chicanery.Report
I was just kidding, really.
I’ve been a Braves fan my entire life (we have suffered our own bizarre sort of futility), but when I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Chicago, and every summer we’d go to a Cubs game (twice we went to White Sox games, one in Old and one in New Comiskey): the teams with Andre Dawson, Ryne Sandberg, Rick Sutcliffe, a young Greg Maddux. It was fun, but the Cubs fans were obsessed with the futility and the history. There was a book they sold either at Wrigley or just outside of it (I don’t remember) about the “Unforgettable Season,” and it apparently sold very well (I remember very distinctly that there were a lot of copies). I suspect that for Cubs fans, it was a form of torture to read about when their team was really good. My Dad bought it for me and I read it when I was 13, maybe, and that is probably the last time I thought of Merkle until today (with the possible exception of a quick thought or two when watching Ken Burns’ Baseball).Report
The Braves’ run was amazing. If you figure that the regular season is the real test and the playoffs largely a crapshoot (which I think is pretty accurate), they had an amazing streak of success with slightly below-average luck in the post-season. I still don’t forgive them for 1993, though: that was the best Giants team I’ve ever seen or ever expect to see.Report
You’re right about the regular season being the real test, but I don’t think the playoffs are largely a matter of luck or chance. I think some teams are better designed for playoffs. The Braves, particularly their pitching staff, was well designed to win over the long run. It wasn’t (especially the bullpen) as well designed to win in the postseason as, say, the late 90s Yankees or the mid-2000s Redsox.
The Cubs, on the other hand, seem to have been purposefully designed to win 75 games.Report
The Cubs have won the NL East. They’ve won back-to-back division titles as recently as 2007-2008.
They might not be able to close the deal, but at least they occasionally make the playoffs with a chance to win something.
If the Warriors make the playoffs, it’s to lose miserably.Report
The Chicago Cubs have always had a superb farm league system. The Cubs, going back to the 80s, have traded away all their good talent to other teams. Look at all that farm league talent they traded away for Garza. Good riddance to Quade, that bum.Report
BlaiseP,
The franchise damned itself when it refused to hire Sandberg. Well, that and every other thing it has ever done. I’m happy to have walked away from baseball fandom, and my Cubs fandom. It was such a waste of time and energy.Report
I was there the night the Warriors won the playoff series against Dallas. The Coliseum was rocking — it was the loudest, most emotional, most intense crowd I’ve ever been part of. We Believe, baby!
And the next time they’re in the playoffs, 20 years from now, I’ll go again.Report
Dude, the Cubs have made the playoffs 11 times in the last century. 11! They didn’t make the playoffs from 1945 until 1984. Let me say that again: They did not make the playoffs from 1945 until 1984. Since 1945, they have made the playoffs 6 times. The Warriors have made the playoffs 28 times in that period.
Nothing competes with the Cubs for futility and frustration. There are portions of hell where the damned are forced to be rabid Cubs fans. The Warriors? Only in Purgatory are souls forced to root for them.Report
For that entire period, only 4 MLB teams made the playoffs each season. For most of that Warriors period, 16 NBA teams made the playoffs every season, it’s apples and oranges.Report
Actually, for most of that period, only 2 teams made the MLB postseason. Still, I don’t think it’s apples and oranges. The Warriors have won a championship in that period, the Cubs haven’t. On top of that, the measure of futility should be largely determined by the makeup of the sport. Within its sport, the Cubs have achieved a level of futility that is so statistically improbable that a new physical law may be required to explain it. The Warriors just aren’t there yet, and probably never will be. I’ll check back in 70 years, though, when we can say for sure.Report