Pitchers and Catchers

Curse this reoccurring optimism.  Just when I thought that I had given up on hope, given up the inevitable pain and heartbreak that awaits, I find that it is nearing spring and pitchers and catchers have reported and I am doomed to grow excited and anxious for what is around the corner.  First the pitchers and catchers, then the position players, then opening day, then the baking monotony of summer and the dying embers of passion as another fall passes without success.  It is not the curse of a Billy goat, it is simply the curse of living another year.

            

It began in the summer of 1991, sitting in my grandmother’s breezeway and thinking it amazing that my grandfather, who was working as an RCA repairman, was also broadcasting the Cubs games.  I quickly learned that the Cub with the best batting stance, hardest swing, and most home runs also shared a birthday with me.  I was hooked—on the Hawk and on the Cubs.  And so here I am to finally document it, document an entire season—that hopeless hope, that misery, that sinking feeling that develops into apathy by August and instead of the refrain of “Go, Cubs, Go”, a repetition of “next year” echoes in the heads of all of us who are inflicted with the very same curse.  It is not unlike procrastination.  Putting it off again and again.  Later, later, it’ll get done later.

            

It’s these new acquisitions, the roster turnover, the Theo, the Jed, and, hell, even the Dale Sveum that gets that blood pumping a little faster in these still chilled months.  Not only does baseball promise an emotional rollercoaster, it brings that new, fresh smell of Spring, the warmth, the heat of Summer, and maybe, just maybe, over .500 baseball.  The starting pitching should be better.  Garza hasn’t been sent anywhere.  Dempster can still toss 200 innings.  Travis Wood, Paul Maholm, and Chris Volstad will be welcomed with uneasy smiles.  Wells, Samardzija, and Casey Coleman can provide much needed depth (though, not really).

            

Who is Ian Stewart?  Whatever happened to Josh Vitters?  Is Bryan LaHair already a grandfather?  Will the Cubs batters ever not swing at the first pitch?  Or will these new guys take a few pitches, tire out the opposing starter a little, and wait for their pitch to hit?  Maybe take a walk?  All of this off-season’s changes seem to bring hope of change from last season, but will the win-loss totals look any different?  I’m afraid I’m a bit too optimistic.  It seems to me that the Cubs always like to do better when there are fewer expectations on them to win, and this year it seems as though hope, at least up in the press box and around the hot stoves, has hovered somewhere down near the Mendoza line.  In my mind, though, the Central is winnable, maybe even by the Pirates (not Houston, though, sorry), so why not the Cubs?  Why not this year?