Here goes nothing

At the moment, it's raining here in Chicago, and it's slated to do so all day Monday. But if there's a break, tomorrow is when the Cubs are scheduled to begin the defense of their division title and, hopefully, begin a run towards the pennant and beyond. In some ways I'm really looking forward to this season - on paper, it's gotta be at least the most talented Cubs team since 1984 and possibly longer (I'm not including last year, here). Most of the stars are in the relative primes of their careers; the oldest everyday position player is 33 and the oldest starting pitcher is 32. The only obvious flaw right now is the youth up the middle - as fans, I don't think we can really be sure what we're going to get from Soto, Theriot and Pie, although the former and latter at least seem likely to produce on the defensive side and it's hard to see how either could really be any worse offensively than the guys who spent the most time at those positions last year. Theriot needs to hit like he did last July, or like he did in 2006; he can't put up another cumulative .326 OBP as he did for the 2007 season. At least Cedeno provides an alternative, although he's sort of an enigma too at the pro level. Anyway.

Frankly, I'm a little uncomfortable with the prospect of this season. The Cubs go into the year as favorites, and that's not a position they've been in too often. Anything less than a playoff appearance will be a massive failure. What's more, because this is the century year since the last Cubs title, we're going to be hearing about that fact on every last national broadcast. Hey, Red Sox fans, you think you had it bad with the Curse of the Bambino garbage? Just wait. Every single game on Fox or ESPN is going to mention 1908; most will mention the goat and Steve Bartman. Certainly, if the Cubs do make the playoffs, every last playoff game will make some mention of these facts. The only place it's likely to be avoidable is on WGN (and Comcast), which makes me reeeeally glad to live in Chicago right now.

Plus, if the Cubs win the World Series, it'll be "Oh, well, they had to, right? Because it was the 100-year anniversary?" And of course if the Cubs don't win it'll just be same-old, same-old. There's no way for this to be as fun a season as it seems like it should be. And that's just annoying.

But, I'll hope, as I do every year. Here's to still having it as late as October.