Cubs Versus Mets

As we approach the game on Monday, let’s try to ignore the fact that the Mets have a win-loss record over 150 points better than that of the Cubs. Look on the bright side. The Mets don’t have Roger Clemens in the bullpen, cooling his heels at a million dollars an hour.

Things could be a lot worse. The great Chicago fire was worse. Al Capone was worse, until you got thirsty. Then he didn’t seem so bad, unless you were Dion O’Bannion.

See. Look on the bright side, if there is one. The Cubs might win. I might get an income tax refund larger than what Clemens makes while tying his shoes. Not likely, but maybe someone at the IRS will make a mistake.

Look on the bright side.

The Crucial Importance of May

At the end of hostilities on Wednesday, May 9, the Chicago Cubs sat insecurely in second place in the Central Division. The Brewers of Milwaukee had rolled out the barrel to leave our hapless tee drinkers 6.5 games out of first place, with a heroic Cubbie win-loss percentage of .516.

The Cubs’ hold on second place was tenuous at best, with Houston just a game behind our North Side bear brats. (Why is there a major-league baseball team in Houston? Who approved this departure from sane thinking?)

But if we apply clear reasoning to the entire National League, we find the Cubbies in deep manure decades after the stockyards slid into Lake Mich.

With its .516 record, the little bears trail, not just Milwaukee, but also Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Arizona. (I know these last three hick towns don’t deserve major league teams, but the fact is that they have better win-loss records at this crucial moment. Don’t ask what’s so crucial about it. I don’t know. May has some sort of Druidic importance to someone.)

To return to the essential fact mentioned in an earlier paragraph, the Cubbies appear to be in deep manure.

The Chicago Cubs 1

Spring comes to the Middle West, and all thoughts turn to life’s great unanswerable questions. Will the Chicago Cubs finish above .500? Will they catch the Milwaukee Brewers? Will they start well and then, like the daylilies, fade in the autumn? And most mysterious of all, why will Cub fans continue to fill Wrigley Field every game, regardless of how well the team plays?

I hesitate to predict the future, and I would never try to answer most of these questions. But I know a sure thing when I see it. Here goes. (TBC)

New Zealand 2

The two islands of New Zealand occupy about 103,000 square miles, but the city of Chicago sits on 234 square miles. One doesn’t need a degree in statistics to see that Chicago resembles a cattle yard compared with New Zealand.

Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand. If you count the population of Auckland and its suburbs, you’ll reach a figure slightly more than a million. And almost all those people live in single-family houses.

I didn’t get out my yardstick and measure the square miles of Auckland and its suburbs, but I saw the entire area from both the ground and the air, and it’s larger than Chicago.

On the other hand, although Chicago may be more crowded than Auckland, it has one major advantage. My hometown has two major-league baseball teams. Auckland has none.

New Zealand 1

I recently returned to the USA after a visit to New Zealand. I found many things of interest during my visit, but I failed to notice one thing until I returned. Everywhere I’ve gone in the USA, I’ve found the crush of humanity overwhelming.

New Zealand occupies two islands across the Tasman Sea from Australia. About three million people live in New Zealand, a figure close to that of Chicago, my hometown. Nothing in the country of New Zealand could ever prepare anyone for Chicago.