2003 Year in Review

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The Cubs are giving me a headache

I'm sorry Cub's fans but your team is causing me some problems this Fall. The primary thing upsetting the applecart is they are playing in October which hasn't happened in what......45, 75 or 95 years? Actually if you think about it, the 1908 World Series may have been played in September since that was prior to the present extended playoff rounds. But I swerve from my point.

I am old enough to know that the Cub's have never before been seen on October television other than a Sammy Sosa commercial during some other team's playoff. These present day Cub's played 5 games against Atlanta, won and are now playing a 7 game series against some team with a fish name. Should the Cub's win this series in 7 they would then earn the right to play another 7 game series with the American League pennant winner. All told that adds up to 19 games in October and at a total of 4 hours each of viewing time that means I would have to watch them for 76 hours.

Now add up the time each day after a game of 2 hours discussing why Sammy Sosa was swinging at high fast balls or that slime ball Atlanta Brave tried to break Eric Karros' arm we now have a grand total of 119 hours devoted to these Cub's in October. Just for conversation sake, what if the Cub's should happen to play the Boston Red Sox.....who also have this seeming inability to play in October? Suddenly we have entire groups across the nation calling, faxing, emailing and generally motivating themselves and as many unsuspecting baseball fans as they can influence to get on their particular "hex buster" bandwagon. All of this activity simply is creating a severe time restraint on business owners such as myself. I have it figured that if the Cub's get into the World Series my employees will actually only "work" approximately 3 and half hours a day.

Should I stop them from talking about the Cub's during the day? Should I ban all newspaper sports sections from our office? Turn off the radios? What about those clients from (shudder) Boston or Chicago? Get a telephone caller ID to stop those incoming calls? Do other business owners have these same problems? I'd go home to find some sense of stability except when I get there my wife greets me with "Let's go Cub's!", she's wearing a Cubbie blue blouse, spitting mad her favorite announcers aren't calling the game and of all things is wearing a fake black goatee on her chin in honor of a Cub's pitcher who can't seem to find a razor sharp enough to trim his chin in October. I've got a headache and the only thing that seems to help is pop some corn and watch the show....both on the TV and around me.

by Bob Vaughn, theCity1.com
October 9, 2003