October 16, 2003 [LINK]

No joy in Wrigleyville

That all-too-familiar sense of numbed shock and despair fell upon the Windy City tonight, as the Cubs let destiny slip through their grasp once again. At least they played a good, competitive game, and they were actually leading for a few innings. Forget about curses, the Marlins simply outplayed them when it really counted. Tuesday night's unbelievable eighth-inning meltdown probably induced several million cases of acute nausea. The young fan who reached over and prevented Moises Alou from catching the pop foul ball, identified as Steve Bartman, had to be escorted from the stadium for his own safety, and today issued a formal apology. Well, he'll have a few decades to regret ruining what would have been a cosmically triumphant moment in sports history. Actually, there was at least one other fan reaching for that ball, so it's not all his fault. How ironic that the cramped foul territory in the intimate "friendly confines" of Wrigley Field worked to the Cubs' disadvantage at this critical moment. The phenomenon of minute contingencies yielding hugely disproportionate changes in outcomes is a perfect manifestation of Chaos theory, and it's one thing that makes baseball almost unique among sports. There's no clock, so anything can happen.

Nomar and Manny finally started hitting, enabling the Red Sox to survive the gauntlet at Yankee Stadium Wednesday evening, forcing Game 7 tomorrow. [*] The Red Sox new owner, John Henry, used to own the Marlins, whose new owner, Jeffrey Loria, used to own the Expos. Sounds pretty "fishy" to me...