And They're Off....

With the start of the baseball season today, which is also the un-official first day of spring, a lot of writers are finishing up their predictions, reviewing rosters, and talking about what their hopes and fears are for the season.

Well, I hope for the same thing I hope for every year. That a line in one of the coolest songs ever written will become wrong.

This will be the 38th season of baseball for me. Granted, many of the early ones are the ones impossible to remember. It's also true that many of those seasons are the ones where the team my dad tought me to follow were the ones when the team had a winning record. In all of those 38 seasons, the team that I follow was not a participant in the season's final game. That's what to hope for. That your team is the last team standing.

Last year, on the vening of Game 6 of the NLCS, I remember driving my kids home from daycare and listening to the song. And I remember thinikng that, after tonight, this line will now forever be wrong. The only thing that was wrong was me.

The line goes:

He told his friends "You know the law of averages says:
Anything will happen that can"
That's what it says
"But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on Japan"

Let's all hope that after October 2004, we can all hear that song and smile when we hear that line. And smile because we remember 2004.

Do they still play the blues in Chicago
When baseball season rolls around
When the snow melts away,
Do the Cubbies still play
In their ivy-covered burial ground
When I was a boy they were my pride and joy
But now they only bring fatigue
To the home of the brave
The land of the free
And the doormat of the National League