to be at least mildly interested)............And yeah, I remember that the Phillies could compete with anyone in levels of ineptitude .(Does my memory serve me right about a 23 game losing steak? I could look it up, but pride myself on my baseball as well as rocknroll trivia...or as Dylan would say: "useless and pointless knowledge")
I don't know exactly HOW the Phillies would lose games, but I'm not sure anyone could outdo the Cubs in finding new and creative methods to accomplish this. It just always has seemed that there are endless new variations on the theme, that one would scarcely have thought possible.
And rather than taking it personally, to me , a REAL Cub fan revels in this creativity and laughs rather than cries at it. The evening of, and next day after the "Bartman game" , I must have received a half dozen phone calls from friends "consoling" me ; expressing that "you probably can't believe it happened" etc.... Tellingly, none of these calls were from Chicago natives (although there are plenty of refugees from Chicago winters out here in the Southwest). When I went in to work the next morning, I saw the 2 other ex-patriate northsiders there, and all three of us started laughing and agreeing that "of course they blew it"; this was just proof that the universe was still operating the way god had designed and intended it to run.
The only negative to all this over the years, is that, as if being a Democrat wasn't enough to cause this, being a Cub fan does infuse one with a certain constant sense of pessimism, if not impending doom .
Prime example---the following anecdote is an actual, and typical true story (with my brother as witness)...."It's the 5th inning; we're up 13 to 2; nah , we'll blow it" (these or similar words spoken to my brother). And of course, I was right. They DID blow it. And to who? Why, the Phillies of course, after Schmidt hit 4 home runs between the 5th and 10th innings, and won 18-16...Lesson learned (over and over and over) : This overall pessimism is well founded, reality based, and perfectly logical. This game, by the way, is not to be confused with a game two years later, when the Cubs miraculously overcame a TWELVE run deficit to tie the game, but of course, still managed to lose anyway....on a home run by Michael Jack Schmidt, in the 10th inning....23-22...but I digress; I enjoy seeing all the new, inspiring ways of losing a baseball game that I never would have thought possible.One more--on my recent birthday, in a game I actually had planned to go up to Denver to see, the Cubs gave up 12 runs in the 8th inning, ALL after there were two outs AND two strikes on the batter.....BUT... a 44-0 finish to make the playoffs this year? Yup, I can see it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quKraecWnTs
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