Day: September 10, 2003

Well, today has been a sad ol’ lonesome day

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

To say that we remember or commemorate the tragic events of two years ago tomorrow is to imply that we’ve somehow forgotten them.

But of course we haven’t. To remember the immense sadness of Sept. 11, 2001, takes but the slightest daily effort to notice the undeniable joy, evil, and absurdity of life on this planet.

Every breath taken by a loved one is a reminder of what we lost — what was taken from us — that day by those murderous thugs. It doesn’t take an act of mental decathlete gymnastica to appreciate the simple fact of a life’s rippling value and the searing pain of its absence.

Multiply it 3,000 times and more. Multiply that by the number nearly lost, the could-have lost, the similarly lost in the past and the ones who will be so lost in the future in every murder, every war, every dictatorship and we begin to approach the throat-swelling effect of the memory of Sept. 11, 2001.

What we can do is confuse the matter with something other than grief. We can use the dead to sell a car alarm, a gas mask, an insurance policy, a charity, a law, a war.

We can. We obviously have. It’s human nature to react to horror with every emotion but the one it so obviously demands. It’s human nature to splash the water to stop it from rippling its small, slow waves that eventually encircle us all.

Only one game

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

I keep telling myself that. Tonight’s tragic come-from-ahead 8-4 loss to the San Juan Expos is only one “L” in the book. All the things favoring the Cubs the rest of the way — a very soft schedule, a good road record, strong starting pitching — have not been erased by tonight’s loss. Tomorrow’s another day.

But boy if it doesn’t feel like the guts haven’t just been ripped out of this season. I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye in 1969 but this must be what it felt like, except the pain of that season’s slow march into a distant second place has been compacted into one ugly loss by the light of a full moon.

All the elements of a crippler are there. The Cubs get four early on three home runs against a pitcher who doesn’t give up long balls. Their starting pitcher, Matt Clement, has great stuff but has to leave in the sixth inning with a no-hitter on the books but three walked Expos on the bases.

The lefty reliever, Mark Guthrie, comes in and promptly walks two more batters. The righty reliever, Dave Veres, comes in and gives up a hit on one pitch. Three runs in, three men on, now only one-run lead and no one out. Remarkably, Veres gets out of the inning. Of course he does. This is the Cubs’ year, after all.

Right?

An uneventful seventh and then the egregious eighth. The Cubs gave the Expos five walks in the sixth, and five outs in the eighth. The first extra out was on a weak grounder to first baseman Randall Simon, who apparently confused himself for Dennis Rodman in his attempt to stretch out his arms and tag Cabrera passing by, instead of just tossing the ball to second baseman Mark Grudzielanek who stood on first base with nothing else to do.

The second extra out was on the pop-up by Jose Macias — who? — that appeared to be the end of the inning and, with closer Borowski coming in to face the bottom third of the Expos’ order, effectively the ballgame.

But the play was not made. It appeared to me that shortstop Alex Gonzalez was in the best position to get it, but lost it in the minor-league San Juan lights. Alou ran in but couldn’t get to it in time before it bounced high off the artificial turf.

And that was it. I took the dog for a walk. That’s it. Game over. One game — over. But the season?

Looking at tomorrow’s matchup it is hard to get too depressed. Mark Prior — the phenom, the stopper, the stud — is on the mound tomorrow. He hasn’t lost since July.

Every game counts, it’s said. It’s a truism, yes, but for good reason — it’s true! They all count equally, whether lost in March or September, but it doesn’t seem they’re all counted equally, does it? The Cardinals won tonight leaving them 1.5 games back, and the Astros are about to finish up a 3-1 win over the Brewers putting them up by a game.

One game. One lousy game. But damn it, Cubbies — I’ve only got one heart. How many times are you going to break it?