First, congratulations to the Marlins. They were clearly the best team this October, and the Cubs ought to take some measure of consolation in the fact that they came much closer to beating them than anyone else did during the postseason. Josh Beckett’s complete-game shutout of the Yankees on only three days’ rest will go down as one of the all-time great World Series performances. He was amazing.

While it feels a little better to know the Cubs got beaten by the best, and that the Yankees have now gone a whole three years since a World Series title, there are still some people who insist that Cubs fans should be thankful their team failed again to win the big prize.

You see, the fans have so strongly identified with the Cubs as “lovable losers” that there’s no way they could recover from the tragedy of a championship — or, worse yet, a series of championships. This is the basis for an obnoxious Oct. 19 Chicago Tribune story by Rex W. Huppke.

The headline? “Back from the brink”:

Glenn Stout, a baseball historian and author, said a championship season could have forever changed the relationship of the team and its devoted followers.

“I think the identity would change, and I think expectations for the team would change,” said Stout, who has long chronicled baseball’s other premier losers, the Boston Red Sox.

“Since the Cubs haven’t been really even close for so long, that’s kind of allowed that lovable loser mentality to maintain. People think, `Who cares what happens? It’s nice to be at Wrigley Field.’ But once they win, I actually think that there would suddenly be expectations for them and losing would suddenly be not so acceptable.”

Do we expect the Cubs to win? No, we don’t. But that does not mean we don’t passionately thirst for a winning team. Losing, like death, is never “acceptable.” Both are inevitable, but if a person handles death well she’s praised for her calm in the face of mortality. Cubs fans, on the other hand, are patronized as suckers for their steadfastness in the face of losing.

Losing may have been the usual for a long time, but it’s not comfortable and it’s not lovable. There’s a rather large group of thumb-suckers out there who think Cubs fans can’t handle success, and are therefore somehow undeserving it. That’s just B.S.

It’s said that being a Cubs fan prepares you for life. Well, I feel comfortable speaking for most Cubs fans when I say that I have been more than adequately prepared for life. Now I am prepared to win.

It was a damn shame the Cubs-Red Sox World Series didn’t come off, and at least one person is paying the price for it: Grady Little won’t be back next year in Boston.