The Cubs came home to the Friendly Confines two weeks ago down in third place in the NL Central after two costly losses in Saint Louis. They were only a game and a half out of first, but the fans were too mellow to be a crowd that gave the Cubs a serious shot at the playoffs. Don’t get me wrong–they were delighted to arrive at a game they’d bought tickets to months before and find their team still in contention. But there was little of the mania and tension smaller crowds have generated at White Sox Park in the second half of this season. The limited number of Sox fans who have returned to the fold expect the Sox to make the playoffs. They attend games with a dreadful expectancy, so that when bad things befall the team they’re crushed and when the Sox prevail they’re elated. The crowd at Wrigley Field two weeks ago had an interest in seeing the Cubs win–so much so that they booed when slumping reliever Antonio Alfonseca simply got up in the bullpen–but they didn’t seem to invest themselves in it.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
It was the beginning of the Labor Day weekend. I took my older daughter out to the game as a final summer idyll before she started high school. We got her an upper-deck ticket, and resolved to move around as much as it took until we settled in good vacant seats. The 2:20 start meant the crowd would probably be late to arrive, and I figured hints of showers in the forecast would keep season-ticket holders away and make it easier for us to find openings. We got there early, but unfortunately the Cubs–who’d arrived in town early in the morning after a game in Saint Louis the night before–were given batting practice off by manager Dusty Baker. We sat in the stands and talked about baseball and the summer and high school, and I commented now and then about the few Cubs players strolling out to take some swings in the batting cage under the right-field bleachers–Sammy Sosa, of course, foremost among them. Then we watched the Brewers take batting practice. When we saw the Cubs’ Mark Prior stroll out to left field to play catch, we walked down to the pen in hopes that he would throw a few from the mound, but no luck; he was just stretching his arm out a little between starts. As he walked back to the dugout he was beckoned with shouts of “Mark!” and “Prior!” but ignored them with the aloof calm of the superior athlete–an entirely different breed of Cub from the fan-friendly sort that’s populated Wrigley Field for decades. After BP ended we went upstairs to get a panoramic view of the infield being smoothed and the baselines chalked, and like a modern-day Polonius I took the opportunity to give her the pre-high-school drug talk. Most of the other fans were similarly engaged, albeit on other topics. When the game began they were attentive to the action on the field, but also involved in conversations. We had to move only twice before settling into seats we’d hold the rest of the afternoon, right behind home plate and just a few rows back in the upper deck. We were sandwiched between a group of Milwaukee fans in front of us–if you couldn’t tell from the way they rooted for the Brewers, their butcher-block haircuts gave them away–and a raconteur of a firefighter right behind us. He seemed to be the last remaining Blackhawks fan, and he talked about how he loved going to the Chicago Stadium and stood by them in the United Center. The Cubs occupied his thoughts only when something exciting was going on, as when they scored single runs in the first, third, and fifth. A young Hispanic woman down the row from us turned late in the game and asked the guy if he knew a certain firefighter at a station house near his.
“He’s my uncle,” said the woman.
Prior went to the mound in the first game against the Cards, as he had the previous week in Saint Louis when he gave the Cubs their only win of a three-game set, and again he mowed them down. He and Woody Williams matched goose eggs into the fifth inning, when the Cubs exploded for six runs, triggered by a Sosa leadoff single and a hustle play in which he went from first to third on a single by Alou, who moved up to second on the throw. If anyone has come to epitomize the Cubs’ new toughness, it’s Prior, with his grim, down-turned mouth and prim, erect posture, the brim of his hat curled and pulled low on his forehead like blinders on a racehorse. He pitched eight scoreless innings before turning the ball over to Kyle Farnsworth to mop up the 7-0 shutout. The Cubs had dropped the Cards into an identical first-place tie with Houston and were just a game and a half behind themselves.
Well, that did it. Chicagoans traveled to Milwaukee in droves last weekend, setting a record on Saturday with 46,218 filling the new Miller Park for Prior’s start. Sosa staked Juan Cruz to a 2-0 lead with a homer in the first inning of the Friday game, and the hard-slinging right-hander made it stand up for a 4-2 victory with help from none other than Alfonseca, who came on to end a Milwaukee rally in the seventh and perform a standing, full-body, voodoo version of Jerry Krause’s lottery-winning victory dance on the mound. Prior basically threw his glove out on the mound to beat the Brewers Saturday, and Wood finally got some offensive support as he coasted to a 9-2 win and a sweep of the three-game series on Sunday. The Astros were beating up on the San Diego Padres at the same time, but on Sunday Houston ace Wade Miller was pummeled, putting the Cubs in first by a half-game with three weeks to go. By then there were no survivors; everyone was infected. Our fate was in the hands of the Cubs.
