Cubs win World Series

The Cubs won the World Series. It wasn’t a big surprise; they’d done it five of the last six years.

Six Cub championships are pretty impressive. The feat is even more astonishing when you consider that the oldest player on the team was nine years old.

When Coach Tom Durkin led his team to its first championship seven years ago, some of his current players hadn’t even been born.

Durkin has managed to establish a dynasty on the Southside of Chicago. His Cubs are the team to beat in the Mt. Greenwood neighborhood and every kid between the ages of six and nine certainly wouldn’t mind a trade to the Cubbies.

Not only did they capture the title once again this season, the Cubs went undefeated, a perfect 20-0. They had the type of season every Cub fan dreams about. Ok. Maybe not the undefeated part. Cubs fans are delusional, but that’s just downright crazy.

Durkin says next season will be his last as coach of the Cubs because his youngest son has only one more year before he’s too old to be on the team. If Durkin brings home the title again next season, I’m thinking Don Baylor should start worrying about his job security.

That probably won’t happen. The big league Cubs may at times play like little leaguers, but I doubt management would hire a little league coach. It might not be a bad idea though. Little kids can get emotional when they strike out or make a bad play, so Durkin would be prepared if he ever had to console a weeping Todd Hundley.

I may sound cruel, but I do have an emotional side. I almost cry every time I see Hundley’s battering average, which by the way, makes Royce Clayton look like Ted Williams.

The point of my column wasn’t to make fun of the Cubs, but it is fun.

What I set out to was to praise little league. Despite the endorsement of George W. Bush, little league great. It’s filled with nuances and small coincidences, and covering it once in a while over the summer for a weekly paper was great too. The players and coaches all want to be there and everybody has fun.

In the very same neighborhood, the 10, 11 and 12-year-old Cubs won their division’s World Series as well. What’s even more remarkable is they too went undefeated, a perfect 18-0.

Much to my chagrin, they defeated none other than the White Sox in the World Series. In fact they swept them (in case any of you slower readers didn’t realize that they would of had to sweep in order to have an undefeated season).

I saw the first game and it was heart wrenching. As a Sox fan, I naturally felt compelled to root for the young pale hose, despite my obligation of journalistic objectivity.

The turning point of the game came in the bottom of the third inning. With the Cubs clinging to 2-1 lead, the Sox had two runners on base and their best hitter at the plate, the mighty Dan Losso.

At 12 years old, Losso was bigger than any other player, coach or spectator at the game, myself included. He’s a big boy. If he had asked, I would have given him my lunch money.

Losso didn’t want my lunch money. With two men on base, Losso wanted a pitch to hit.

He didn’t get one. He was intentionally walked. Two

groundouts later, the inning was over. Four innings later, the game was over. The Cubs won 7-1.

Three games later, the Cubs had won the World Series.

The Cubs defeated the White Sox in the World Series. That’s the great thing about little league . . . the impossible can happen.