The Cubs

As many of you know, I am a big baseball fan. It is one of my few “normal” hobbies. I love baseball. I love watching it on TV, listening to it on the radio, reading about it, and debating it. Lynne and I have built vacations around visiting ballparks. I am also a stat-head. I love reading the numbers, and I enjoy learning about new statistical modeling (Yes, I managed to even geek up my love of sports).

I am a Cubs’ fan. My family are Cubs’ fans. It is in my blood. The Cubs have taught me my perverse loyalty to lost causes. The collapse of the 1984 Cubs in the NLCS haunts me to this day.

My team is back in the playoffs. We came close to a pennant in 2003, and it’s taken the Cubs this long to get back. I am full of unreasonable amounts of hope. The National League is bad this year. We are facing the Diamondbacks in the Division Series. Other than Webb, their team is awful. If you dig into the stats like run differential, they are one of the luckiest teams in recent memory. My Cubs have been playing great baseball after a terrible first couple of months. We are the most balanced team in the NL playoffs. I am starting to believe that this is the first Cubs team that will go to the World Series since 1945. Of course, the AL winner will then kill us.

Here is an article from my favorite stat-head website, Baseball Prospectus. They are very positive about the Cubs in the Division Series.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=6781

Game 1 is tomorrow at 9 PM. You can probably guess what I’ll be doing.