National Lampoon's Josh Peterson's 30th Birthday Celebration Vegas Vacation

What do they say, whenever one door closes, another one opens? Well the door t0 Vegas has been thrust open and it couldn't come at a more perfect time. Should be quite a little time, staying in the downtown section for a change. I'll pass along anything noteworthy, Wolff isn't showing until Saturday unfortunately so we'll have to make up for lost time then. I have quite a bit less money on me than the last time...but I'm still gonna throw some chips around, no doubt about that. LDT

A Bitter Pill

Four days ago, I actually thought, "You know, if the Cubs win the World Series this year, it would be great to have something written about that I can look back on." It seems completely ridiculous now. I'm not even sure what should be said here that hasn't been already. They made the Dodgers look like world beaters...and don't get me wrong, the Dodgers played well. Their starting pitching was very good. When they had guys in scoring position, they came through. It's just a fucking shame that the Cubs fell flat because it could have been a great series. Instead, it was a laugher. Swept again...with this team? NINE straight losses in the playoffs? I've shaken my head so much side to side the last 72 hours that I'm resembling my fan at night. Maybe when it comes to the Cubs and failure, I shouldn't be surprised anymore. But I am. I really am. They duped me good this time.

After 2003, I cared a tad bit less every passing year with each Cubs team...until this year. They roped me back in, they won with hitting and they won with pitching. They won with dramatic comebacks and they won in lopsided routs. They played every day like a team that knew full well they were the lucky ones, getting paid millions to do something they love. Winning cures plenty of ills, but it doesn't turn enemies into friends. Not every successful team likes each other. The teams that are the best to watch win the right way and have a blast doing it. That was our team this year. That's why I feel for them, more than anything. Here's hoping the voices they hear about what went wrong will cease sooner rather than later. We make athletes into heroes when they succeed and turn them into villains when they fail. These guys are neither, but I still like them a heck of a lot. Next year is a long way off. But it's still out there.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies."

Andy Dufresne said it, and I'm echoing. Maybe it won't be until I'm about to turn 60 when it finally happens and it's my son who cares more than I, just as the case with my dad today. But it's going to happen. The Cubs are going to win the World Series. Maybe it's not the healthiest habit to care as much we we do about something like this. But when you've wanted something your whole life, you have to see it all the way through. That's just the way it is. I'll wait as long as I have to. And then I'll bask in the moment for as long as I can.

Hey Chicago, whaddya say???

A Nightmare on Clark Street

Really? The best Cubs team in 63 years and this is how the playoffs go? The spirited, care free team of the past six months has completely disappeared. In its place is the team all Cubs fans, even the most loyal of ones, deep down were scared to death might appear. The weight of pressure can crack even the greatest of human beings, and right now it looks like the guys we love might not have what it takes. 4 errors, all four infielders, making one. 7-2 and 10-3 to the Dodgers, a team that finished 6 games over .500? As a fan I feel sick, but I feel even worse for the players. You watch a team for enough games and they become people more than players. Those guys bleed blue and want so fricking badly to win this together for each other and everyone else. I can't help and think of them slumped at their lockers, mumbling responses to interview questions, trying to wake up from a dream but their eyes won't open. And that makes me sadder than anything.

When Russell Martin's double cleared the bases in that impossibly bad 2nd inning, I just flat out left the bar I was at without saying a word to anyone. Just walked out, passed my car and kept on going. It was really the only thing I knew how to do. I ended up walking to Allianz, cleaned my fish bowl and watered my plant. Thought how good a cigarette might taste. If this team that is this talented from top to bottom can't win in the playoffs, what hope do we ever have? This wasn't wistful optimism headed into the season, then the summer, and finally the playoffs. This wasn't about the team getting hot and catching some breaks to win a championship. This was a team that everyone was behind, they had proven themselves in every possible way during the season. They swept the Brewers, Mets and Diamondbacks, when each team at the time was arguably the second best team in the league. They won NINE straight series during the middle of the season, the first time it's happened in decades. They had a mercurial pitcher throw the first no-hitter in our lifetime. They outscored their opponents by almost 200 runs, far more than any team in baseball.

So what does it all mean? Is the journey really better than the destination? It's impossible to measure a team's true worth without taking into account what they do when it really matters. For so many years the Cubs never even sniffed the playoffs, we watched the playoffs because we loved the game but secretly wished for our guys to have a chance one day. Some people remember the loss in 1945, more still the collapse of 1969, and even more the debacle of 1984. That was my first sports memory, and it will never leave me. I was 5 and didn't really know the pain of a giant loss...until 2003 that is. 5 outs from the World Series, leading 3-0 in the clinching game with your best pitcher on the mound. It was FINALLY happening. And of course it didn't happen. As soon as we were about to feel an unprecedented kind of good, the storm of bad swept onto the scene and overtook it. Some said it was just the start, that they would be back the next year. But I knew better. Nothing is promised. A small part of me left that October, and I'm not sure it will come back until the night when at long last we drink from the Cup. 30 hours ago, that feeling was close as it's ever been. Now it seems like it's never been farther away.

This series feels over. I hope more than anything that I'm wrong. Very few things make me feel pain. Cubs playoff losses do. Maybe that's stupid because it's only a game. Or maybe it makes sense because it stands for something bigger. All I know is I've had a vision this year more than ever of singing deliriously in the streets around Wrigley for hours into the endless night after a World Series victory. Driving in the car, sitting at work, playing softball, the vision followed me everywhere. It made my smile get big and my eyes go soft.

And now it's gone.

So Far, So Bad

You play 162 games to get home field advantage in the playoffs and it only takes one game for it to be gone. All you can really hope for when your team gets to the postseason is for its best players to do what they've done all year. Ryan Dempster certainly was not that guy tonight, walking SEVEN men in 4 2/3 innings. Despite those seven, he still would have been out unscathed had he not hung a changeup to Loney after he had him down 0-2.

The final five innings from there were just so dispiriting, it seemed the crowd at Wrigley had never even been to a game before. That crowd was so distant and silent, it didn't even seem like the game was really happening, like if they were just warming up for something.

Carlos has been both completely dominant and completely awful for extended stretches this year on the mound. It's obvious which one we need tomorrow. If he is the guy he thinks he is and we all want him to be, Game 2 is his time. It's gotta be.

My head feels like it's not supposed to, so I'm gonna let head hit pillow. The sun'll come up.....