Getty ImagesLucky for them, the Mets will finish out the season at home. Although, if they keep up losing like this, the angry noises coming from a hostile New York crowd could add to the tension. “I would like to think it’s an advantage, an ideal situation,” third baseman David Wright told reporters in New York. “But we’re not capitalizing on it ... We’re not clicking on all cylinders … We’ve had numerous chances to close this thing out and it slips away. We rebound, it slips away, we find a way to rebound.”
It’s not only in New York where the cracks are showing.
Twice a day — maybe more — Lou Piniella, the Cubs manager, keeps telling anyone who will listen that his team will not fall victim once again to a century’s worth of bad fortune. He swears the Cubs will hold on to their division lead. He swears that the long-suffering Cubs fans will not add another horrid chapter to a 99-year-old legacy of torment and heartache.
“There is no curse,” Piniella said before Tuesday’s game.
The Cubs then went out and lost a two-hitter to the worst team in the National League, 4-2.
Time is running out, and if I was a betting man, here’s what I’d put my money on:
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Twelve months later, the mad rush toward October baseball is back in full affect. It doesn’t matter what we think. It doesn’t matter what insurmountable odds are piled up against these players. Miracles can happen and usually do.
Except for the Cubs.
There is a curse. There really is.
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DeMarco: Plug in a well-heeled ownership group and negotiate one of those mega-bucks TV deals that are going around, and the Dodgers could become the west coast version of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.
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