I guess that makes 101...

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.

The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins

again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and

evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves

you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer

the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and

high skies alive, and then just when the days are

all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

That quote, taken from the late A. Bartlett Giamatti's The Green Fields of the Mind, seems to get more and more appropriate every time October rolls around. Every time the Cubs are snuffed out of yet another playoffs, or swept out of them after somehow managing to sneak their way in. At the conclusion of every single baseball season I find myself reading those words and thinking, "That could not be written any more perfectly." (I should also note that Al from bleedcubbieblue.com concludes every MLB season with that quote.)

With the Cubs' 5-2 loss today to the Arizona Diamondbacks, it is official. 101 years. Say that out loud to yourself. One-hundred and one years. Sheesh.

I guess technically it was official a week or two ago when St. Louis clinched and we were eliminated from Wild Card contention, but for me it doesn't truly sink in until there's no more baseball to be played. Until there are no more days to be spent in the sun in the bleachers at Wrigley. Until 40,000 standing, smiling fans won't be singing Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs Go" for at least another 6 months.

---

This season was just downright bizarre. We saw a rookie of the year go through a sophomore slump (Geovany Soto). We saw more trademark freak injuries (Ryan Dempster landing on the DL after breaking a toe trying to jump the fence to go celebrate a victory with the team. Derrek Lee hitting a game-winning homer and then promptly missing 5 games after getting a congratulatory slap on the head so hard by Angel Guzman that he had neck spasms...). We saw Rich Harden pitch on April 15 to the tune of:

3 IP, 5 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 4 BB, 8 K

In case you're wondering what's so special about that, it's that none of the other fielders (except the catcher) were involved in recording outs against any of the 17 batters that Rich faced that day. Every single batter either walked, struck out or got a hit -- an achievement in defensive indifference that no other pitcher in the past 80 seasons has duplicated in a start that long (Thank you Jayson Stark).

And yes, of course, we saw Milton Bradley. We saw him lose track of outs, pull himself out of games, and wage wars with fans, umpires and managers alike (2 more years and $20 million more, here we come!)

And as bizarre as this season was, it still ended the same way as the last 100 seasons -- with no World Series Championship to show for it. We spent more money than every other team in the MLB except the Red Sox and Yankees, and what have we got to show for it? Second place in one of the worst divisions in baseball and a set of steak knives!

And you know what the funny thing is? I'm still gonna miss it and I still can't wait for next year and I still think we're going to win it all someday soon.

And that's probably why Giamatti's piece seems so fitting to me.

Of course, there are those who learn after the first few times.

They grow out of sports. And there are others who were born

with the wisdom to know that nothing lasts. These are the truly tough

among us, the ones who can live without illusion, or without

even the hope of illusion. I am not that grown-up or up-to-date.

I am a simpler creature, tied to more primitive patterns and

cycles. I need to think something lasts forever, and it might

as well be that state of being that is a game;

it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.