The Year We Went All The Way - The POV Cubs Retrospective

So now, as promised, I will leave 2016 behind with a third post. After writing only once in 2015, and not once in 2014, that's not bad productivity. And while it pales in comparison to my peak years (57 posts in 2011 was the peak for this blog), I like to think that the last three posts were some of my better writing. I am hopeful that this one will be the same. As I mentioned in my last post, about the Trump presidential victory, this post is more fun, and certainly more upbeat. As 2016 comes to a close, for all that this year was and was not, it was the year that "someday" became today, and this was the year that the longest drought in American professional sports ended. And, because of that, I am sitting down to share with you my thoughts on the year the Cubs went all the way.

(image from ABC7chicago.com)

It seems hard to believe that this happened. For generations to be a Cubs fan has been to hope for tomorrow while being crushed today. My first memories of the Cubs came in my grandparents living room, laying of the floor, with my head on an Indiana University pillow shaped like a football. My grandfather and I would lay on the floor, watching the games on WGN 9, which they received via antenna from across Lake Michigan. We watched the games, listening to Harry Carry call them. I couldn't have been very old, likely five or six years old at the top end. I remember Greg Maddux as a young stud, Mark Grace at 1st base, and have some memories of Andre Dawson patrolling right field (for the record, left field sucks). I remember those summer days fondly; blue skies, warmth, and the Cubs always available to be the backdrop to my early youth. 

But I also remember those days for the weight they began to carry as I grew older. You see, the Cubs really became a part of my life as the early 1990s turned into the mid 1990s. I was blessed to grow up in the Michael Jordan era, and as a Chicago sports fan the Jordan era meant one thing: you were rooting for the unquestioned greatest of all time. When Jordan returned from retirement to wear number 45 ever so briefly baseball was quite literally an afterthought in Chicago, and across the country in many ways. The 1994 strike had dealt the sport a blow, and the question was whether it was a death blow or not. As baseball prepared to start the 1995 season with the strike ongoing, Jordan returned to the court in Indianapolis, facing off against the hated Pacers. I watched that game in the same place that I started watching the Cubs. As I sat glued to the TV in my grandparents house, baseball and the Cubs were the furthest things from my mind. Jordan had returned to save all Chicago sports fans from the dark winter.

And while that game wasn't a story book ending (the Pacers won in overtime 103-96 with Jordan shooting a paltry 25% from the field on 7 for 28 shooting), and while that year itself wasn't the story book ending (number 23 returned, but the Magic still finished the Bulls off in six games), the next three years were all about Jordan if you were a Chicago sports die hard. Armed with a Jordan and a Rodman jersey, the winter into summer seasons (1995-1996, 1996-1997, and 1997-1998) were a blur of Bulls victories culminating in parades and victory celebrations in Grant Park. 

(image from ChicagoNow.com)

Throughout that time the Cubs gradually crept into my consciousness, and as the Jordan era came to an abrupt end (the NBA locked out the players on July 1, 1998, delaying Jordan's official retirement announcement until January 13, 1999, even as everyone knew it was coming), the Cubs captured the imagination of Chicago fans again for the first time in nearly a decade. The Cubs history of not winning it all is well known in popular culture, but non-fans don't really have a grasp on what that history is. Members of the National League since 1876, the Cubs were a good, if not dominate team throughout much of their first seven decades. Winning two World Series Championships in 1907 and 1908, the Cubs went on to win the National League pennant in 1910, 1918, 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938 and 1945 (in addition to prior NL Championships in 1876, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1885, 1886 and 1906; the World Series was first played in 1903, and had been continuously played since 1905 until the aforementioned strike of 1994).

But after 1945 came a drought unlike any other. Even after the MLB playoffs expanded to allow two teams in each league in starting with the 1969 season, the Cubs didn't even make the playoffs again until 1984. That year the Cubs took a 2-0 lead in a best of 5 series, only to lose three straight. They made it back to the playoffs in 1989, but were outclassed by the San Francisco Giants. The Cubs then ripped off eight years in a row without making the playoffs, only one of those years (1995) culminating in even a third place finish. But 1998 was different. It started off painfully, as longtime broadcaster Harry Carry passed away on February 18, 1998. But then on May 6th, 1998, Kerry Wood burst onto the scene as a legitimate top end pitcher:

It is hard to describe what that meant as a young Cubs fan. There was finally a young player that I could root for, and he seemed as dominant as anyone in the game. By striking out 20 batters, in one of the most dominating pitching performances ever, he had given this Cubs fan license to get interested in the team again, and hope that as the Jordan era came to a close there would be a next great team in Chicago just around the corner. Getting a game like that seemed unreal as a Cubs fan; what happened the next month, however, was truly mind blowing.

Of course, with hindsight, and the knowledge that Sosa's home run binge was almost certainly steroid fueled, some of the luster has worn off. But the home run chase brought baseball back again in a real way, with McGwire playing for the hated Cardinals and Sosa launching home runs for our beloved Cubs. As the year wore on McGwire won the battle, but Sosa and the Cubs won the war by making the playoffs. Looking back on 1998 in the fall of 2008, I wrote this:

"In 1998, powered by a young Kerry Wood's Rookie of the Year performance (20 k's), a resurgent vet named Kevin Tapani, and Sammy Sosa's MVP campaign (66 HRs to boot), the Cubs won the Wild Card, going all the way to a playoff game (number 163 in a 162 game season) to eliminate San Francisco and head towards Atlanta for a playoff matchup. What awaited that team was an in their prime trio of Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz. A sweep ensued."

And so it did, but it still felt like a win. My parents and I got to sit in our living room, eating ball park franks, my parents drinking Old Style, as we watched the Braves finish off the Cubs. We had the NL MVP, the NL Rookie of the Year, and good times seemed certain to be ahead. They weren't, of course, and the Cubs failed to make the playoffs again in 1999 ... or 2000 ... or 2001 ... or 2002. Wood's arm was hurt, and Tommy John surgery followed. Sosa continued to put up other worldly numbers (63, 50, 64 and 49 home runs each year respectively), but the rest of the team was either not quite ready, over the hill, or somehow just too Cub.

2003 was decidedly different, from the jump. Mark Prior, who had come up the year before and pitched very well over 19 games, made a sudden jump from "very good" to "possibly the best in the game." His season, coupled with a resurgent (and finally healthy) Kerry Wood led to covers like this...

(image from si.com)

And the belief that this year could be the year. We played it close, but made the playoffs, winning the NL Central as the Braves won the East, the Giants the West, and an upstart Florida Marlin's team took the Wild Card. Again, from my 2008 retrospective:

"2003, on the other hand, was heaven. I proudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen that our rotation could carry us to the finish line. I knew we could dispatch the Braves, because I knew that they couldn't beat Wood and Prior twice out of four games. And so I expected five games, but also was certain we would prevail in five. I was also rooting for the upstart team from Florida to upend the Giants of Barry Bonds. The Giants had been to the World Series the year before, and in a complete collapse had managed to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. The Marlins, on the other hand, were the Wild Card team, had surprised everyone, but were too young to mount a serious challenge. More importantly, if the Giants won they would have home field by virtue of their better record. If Florida prevailed the Cubbies would have home field because we were a division champ, and they were the Wild Card. The match up with the Braves played out exactly as I had expected. What awaited the 2003 team was a soon to be over the hill, aging Braves team. Five games came, but the Cubs won three of them. To make matters better, the Marlins managed to upend Bonds and the Giants. Life was good.

And that, perhaps, is an understatement. Life was great. The Cubs surged to a 3-1 lead in the best of seven series. Game five would be played in Florida, and games six and seven, if necessary, would be back home, at the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. Even more encouraging, if Florida took game five the Cubs would send phenom Mark Prior to the mound in game six, and our ace Kerry Wood to the mound in game six. Everything pointed towards the Cubs making the World Series, where we would face the exhausted winner of an emotional, draining Red Sox - Yankees ALCS. Still, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that the Cubs needed to, HAD TO close the series in Florida. And so I uttered some very fateful words to my father: "If the Cubs don't take game five it will be like 1984 all over again. They won't win. The Marlins will take them down."

Now, you can just chalk this up to a culture of disaster that the Cubs had always surrounded me with. Hell, you can even say I was just doing my part to help move the Cubs paranoia to the next generation. Whatever you'd like to say, this was one instance in which I truly hoped, with all my being, that I would be proven 100% wrong. The Cubs lost game five, but father was reassuring, promising me that the Cubs would probably pull one of the last two out, at home, with our best two starters going. And it looked as if he would end up the prophet, and that my prophecy would be exposed as fallacy. Up 3 to 0. Top of the 8th inning. Five outs away. Throughout college whenever a fellow Cubs fan would start discussing game six I would walk away, or ask them to stop. I still have a hard time discussing it. As a sports fan it has been burned into my mind far more than anything else. You may remember Bartman. I remember the real culprits of that God forsaken inning:

- Dusty Baker not sending the pitching coach, himself, or, hell, the batting coach to the mound to talk to Prior after Alou threw his fit.

- Baker sticking with Prior instead of moving to the bullpen when it became evident that his confidence was shaken.

- and most of all, above all else, Alex F'in Gonzalez, our .220 hitting Shortstop who had won his spot on the team as your classic light hitting, slick gloving shortstop ... botching the double play ball that could have, SHOULD HAVE stopped the bleeding.

Everyone wanted to scapegoat Bartman. But it was Baker and Gonzalez who didn't do their jobs, and who blew that game. (In game seven) Kerry Wood gave up three quick runs, if memory serves, then came back with a 3 run home run of his own. But nobody truly expected the Cubs to survive. The Cubs aren't survivors. They are victims. And the Marlins victimized them, taking game seven, and defeating a Yankees team that had already won their world series in crushing the spirit of "Red Sox nation." Five outs. Poor management. Even poorer defense. The story of a century."

After the dust settled, and the Marlins won the World Series, we went into 2004 with confidence. We were close the year before, but we weren't supposed to have been that close. We added Greg Maddux, a homecoming for a sure fire hall of famer to bring some calm to our star studded rotation that featured Wood, Prior, Zambrano and Clement. This magazine cover brought me even more confidence; see Cubs fans aren't alone, the press agreed!

  (images from SI.com)

Of course, it wasn't meant to be. Wood and Prior were injured. Maddux was getting old. A late year meltdown against the Mets, courtesy of LaTroy Hawkins, put the final nail in the coffin. It wasn't until 2007 that we made the playoffs again, but the Diamondbacks swept us out. 2008 felt different, as we celebrated the best record in the National League, but the result was the same as we were swept by the Dodgers. And then, the winter came. 2009, 2010 and 2011 were increasingly dark times as Cubs fans. But in 2011 came hope, as I wrote that year:

"Epstein comes to the Cubs having established himself as a giant killer. He killed the Yankees (albeit with a huge payroll) and killed the Curse of the Bambino ... twice. He was the GM who oversaw the 2004 and 2007 championships in Boston, and the renovation and rebirth of Fenway as a modern ancient ballpark. He has the name recognition, and he balances a desire to utilize new age statistic analysis with old school scouting techniques. But does Epstein have the chops to tackle the biggest mystery in major professional sports? That question is not the big one you'd think: why haven't the Cubs won the world series since 1908? That question, instead, is this: how is it possible that the Cubs haven't even been in the World Series since 1945?"

The rebuilding plan started, and the path that led us to today was drawn out. The path wasn't always pleasant (100 losses rarely is), but it was the path that true Cubs fans had been craving for. Rebuilding the right way, from within. Not chasing high dollar free agents in an attempt to band-aid over decades of ineptitude, but waiting for the right moment to let a big time free agent push a young core over the top. Epstein had the vision, and true Cubs fans could see it very quickly. By 2012 we were watching the moves with curious optimism. By 2013 we were celebrating draft picks and progress in the minor leagues. I stood with my family on 7/4/14 and celebrated as we traded Jeff Samardzija, our biggest trade chip, because I had complete confidence that the young prospect we were bringing back, Addison Russell, would be a part of the next great Cubs team. By that day I had something that had been lacking throughout my time as a Cubs fan, and which had been lacking for me as a sports fan since Jordan retired in 1998: faith.

_________________________________________________________________________________

My son is almost two and a half; he sings "Go Cubs Go" as a regular part of his rotation of songs. He will never know what it is like to grow up a Cubs fan in the same way that I did, or my father did, or my brother did. I'm not sure how that really makes me feel, because it is truly a variety of mixed feelings. Happiness that he will never experience the crushing lows of 2003, 2007, 2008 or 2015. Sadness that he will never experience the euphoria that I did this November. But when he is the right age, and when I want him to have some understanding of why the team that he will grow to love is so special, I will start with this video, to a song he already knows:

I don't know that there is anything I've found that sums up what it was like to be a Cubs fan before 11/2/16 better than that song. On 10/22/16, hours before the first pitch of Game Six of the 2016 NLCS, I wrote the following to my mother, father, Uncle and brother:

"There have only been SIX days like this since 1945. Six days in the last 71 years where the Cubs had a chance to win the National League. Six days, three in 1984, three in 2003. Only six. Today is the seventh. Regardless of what happens (and make no mistake, i'll be a basket case either way), that is something to cherish." 

Six days... and something that hadn't happened in 71 years. I continued, in that letter, sharing some thoughts that meant a lot to me through the years, and I share them again here in hopes that it will help paint this picture better than I can. I linked the song "Someday We'll Go All The Way" a second time, this one from 7/19/13 at Wrigley Field, a Pearl Jam concert that I was at:

I said this regarding that video:

"I don't think anyone has captured what it's like to be a Cubs fan quite like Eddie Vedder does in this song. Of course, I had the honor of hearing it live at Wrigley field, and the man who asked him to write the song joined him on stage. I met Ernie with my dad and brother. I met Santo that same weekend. My wife looked at me like I had a third eye in my head as I cried during this song during that concert. But that's the point - that ballpark, that team, it's all encompassed in that song." 

And, indeed, that song encompasses all that it was to be a Cubs fan heading into that day, and the World Series that followed. Being a Cubs fan was built on faith, faith that someday would happen, and that we would be around when it did. It was built on an understanding of what makes sports so magical, so special. After the Cubs were swept in 2015 by the Mets I sat around simultaneously hopeful for what 2016 would bring, and fearing 2016 because it made me think of 2004, the "Hell Freezes Over" SI cover, and how that team too was supposed to take the leap after losing the NLCS the year before. Finding this post, on the message boards of bleachernation.com by way of a reddit post, helped me to explain what I was feeling further to my wife:

"When we make the World Series some year, I don't want to share it with the rest of the world. I don't want your back slaps, your words of congratulation, and most of all, I don't want to hear you say "I was rooting for the Cubs, man," because you're not.

We don't need to hear about curses, about animals, and we don't want outsiders to constantly reference a certain fan who also shares our heartbreak. The rest of the baseball world is obsessed with him, but we aren't. We have a better heart, a better understanding of baseball, and a better understanding of the Cubs. It's clear to us, the rest of you will just never understand.

We are obsessed with finally making the World Series. It's been almost more than a lifetime for most of the fan base to even get that far. We dream of watching those games with our father, or our brothers while trying to hold ourselves together thinking about the departed family members that introduced us to this awesome experience.

With each passing year, the pain gets deeper and deeper, as our parents reach the age of 70, and our grandparents move on to a better place. This isn't a game once you reach that point. It's a memory that's taken from us, that won't ever happen. And that hurts. A lot.

So if you won't stop making jokes about the team now, or laughing about its futility, please understand that when we do finally win, I won't share the moment with you. I won't be angry or treat you like you've treated us. I'll just ignore you. It's not something you will ever properly experience, and I don't want you to know how it feels. Ever. It won't change the fact that I can't give my grandpa a high five and see the look in his eyes. But that will all be part of the emotion of that moment, my moment, our moment.

We are not kindred spirits with the team in Boston, we didn't share in the torment with our cohorts on the South Side, and most of all, we would never trade our experiences with the Yankees fans. As painful as it is, I love being a Cubs fan.

I don't know if it will happen in my lifetime, my father's lifetime, or even my children's lifetime. I know it didn't happen in my grandpa's lifetime, and every October, that thought brings me to tears. In 2003, though, I learned a lot about being a Cubs fan from him, and in those 30 minutes after Game 7, in the depths of despair, I learned something new about my 84 year-old grandfather. For that, thank you Chicago Cubs, because the true character of a person announces itself in times of despair.

If you're not a Cubs fan, you don't understand, and I don't want you to. When it does happen, don't talk to me, don't mock me, and certainly don't try to cheer with me. Don't offer words of encouragement. Because, right now, everyone is laughing and joking about memories I may never share with people that mean the most to me. That hurts.

Until then, though, enjoy your jokes and your ridicule and your trite references that only outsiders find funny. The fire is brewing inside, and when it happens, I won't waste an ounce of energy on you.

Instead, I'll share those moments with the people that mean the most to me."

And so the 2016 season started, and the Cubs, heavily favored much like in 2004, did something different. They never looked back. They dominated the division, and ran away with the best record in the NL. They dispatched the Giants in four games, but the pressure was real, at least for me. This team had it all: a solid rotation, a solid bullpen, and a dynamic offense. More importantly, they had that "feel," the one your rarely see, where a team doesn't just believe they can do something great, they know it. That didn't stop me from worrying about our ability to hit the Giants "big two" of Bumgarner and Cueto; the way our bats froze in 2015 against the Mets made me too aware of how fragile hot hitting can be in the playoffs. But we dealt with the Giants, and moved on to the Dodgers. Up three games to two, back in Chicago for game six of the NLCS. We prepared to face the best pitcher on the earth, Clayton Kershaw, and I read this on the bleachernation.com message board:

"Hi Brett,

I recently wrote in my blog that baby boomers, and most likely their parents have never seen the Cubs win the World Series.

The Baby Boomer generation started in 1948, so the largest population group in the US has never seen them in the World Series. I'm sure they are the parents of many current posters.

I am 76 years old, my dad was born in 1909 and my mother in 1915. I am now a great grandfather. Five generations of my family have never seen the Cubs win a World Series. When it happens and you see people crying, saying "I wish grandpa/grandma/Uncle Bob (enter name here) was alive to see it", those feelings will be very deep and emotional.

My grandmother was born in 1890. She was a true Cub fan. I held her hand when she died two months before her 100th birthday. As we drove away from the hospital I said to my wife, "Do you realize the last time the Cubs won the World Series, she was a teen-ager?"

I'm one of many old guys who told Tom Ricketts, "Please get it done before I die" because we don't want to be the ones that our family wishes were alive to have seen it.

On of my early childhood friends died a few years back. His casket was closed but there was a Cubs hat on top of it, and I'm told there was also one inside.

Sooner or later they will win it all. Better if it is sooner.

Best regards,

5412"

The weight of history sat there, but unlike years past I felt ready to embrace it, writing this to my family:

"Family. Tradition. Why do sports matter so much to me, to so many people? It transcends all this bullshit that goes on in this world and has the potential to do something amazing. It allows us to have unbridled joy and hope like we do when we are children. It gives us the moment to be insanely excited and blissfully unaware of the problems of the world, if only for a moment. Sure it can crush us, and man has this team done that through the years, but that hope that "someday we'll go all the way" teaches us faith and gives us hope. And it lets us get away from it all for just a moment. Many people will look at me like i'm out of my mind with how much I care about sports, because it's just a game. They don't get it, and that's ok. But I would never have it any other way. Sports are magical, and the Cubs and all the goes into being a Cubs fan is more magical than anything else in that realm in my opinion. 

...(w)hen it finally happens I don't know what I'll do, but it'll be a moment and feeling shared with those I love the most, regardless of where we all are. You are all among that group. Tonight I will join my father and mother to watch game six, just hoping that tonight is the night they clinch the league championship, the first night  like that since my grandfather played football for IU in the midst of IU's only outright football Big Ten title. If they can do it, what comes next becomes unthinkable and joyous at the same time. But tonight I have a chance to do something that my father never did - watch the Cubs win the Pennant with my father. That is pretty f'in cool. 

Go Cubs Go. Let's fly the W and do this thing. It's time."

And so, I left my house, driving to my parents to watch Game Six. On the way my son asked me to sing "All The Way" and "Go Cubs Go," and as I did he merrily sang along with me. Old Styles in hand, we watched as the Cubs jumped out to a lead, and with only a few moments of sphincter tightening along the way, they were suddenly poised to win the pennant for the first time since 1945. The only problem was that Joe Buck was on the call. I went and found a battery powered radio, and held it just right in my lap, as we muted the TV. The radio call was ahead of the TV broadcast, giving us the opportunity to hear this half inning before we saw it:

As my mother and father embraced, celebrating, my mind sat blown. The Cubs were going to the World Series. 71 years of waiting, culminating in this moment.

As the World Series began I reminded myself repeatedly of the 2004 Red Sox, and the gauntlet they had to run to move past the history of their franchise. Of course, only that sort of history could give you a book cover like this...

(Image from Amazon.Com)

... and make it seem legitimate. But that sort of history also indicates that it is never going to be easy. I held true to one promise that I had made in 2003: I went to Chicago for the World Series. While an appointment was going to pull me back before game five, I was certainly going to be there for games three and four, and hoped that as we headed into the city tied 1 to 1 we could come back up 3 to 1. In that scenario, I told myself, I might stay for Game Five as well and figure out a way to get back home in time for the appointment Monday morning. It was all there for the taking, a world of possibilities, but the 2004 Red Sox sat in the back of my mind. My friend John, a life long A's fan (but converted Cubs fan!), came along for the ride, and we jumped on the South Shore train, headed for Chicago with the goal of being in a bar, any bar, by Wrigley Field for game four. The train greeted us with the W ready to fly.

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The Cubs had lost game one six to nothing, seemingly not showing up. But game one was in Cleveland, and the best starter on the Indians, Corey Kluber, had been on the mound. The Cubs five to one win in game two felt more in line with what I expected, as we were able to take advantage of the biggest weakness Cleveland had: their sub par starting pitching beyond Kluber. And so, as John and I settled in to a bar in downtown Chicago, fresh off the South Shore into Millennium station, I felt confident that we could win game three against another sub par pitcher, making game four a tipping point game against Kluber on short rest.

Kyle Hendricks did not have his best stuff, but the Cubs pitching staff did about as good as you can hope for in holding the Indians to one run. Unfortunately, our bats went ice cold against Josh Tomlin, a 32 year old journey man with a career 4.58 ERA. All the Indians needed from Tomlin was to get to the fifth inning; in taking them four and two thirds innings he brought the game to the Indians vaunted bullpen, and suddenly the Cubs had lost a game they "should" have won. Down two games to one, Corey Kluber awaited the Cubs in game four after having dominated them in game one.

On the morning of October 29th, 2016 John and I woke up and headed in to Wrigleyville; me in my Ron Santo jersey, John in a borrowed Starlin Castro jersey. We walked around Wrigley, feeling the nervous energy as thousands upon thousands of fans waited for bars to open. With cover charges in the hundreds of dollars we went to a bar "only" charging a $25 cover:

(image from Wrigleyville-bars.com

There was a small line, but nothing compared to the huge lines outside of places like Sports Corner and Murphy's. As we stood in line we heard rumors of an additional surcharge of $50 per person, per table, per hour to stay inside. We got to the door and asked, finding out that this was in fact accurate, but that standing room only and bar seating did not have a surcharge. We rushed in to secure seats at the bar, and settled in for the long haul of eight plus hours of bar time before the first pitch.

The bar filled up quickly, and this shot, from our seats, is pretty consistent with what the afternoon was like:

For the record, here is a shot from the Yak-Zies website of the very seat i was sitting in (straight ahead, last stool on the left by the wall as far forward as you can go):

Yeah, there were a lot of people there, and we were among the lucky few to have seats.

Of course, time was simultaneously creeping by and flying by as we watched college football, ate food, nursed light beer and water, and nervously chatted with the bartender and our new friends. The mood was tense, and there was legitimate fear that tomorrow might bring the chance to end the World Series we had all hoped for, but that it would be the Indians poised to win it all on the hollowed ground at Wrigley. Sometime in the afternoon "Go Cubs Go" came on the sound system in the bar, and for a moment the bar loosened up, as hundreds of Cubs fans, packed in together mere yards from Wrigley Field, sang in unison.

As the hours crept along my friend Dave called to tell me that he would not be coming in to join us. Dave had been swept away for the start of the World Series (and the end of the NLCS) to a pre-planned (and extremely ill timed) family trip to Disney in Florida. He was returning, through Chicago, the day of game four, and had initially thought about cutting out to join us. He wouldn't be, however, because he and his father were now going to game five. As we talked about how awesome that was, my friend John brought back up his willingness to pay for a good chunk of the cost of the tickets to game four if I wanted to go. I thanked him, told him that no I couldn't afford it, and we kept on eating, drinking, and making friends. But I started looking at the cost of tickets on Seat Geek and Stub Hub, just in case.

As we got closer to game time I started seeing a few "good deals," relatively speaking, popping up. And John increased his offer. I was completely unaware of how he and our new friends were intently staring at me as I poured over ticket options on my phone. John had one rule: he wasn't paying for standing room only; everything else was fair game. In my mind I wanted decent seats, and knew we'd never be able to afford them. Then, roughly an hour and a half before the first pitch, some seats in the lower level popped up at roughly the same price I had observed Standing Room Only tickets having gone for not long before. I thought of how generous John was being, willing to front much of the cost. I sent my wife a text: "On a scale of one to divorce, how upset would you be if I spent "X" on World Series tickets?" My wife quickly responded: "oh."

Now, my wife has been fully educated as to what it means to be a Cubs fan. From my prior writings, at a time before we were even engaged, I wrote this of a time sitting with her, watching the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on scapegoats, which prominently featured the 2003 Cubs and Game Six of the NLCS:

"ESPN recently did a documentary on the Steve Bartman game, and the phenomena of "scapegoating" when teams lose. As I watched the documentary with my girlfriend, a Tigers fan, I had to explain what it is to be a Cubs fan. I explained Bartman, but also Gonzalez. I explained the sin that Dusty committed by waiting far too long to come out of the dugout to calm Prior down. I explained the sinking feeling, and what it's like to just know that it isn't going to work out for your team because it just can't. But above all else, something took her by surprise: 2003 was the first playoff series win that the Cubs had since 1908. Think about that."

What that blog post didn't say was that she looked over at me, as the documentary reached game six and started recapping it, and simply asked "are you alright." I responded that no, I wasn't really, and that watching this documentary was reliving something that wasn't very pleasant. By the time I sent her that text, then, she was fully aware of what the Cubs meant to me, even if she didn't fully "get it," as she admitted in her wedding vows to me. So when her second response came in, it was simply this: "I will let you make the decision. Love you." A few texts later, and this came: "Go ahead and do it if you want. I know this is important to you."

And so, as John and our new friends from Louisiana watched eagerly, I finally pulled the trigger on two tickets ... and received an error message. A groan came up from John and our friends as I told them that it didn't go through. I went back and looked: the tickets went to someone else. So I tried another set. Error. Another set. Error. I reentered my credit card information. Error. I tried John's credit card information. Error. It seemed that it wasn't meant to be. I settled in, confident that the good Lord above was simply intervening to save me from divorce. But then another sign came, as my phone rang with an 800 number popping up (as an aside, thank goodness my phone was on in that moment, as most of the afternoon had passed with it on airplane mode to conserve battery life).

The call, of course, was from Bank of America, wanting to alert me to the fifteen attempted purchases in varying amounts around the total of ... well, let's just say it was a lot. I thanked the gentleman, explained I was trying to buy tickets to the World Series, and he happily said "not a problem sir, just give it a few minutes and you'll be good to go. Magically, as I waited, the best seats I had looked at in our price range opened up, and as I clicked purchase, and the purchase went through, we ended up with seats 103 and 104 in Section 201, Row 3. Or in other words, we ended up here:

Outside of my first time taking John to Wrigley field, these were the best seats I'd ever had. And they went to us for less than standing room tickets were selling for an hour earlier. You see, John (the lifelong As fan) fell in love with the Cubs and Wrigley after our first game there. Now, here we were, going to game four of the World Series at Wrigley. I still can't say enough how amazing it was and is still to have stood here...

...as the Cubs took the field, at Wrigley, for the World Series. Of course, the Cubs lost, but as Dexter Fowler hit a home run off of Andrew Miller I left thinking that it was okay, because we had gotten to their bullpen, proving they were human. I thought that would be important, and I reminded myself more so than ever that the Red Sox had to be down to their last game in 2004 as well. That we only needed to win three in a row, and they had needed four. And that this team had won three or more in a row many other times through the year, and could do it again. Strangely, I left to return home on Sunday feeling ... optimistic.
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How do you sum up an experience of a lifetime, and one that you had convinced yourself might not come. You see, that's where I had been as a Cubs fan. Sometime after 2003 I came to grips with the fact that I could very likely have the existence my grandfather did, living and dying a Cubs fan, and never seeing them win the World Series. Going to Wrigley each year became a pilgrimage of love and passion. I took solace in the words of authors, and musicians, to guide my thinking. The Eddie Vedder song that I put in this post twice above holds a special place in my heart. As I mentioned above, I don't think that anything can fully describe what it was like to be a Cubs fan before this year better than that song. And, as I mentioned above, I wonder how I'll impress those things onto my son as he grows as a Cubs fan? How will I help him to understand? The lyrics take you, one step at a time, through an existence that is unlike any other sports fandom imaginable.

"Don't let anyone say that it's just a game, for I've seen other teams and it's never the same."

The Cubs are more than just a sports franchise: they are an extension of family. They are, in some cases, the glue that holds families together. There are no other franchises like this, and the writer I quoted above says it well: we don't share this existence with the Red Sox or White Sox fans, nor would we trade our existence for that of the Yankees fan. The Red Sox were probably the closest, but even they never felt the 71 years between league championships. The Yankees fans? Well, let's just say that they will never experience a high as high as a true Cubs fan just did.

"Whether we'll win, and if we should lose we know someday we'll go all the way. Yeah, someday we'll go all the way." 

That hope, that belief, drove generations of Cubs fans, while simultaneously driving some mad. It led my mother's father to cheering for hated rivals in the hopes of feeling a part of what it would be like for the Cubs to win, all the while lamenting that he would never see the Cubs win it all in his lifetime (he didn't either, joining my dad's dad, the grandfather I wrote about above, in that regard). Each year there was hope. Each year hope was squashed. Other fans laughed at us, but we endured, reminding ourselves that nothing in life worth having comes easy. And the Cubs winning it all? That was far from easy, and more worth it than anything else in the world of sports.

"We are one with the Cubs, with the Cubs we're in love. Yeah we hold our heads high as the underdogs. We are not fair-weather, but foul-weather fans. We're like brothers in arms in the streets and the stands." 

I love this series of lines, perhaps most. The love between the Cubs and their fans cannot be replicated. True Cubs fans embraced the journey, the pain, the doubt. Each summer you go to Wrigley, and you make new friends. You love the atmosphere. You mutually love the team.

And so, game five approached, and I was cautiously optimistic. I really believed if we could just win this one we could take games six and seven in Cleveland. Appropriately, the man singing the seventh inning stretch for this game was none other than Eddie Vedder:

The Cubs would win, and would take the show to Cleveland. Then, in game six, they took care of business, winning nine to three. Game seven loomed. History, for both clubs, was in the balance. For the Cubs, 108 years. For the Indians, 68 years. One game to decide which team would finally celebrate it all, and which fan base could experience what generations had been waiting for.

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I'm not really sure how I made it to work and through work on the day of game seven. I remember that I went to work, and made the decision to watch the game with my friend Dave, because Dave and I had not watched a loss together in the playoffs this year. We discussed where to watch the game and settled on my house. I settled in for the first pitch, alternating between my couch and pacing back and forth from my living room, into the kitchen, and back again. Dave arrived late, so he missed the lead off home run by Fowler. Once he arrived we began to ride the roller coaster, but it really was surprisingly good, as the Cubs gave the lead back in the third, but climbed to a 5 to 1 lead by the bottom of the fifth,

(At this point I will briefly interject that I did not understand Maddon's moves throughout some of the postseason, and especially in the World Series. I didn't understand the pitching changes, the decision to call some of the bunts and other moves he did, and if the Cubs had lost the Series that would have been a major story, if not the major story. That said, they won, so I'm setting those decisions aside as what they are, which is a footnote to history.)

Heading into the bottom of the fifth I had this feeling that this was going too easy; Dave felt the same. The wild pitch, bouncing off of Ross's head, scoring two runs managed to drive that point home. Lou Piniella used to refer to things like that as "Cubbie Occurrences." Well, let me tell you, that was a grade A example of a Cubbie Occurrence. That said, Lester regrouped, and then in the next inning Ross, in his last at bat of his career, got one back. Six to Three. Twelve outs... then nine ... then six. Suddenly we were in the bottom of the 8th, the Cubs were moving right along, still holding steady, up three. I will admit, I started thinking about going to get the whiskey bottle.

You see, during the NLDS I found a bottle of Jack Daniels Sinatra Select at my local liquor store. I asked my wife if I could buy it, and told her it was only going to be opened to celebrate one thing: a Cubs World Series victory. She laughed at me, told me to buy it, and I didn't. Finally I made the decision to go get it as the Cubs moved on to the NLCS, only it wasn't there anymore. Come to find out, my wife had gone minutes before me to buy it for me, because she was afraid I'd back out of it. If you didn't know before, you should now know: I have an amazing wife.

So I am thinking about going to get that bottle of whiskey to be ready to open it when the Cubs win. But I stop myself, thinking that I don't want to jinx it. Now, I kid you not, no sooner did I think that then this happened:

If it doesn't load automatically to that point, go to about the 1:40 mark. Suddenly, it's six to four. But I'm not feeling great. Of course, then this happened:

I was crouching between my couch and ottoman when Davis swung... and I fell over the ottoman and laid there silently. Dave sat on the other couch, silently, My wife tried to stir conversation, saying things like "I can't believe that happened," but it wasn't happening. We knew what had happened; we just couldn't believe that we had been within four outs of winning the World Series when it did. Four outs. The questions ran into our heads: would this be something we would remember for how close we got, or would this be something we would remember because it was the last moment our hope was tested?

The Cubs couldn't make it easy. Suddenly we were heading towards extra innings, and they were projecting a rain delay. It was late. Dave and I both had to work. He made the understandable decision to go home. My wife offered to stay up with me, but I told her it was fine and to go to bed. I needed to face this, whenever it was, on my own. I watched the end of the 2003, 2007, 2008 and 2015 playoffs by myself, facing down the demons and reality of the situation by myself. So I waited, and then the tarp came off. My dog, Tinsley, came back downstairs to join me, and we went into the 10th inning together. No longer sitting, but pacing violently through the kitchen and living room, Schwarber led off with a hard single through the shift. Aggressive base running by pinch hitter Albert Almora Jr. led to an intentional walk of Anthony Rizzo... which led to this:

Moments later, another run was in:

Just like that, up two runs. We'd later find out about how down the Cubs players were heading into the rain delay. How Chapman was crying over blowing the game. How uncertain everyone was. And how Jason Heyward, who had struggled offensively all year (although with good enough defense and base running to make him a valuable contributor nonetheless), pulled the team together. How he gave them a brief talk, and fired them all back up. Theo Epstein later said that his worry faded away after he walked by that weight room and heard Heyward fire them up. We didn't know that at the time, but in those moments, during the rain delay, Heyward earned every penny the Cubs have and will pay him.

Of course, being the Cubs, it wasn't easy. It never was going to be. They gave back one run in the bottom of the inning, but it all came down to this:

And this, in case you wanted to hear the call by long time radio voice of the Cubs Pat Hughes:

And back in my house, I was in front of the TV soaking it all in. My wife had been trying to fall asleep, but was watching the updates on her phone, and came down to celebrate. She found me, as she has told a number of people, "Shawshanking" on the floor in front of the TV. While she was kind enough to not take a picture (I think), you all should know what she's talking about:

"United we stand and united we'll fall down to our knees the day we'll win it all." ~ What Andy Dufrense was saying here (probably)/Eddie Vedder

And, yeah, that sums it up pretty well. She asked me if I was laughing or crying. The answer was both. Honestly, when I really think about this all today, as I work towards finishing writing this post, I find myself between laughter and tears. Part of me can't believe this happened, and another part is so ecstatic that it has made much of the pain of 2016,if not go away, at least subside.

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Just look at that crowd, and then breath in these lyrics, again from "All The Way":

"Keeping traditions and wishes made new

A place where our grandfathers’ fathers grew

A spiritual feeling if I ever knew

And if you ain’t been, I am sorry for you

And when the day comes for that last winning run

And I’m crying covered in beer

I'll look to the sky and know I was right

To think someday we’ll go all the way"

Yeah... but it was this year we went all the way. 2016 was a rough year for our family. It started with a great deal of excitement, as we were planning on bringing two new little ones into our family, but that excitement quickly ruptured to sorrow as at a routine appointment there were no heartbeats and my wife had to deliver our twins into their date of death instead of their birth day. The first few months of the year had me in a funk, no doubt about it. The Cubs? They helped to pull me out of that. They gave me something to focus on, something to look forward to, a distraction from the real world. As the Cubs did better and better, as they met the crazy high expectations placed on them from the start of the year, I started to feel better. "Time will pass so quickly, but time will heal the wounds. The memories will last forever, and the pain will leave you soon." Time is, indeed, the only remedy for pain, and the Cubs gave me a great gift in making the spring turn through summer, and to fall. My wife is pregnant again. All things are new again. And the Cubs helped carry me there, while delivering one of the things I most hoped to experience while on this earth:

"In a world full of greed I could never want more, then someday we'll go all the way. Yeah, someday we'll go all the way."

That's why sports is great, isn't it? I wrote it above, from an email I sent to my family, but sports transcends everything, all the "bullshit" in this world, and gives us the chance to be like children again. It gives us the chance to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. Look again at the last video I put above, feel that crowd, and ask yourself one question: don't you wish you were a part of something like that. Something that pulled people of different races, spiritual and political beliefs together, hugging, crying, and just being? That IS a spiritual feeling if I ever knew, and that is why,  I feel sorry for people who aren't fans of this team, who don't get it.

So maybe, as I enter fully this next portion of my life, this was a fitting bookend to my prior portion of my life. The greatest mountain, as far as sports is concerned, has been vanquished. I was there, on my knees, "Shawshanking" through laughter and tears, soaking it all in. I opened the Sinatra Select. I sipped it and savored it. I spoke to my Uncle on the phone. I stepped outside and heard loud cheers and watched fireworks go up into the night sky like it was the 4th of July. And I thought of those who had gone before who had not seen this, and what it would have meant to them. I thought of laying on my grandfather's floor, watching Mark Grace rip another single. I thought of Steve Stone doing the color on games. I thought of Mark Prior, who had thrown the first pitch of game four of the World Series. I thought of Kerry Wood, and his passion for the team. I thought of Ron Santo and Ernie Banks, two legends I had the good fortune to meet, and who had as great a passion for a team as can be. I soaked it all in, savoring it for hours after the final out, not caring that I had to go to work the next day (in my Santo jersey and hat!).

There is no more someday. Being a Cubs fan has fundamentally changed, and people who are not Cubs fans will never understand it. But for those of us who do get it, we will never forget. And we will always remember what it was like before this team, before the first pennant since 1945, and the first World Series Championship since 1908. And we can forevermore look to the sky and know that we were right to think that someday we would go all the way.

The POV Post-Election Analysis - Trumpocalypse Now

Twice in one year. Can you believe it? I'm writing something for the second time in 2016! Things are trending up! I may even have one more post before we ring in 2017, on a far more enjoyable subject that this one, but I believed this one was more important to get out, if only for my sanity and because I've had a few people ask me to write it. In my defense, I started thinking about this post in the weeks leading up to the election. I think my analysis of the Presidential Election this year was relatively spot on: Clinton was a favorite, varying from a slight to heavy favorite throughout the year leading up to election day, but Trump wasn't "dead." Far from it, his position was stronger than either Romney or McCain's, relatively speaking. We'll get into the reasons for that below. The days leading up to the election I had many people telling me there was "no way" he would win; I responded that his odds were better than the odds were for the Chicago Cubs to come back and win the World Series when they were down three games to one. The moral of the story is this: there is a reason they "play the game."

The FBI "reopening" their inquiry into Clinton's email was the type of late in the game event that the Clinton campaign wasn't prepared for, whether the FBI's actions were intentionally political or not. As I woke up on 11/9/16, into a world where President Elect Donald J. Trump was a real thing, not a punch line, I shot off a series of tweets, giving my "hot takes." I did that, more than anything, so that I'd have a launching point for this post. Then a month flew by. It seems like it has been so much longer than a month and three days since election day. But here I am, ready to finally lay this post out there for those who care to read it. Before I really delve in, let me tell you a few things.

1. Some of you, perhaps all of you, who read this will get upset. I'm going to call it how I see it. I'm not the smartest person in the world, nor the most "in the know." But my undergraduate degree is in Political Science, and I'm still relatively well connected with that world of study. I understand how news gets slanted, and I understand the difference between an "opinion" column and actual news reporting. You can choose to disregard that if you want to, but I don't pull my analysis from the fake news that infects Facebook and the rest of the internet, nor from the partisan fantasy world of Fox News and/or MSNBC. I follow news sources that 90% or more of the world considers reliable. If you choose not to that is 100% your choice, and I respect that. But realize that if you take the position that news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal (among others), as well as the academics who study politics for a living, are not real or are "in on the conspiracy" ... well, you are statistically as significant as those people who believe Adam walked in the Garden of Eden with T-Rex, that we faked the moon landing, and that global warming is a hoax. You don't believe in facts, research, or anything that you don't want to. I get it. We all have a choice to make: believe in journalistic and academic ethics or not. I choose to be a careful consumer, but a consumer nonetheless. You can choose to be in a group where most of your peers probably believe we live in the Matrix.

2. I am not a Clinton supporter or apologist. I voted for Gary Johnson and the Libertarian ticket because I couldn't believe that a plurality of  primary voters in this country left us with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as our major party choices. I also voted Libertarian because in the DEEP RED state of Indiana, my vote for Johnson was every bit as valuable as anyone else's vote. We were going Trump no matter what. The majority of this country said that neither Clinton, nor Trump was a good candidate for President and then went out and voted for one of the two. Until we start pushing the envelop and insisting on a third option, we will continue to get these types of choices. So I decided I could afford a protest vote. Had my state been close, had there even been a chance that my state would have been close, I would have begrudgingly cast my vote for Hillary Clinton as the least worst option. But I was perfectly happy to be able to vote for a third party and not have to support either of the flawed candidates that the primary season gave us. And, for the record, I voted in the Republican Primary and supported Kasich. Here is to hoping he will mount a primary challenge to Trump in 2020.

3. If you didn't vote in the primaries, you should have. That's how you can participate in an attempt to avoid a Clinton v Trump catastrophe. But if you didn't vote in the general election, then as far as I'm concerned, you actively decided to give up your right to complain. Democracy is a participatory process. You're not going to find me complaining about the Electoral College; it was the system given to us by our "iconic" founding fathers. Yes, it was because they didn't trust us, the "common white man" to decide on president, let alone everyone else who they didn't want to ever vote. But it's the rules of the game. Complaining about Clinton winning the popular vote and not winning the election is like complaining that your baseball team had the most hits, but still lost the game. You play by the rules of the game: hits, not runs, EC votes, not popular vote. But if you don't play the game, which in this case means you didn't vote, then you have no right to this conversation. You chose to not participate in our democracy and gave up your right to complain. Whatever happens, sit back, enjoy the next four years regardless of what happens, and stop complaining. You disenfranchised yourself.

4. If nothing else, read this article that gives you the full quote of Gregg Popovich's take on this election. This is real; this is where we are at with our country. We elected a guy who says and does things we would NEVER accept out of our own children. Good job America.

With all of that said, this is going to be my analysis of how we got here, what it means, and what my "take aways" are. Let's start with a simple fact, brought to us by exit polling on election day:

More than 60% of people who voted in this election believed that Donald Trump was unfit to be President. 

Hold on, let's get one more fact brought to us by the vote count, as of today:

More than 46% of people who voted for President voted for Donald Trump.

Let's let that sink in for a second. That means that over six percent of people who voted for Trump believe that he is unfit to be President. Not that he was probably a little over his head, or wasn't their top choice ... he was considered unfit, unqualified to be president. Using a little back of the napkin math here, that means that roughly Eight Million, Five Hundred Forty Four Thousand, Three Hundred people who voted for Trump thought that the man was not qualified to be President. Who knows what led those people to vote for a man they felt was unfit to hold the most important position in the world, but boy would I like to know. Because I, for the life of me, can't imagine what logical, rational reason their could be.

Now let's delve a little deeper into the question about how Trump won. I hear quite a bit from Trump supporters that he won because he "brought out" the vote. Or, if they are being a bit more honest with their thoughts, they'll say he brought out the "Reagan Democrats," which is really code for "White Working Class America." You hear a lot about this in places like where my wife grew up, in Macomb County Michigan. Well, let's look at actual data to see if this narrative of Trump "bringing out the base" is reality or fake news fantasy.

As of today, Trump has just under 62,800,000 popular votes; by comparison, Romney had just under 60,800,000 in 2012. Promising in terms of validating this argument. But let's delve a little deeper. What you find when you go state by state is a much more muddled picture. Some states, like Pennsylvania, seem to agree with this narrative to a point: Trump drew out around 2.912 million voters to Romney's 2.680 million. Others, like Wisconsin, go against that narrative; Trump took home around 70,000 fewer votes in Wisconsin than Romney did. The aforementioned Michigan? Pretty close, with Trump having around 150,000 more votes than Romney. In other areas of the country Trump held steady where he should have gained (Texas), made a small margin up (New York) or lost a ton of ground compared to Romney (California). Simply put, this narrative isn't very accurate at all.

A far more accurate narrative, however, and the one I would posit as being the major factor in electing Trump is this: Democrats stayed home. But not nationally, just in crucial areas. Let's look at raw vote totals from the last three elections (keeping in mind that going much further back gets tougher to compare as it doesn't factor in population increases).

• Democrats: 2008 - 66,882,230, 2012 - 65,455,010, 2016 - 65,432,202
• Republicans: 2008 - 58,343,671, 2012 - 60,771,703, 2016 - 62,793,872

You see these totals holding mostly steady for the Democrats, while steadily increasing for the GOP. But the key is where the votes were and were not. As we noted above, Trump had some increases in crucial states, but Clinton had major increases in states that did not matter. In Texas she picked up over half a million votes from where Obama was in 2012. But in Pennsylvania she was down over 150,000 votes from where Obama was. In Michigan she lost nearly 300,000 votes from where Obama was, and in Wisconsin, where Trump did worse than Romney? Roughly 240,000 fewer votes for Clinton than Obama had in 2012. The map didn't break well for her, but she also didn't campaign much in Michigan until the last week, and didn't campaign at all in Wisconsin. She was fixated on expanding the map to states like Georgia and Arizona, and expanding the Democrat's footprint in places like North Carolina. Meanwhile everyone laughed at Trump for campaigning across Clinton's "Blue Wall"... but he knew that his long shot presidency included two things. The first was picking up a small number of more voters in those areas than Romney did. As we've established above, he did that. What was the second thing?

Simply put, he needed Democrats to stay home. With more nuance, however, he needed people who didn't like Clinton to stay home. They didn't have to like him, at least not enough to vote for him, but they needed to not like her enough to not vote ... or to be one of the eight million plus who voted for a man who was unfit in their eyes to be President. In this regard, Trump won. But how did he win? He did it in a number of ways, and in doing so he proved how efficiently and effectively our entire political system could be gamed. 

First, he established early and often who it was he wanted his "base" to be. He actively and aggressively courted uneducated white voters with promises of things going back to how they were before, back when America was "great." This message was particularly powerful behind the curtain, inside of Clinton's "Blue Wall" in the upper mid-west. This area hasn't been "great" since the 1960s, and people still cling to the idea that it can be for the country and the world what it was in the two decades following the end of World War Two. Of course, this is a fantasy of the highest order, equal with believing that spewing CO2 into the atmosphere isn't going to have a negative impact on the world's temperature. But these people don't care. They are desperate for something, anything, and ultimately, anyone who will tell them that it will all be all right again. That the jobs will come back. That the wages will come back. That the "middle class" existence for a skilled laborer who didn't graduate high school will come back. I won't spend too much time delving into this, but simply put this cannot and will not happen, regardless of who is president, because the world is fundamentally different than it was in the decades following WWII. Back then we were the world's lone super power, and the only major nation that had left the previous decade unscathed in our homeland (short of Pearl Harbor, of course). We had the industry, it was already fired up from our war production, and everyone else's economy was in disarray. We had an economic monopoly on the world, and we prospered accordingly. Those circumstances are as far from today's world as transportation today is from transportation in the 1600s. So, in sum, Trump played to his desired base by telling them lies, sweet little lies, that gave them hope for a future that he knows will never come. But, of course, the future doesn't need to come ... the idea of the future simply needed to carry him to the White House. And the upper mid-west, the rust belt, was an area that was particularly vulnerable to this fantasy. 

Second, Trump could only pull this off if his opponents were divided, as they were in the primary. He needed them to be unable or unwilling to call him on his lies and factual inaccuracies for fear of upsetting the very base he was building, who they, too, would need if there were to win in November. After accomplishing this with very little resistance (major kudos here for John Kasich for refusing to budge and give in to Trump), Trump then needed another miracle. He needed the Democrats to nominate someone as unlikable and flawed as he was. Fortunately for him, the Democrats were so thin that the best they could come up with was the second most unlikable presidential nominee in history behind him. And all the Democrats could do to try to avoid this was run an aged socialist against her. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: the two most unlikable, flawed candidates in modern political presidential history. And remember, likability matters quite a bit. Obama was likable; he seemed like a guy you'd shoot hoops with or watch the NCAA tournament with. George W. was likable; he was a guy you'd have a beer with. Bill Clinton? Likable, especially when compared with George H.W. and Bob Dole. Reagan? Likable, because he communicated warmly and optimistically. Likability matters, so when you are considered by the majority of the voting population to be unlikable and unqualified to be President? Well then, you better have someone who is nearly equally unlikable and considered to be unqualified as well. Trump won the veritable lottery here. 

Third, Trump needed to appeal to a portion of the voting public that neither side had appealed to in some time, at least since the 1960s and 1970s, and that was the racist, sexist, xenophobic base. He went after this voting block with extreme intensity, from the day he launched his campaign. Be it the wall to keep out Latinos, a ban to keep out the Muslims, or his routine insinuations that Hillary couldn't do the job because she was a woman, Trump appealed to another block of white voters in a way that they hadn't been appealed to in a generation, since George Wallace ran for President in 1968. This approach helped him in two ways. First, it brought out voters to the polls for him who otherwise were likely to stay home because the major parties didn't buy into their world view. Secondly, it spoke to some Obama voters who were okay with a black man as President, but still had a misogynist view point and couldn't take the jump to a female candidate. Those voters didn't necessarily have to vote Trump, although likely some of them did. They could just stay home as well. Trump's margins didn't need to be big, and they weren't. He was beaten soundly in the popular vote, but he held on to narrow margins where it mattered. A relatively small number of voters voting for him or staying home rather than voting for Clinton benefited him disproportionately. 

Fourth, Trump needed to not be caught peddling in lies, and to not be viewed poorly for peddling in fears. In this regard he won big going away, for one simple reason: every time the media called him on his lies, tried to fact check him, or to hold him accountable for fear mongering, he simply changed the story. Often to make the story about the media's "unfair" coverage of the election. What this showed was how many voters were able to be seemingly held captive by his lies and his efforts to play to their fears. This happened because, sadly, his worldview fit many of their worldviews. When he said incendiary things about Islam and talked of Muslim registries and Muslim bans, it played to a portion of the population's fears. This isn't a new strategy; Hitler did the same thing with Judaism and the Jews, and the US did it in the same era with the Japanese and our internment camps. What was amazing was how defensive Trump supporters got if you acknowledged the stark similarities to what Trump was saying and prior instances of xenophobia in history. Playing to fears, coupled with an amazing ability to lie, gave Trump an edge. His ability to pin it back on the media anytime that they tried to hold him accountable is what should scare everyone moving forward. 

Finally, he needed a miracle. That miracle was something that would pull the polls close enough that they were within the margin of error. Close enough that people who despised Clinton would come out and vote for him, but with enough of a margin for Clinton that people who didn't really like her could talk themselves into staying home rather than voting "because it's alright, she'll win anyways. That death blow was delivered by FBI Director James Comey when he instructed his agency to reopen their previously closed investigation into Clinton's email server. Now, mind you, Comey could have legally and ethically done this quietly, having his team review the new information, and only go to Congress, and therefore public, if there was something new there. Instead, Comey came out and made a big theatrical production about it ... only to later determine that this was nothing new, and that the conclusion was the same: Clinton had done nothing criminal. There is little doubt that Comey reopening the investigation did for Trump exactly what he needed it to do: it closed the polls, particularly in those crucial upper mid-west states, to within the margin of error, firing up Trump's base while leaving enough room for some likely Clinton voters to remain apathetic and stay home. Trump needed to thread the needle, and the Comey letter was the Hail Mary pass that Trump needed. 

And so, here we are. President Elect Donald J. Trump. A man who would be worth more money if he had taken his dad's loan and inheritance and simply invested it, rather than doing what he's done with it. A man who was a Democrat until it became politically advantageous to become a Republican due to the divided nature of the party. A man who quite literally seems to have no real policy position, or interest in learning about policy, either foreign or domestic. A man who does know show business, and uses that to position and stage things like keeping job in Indiana ... by having me, my wife, and countless other Hoosiers pay for a tax break for the company, while having all American's pay for them to have fat government contracts ... and then watches the company still ship the majority of the jobs they already were going to out of the country anyways ... and then Trump declares it victory. 

Simply put friends, much of what Trump said in the election season was complete and utter lies, intended for the simple sake of publicity. That is the likely outcome of this. As he comes into office he will likely come back to the middle; reality is that he already has on things like The Affordable Care Act, the Iran Nuclear Deal, the Muslim Ban and our defense commitments to NATO and other partners. Now, there is a real risk here in that he could, and very simply should, upset his base. But he is banking on something else: that those people will keep listening to Fox News, keep reading fake news on Facebook, and keep going to the Breitbart "news" network for their news rather than going to real journalistic sources. Because if those people do that, they'll hear how it's the Democrats making him not be able to do these things. Or the Republicans. Or both. He's banking that his bread and butter base, the uneducated white person, will stay uneducated. That they'll see Carrier keeping a few hundred jobs here for millions in tax breaks and billions in defense contracts ... and not that Carrier takes all that money and still sends over a thousand jobs to Mexico. He's banking that his base will still see minorities of any type as a part of the problem, not as fellow men and women. He's banking that the Democrats, with a bench so thin that Joe Biden, who would be 77 in 2020, is seemingly the best option out there, will be unable to find anyone capable of dethroning him. He's banking that his base won't notice, or won't care, that he lied to them throughout the primary and general election season ... as he gently drifts towards the middle on many things. 

The alternative, quite frankly, is much more scary. That involves him going through with what he said he would. That alternative is very much in play, as neo-fascists like Steve Bannon continue to have the President-Elect's ear, as anti-Muslim individuals like General Michael Flynn get nominations, and as his cabinet becomes filled with the same Wall Street insiders he condemned during the campaign, and individuals with ties to Russia so strong that you have to wonder if Trump is just going to have a live G Chat with Putin 24/7. If this scenario, that the Trump of the campaign is the Trump who takes the Oath of Office, comes to reality, then there is one hope in the next two years: that the GOP members that have control of the House and Senate do what they didn't have the fortitude to do in the election season: stand up to Trump and force him to stand down. Block some of his nominations if they are unfit for the job or potentially compromised by ties to Putin and Russia. Moderate his policies. Show America that "conservative" doesn't mean "fascist." Prove to America that conservative answers to problems don't have to mean ignorance, fantasy, and putting the top one tenth of one percent's well being ahead of the rest. Needless to say, however, I'm not overly optimistic that the GOP will suddenly find the fortitude to stand up to Trump. They could have done it when he was a weak sideshow. Where are they going to find the strength now that he has become what he has become? 

And so now we see, in plain daylight, the depths of this man and his campaign's ties to Russia. He outwardly encouraged Russia to commit espionage, and then benefited when Russian espionage undermined his opponent. He clearly plans on blowing up US - China relations, starting with Taiwan, and ending with tariffs and taxes (side note: go out and buy your cheap flat screen TV soon ... they may not be cheap much longer!). He is bent on putting the extreme fringe, the radical fringe around him in his cabinet and west wing, and is making it well known that he plans on being a care taker President who generally lets his people do their things and just makes things look good. We've seen this before with Reagan and George W. Bush, but at least they had some people around them who knew what they were doing. Thus far Trump hasn't nominated anyone who has broad bi-partisan support for their nomination. That should scare everyone. 

At the end of the day, I go back to something that a person far more qualified to be President (but far too smart to run for President!) once said about invading Iraq: you break it, you own it. As Colon Powell said then, I say now in a different situation: we the people, because we don't want to honestly work on our imperfect union and would rather be divided and unable to see others as worthwhile, elected Donald J. Trump as the next President of the United States of America. He is unquestionably the most unqualified President-Elect of modern times. As we head into his Presidency, we all need to work together to try to manage to weather the likely storm ahead. We need to work in our communities across the aisle. We need to get past who we voted for, and find common ground. The extreme fringe who voted for Trump needs to be dealt with kindly and empathetcally, but in a way that makes clear that xenophobia, racism, sexism and fear of science and facts is not in any way the future of this country. My high school history teacher once said that he believed this was "the greatest country ever conceived on this earth, warts and all ... and there are a hell of a lot of warts." That statement is true, irregardless of who won this election. But it's time to pull together. If Trump runs to the middle, respects the rights of all people, and moves forward with a modern agenda that acknowledges science and the real state of the world, he should be acknowledged for it. But if he governs as he campaigned then we all have an obligation to do everything we can up and down ballots in 2018 to neuter him, and then to toss him and his government of closed minded, hateful people out of government forever in 2020. Either way, we as a country need to do this together. 

In closing, the best way I could describe this election between two awful choices was this. Hillary Clinton was like playing a lottery ticket. You knew that you were likely going to lose, and not be better off. But you also knew you probably wouldn't lose too much, and there was at least a chance that things would turn out a little bit better. Donald Trump is like playing Russian Roulette. The likely best case scenario involves an empty chamber full of a bunch of hateful rhetoric and bluster, but ultimately our collective heart rate will come down and we'll be all right. But if the chamber isn't empty ... well, none of us will be here to chat about it. Here's hoping the chamber is empty, because a relative handful of people in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are clearly bigger gamblers than I am. Welcome to the Trumpocalypse. This is one of the darkest times in our country's history, that much seems certain. But the beauty of this country has been that we come through the dark into the light of day. Let's go out and do it.