I appreciate your positivity. I just can’t join you.

We get a good game out of Harden and Lilly, and the hitters hit we have a tied series. Game 5 anything can happen.

Nor am I here to give some sort of inspirational speech. I’ve said my thing about this Cubs team to the people around me, and it should be shared with this community.

The Cubs are probably screwed. Three straight games is one heck of a run, in the playoffs against a division winner, and the Cubs are probably toast.

So what?

If they’re the Cubs, this kind of thing doesnt come easy. Either they’ll make a miracle comeback (which has to happen at this point) or they wont. Either way, its in typical Cubs fashion. Either they do the unthinkable (‘98, ’03) or they choke (’69, ’07, ’84).

The way I see it, I’ve never expected the Cubs to take the easy route.

Tomorrow night the Cubs can choose their own destiny. Either they’ll do the unthinkable, or they’ll go softly into the night. If they CAN manage to win, this team is good enough that it’ll jump start the offense and give them a fighters chance. If they struggle, it’ll be just another Cubs failure. Either way, should we be surprised?

I, for one, have embraced that either way, its the Cubbie way, and I’m not the least bit surprised.

to this series, and I feel like I have a foot in both camps: the optimists and the realists.

The realist in me suggests the smart money is on the Dodgers, based on what we’ve seen from both teams so far. The Dodgers are the picture of loose, free confidence, and the Cubs appear tight and unsure of themselves, even desperate. But my optimism tells me that a team which lets its guard down even for a moment can be knocked down by an opponent who is prepared to take advantage.

The key to that is the Dodgers. If they attack aggressively and swing freely, trying to end the series quickly, they play into the hands of a strikeout artist such as Harden, whose stuff can be truly untouchable. The Cubs have a poor showing against Kuroda this year in two games, but that is two games worth of experience the Dodgers don’t have against Harden. Just maybe the Cubs are due to hit Kuroda.

Just get them on their heels and it could change the whole tenor of things quickly.

just keep saying “Harden vs. Kuroda. Harden vs. Kuroda.”

…but its a game. Its played by boys for fun, and men for sport. Its a collection of nine guys that take the field and for moments make us forget the world. The world is a line drive. The world is a sinking fastball in a hitters count. The world is a line drive double play or a slick fielded 6-4-3 double play that changes an inning.

This is a world we get lost in. We are consumed by the sport, the game, the team, etc. In no other sport is a team’s fan base so obsessed. In no other sport are people drawn in, day in and out, for six months.

And still here we are. Fixed on a single game, to be played by men. Stepping back, its silly. But still, emotions run high with each pitch and a single hit or run could determine many moods for the next few weeks, months, and years. Silly, given that it is all over a game.

I will be one of you, one of the many of you that has their mood dictated by the game. But how silly is it that its just a game that we worry so much about?