Playing Tight and Bad Mojo

by razzpunk on Oct 5, 2008 12:56 PM CDT

I have been a hardcore Cubbie fan since 1984 when I first fell in love with them and then had my heart broken. Do I believe in curses??? Not really. What I do believe is the whole 100 years without a championship and the billy goat curse mystique and the long suffering fans all create a "mojo" or "energy" around this team that puts so much pressure on the team come playoff time that it gets to them and weird, wacky stuff happens when a ballplayer isn't relaxed and focused. I find it hard to believe that the players didn't care about bringing a title to Chicago, in fact I think they cared SO much that they tightened up and could not relax enough to play the kind of winning baseball we saw from them in the regular season. Perhaps what is needed is something or someone that can get them to relax....Manny Ramirez's approach to the game is playful (an irritating to fans of the other team) but I don't think he ever let's the pressure of post season weigh him down and thus you get the results he puts up. Maybe Torre has a way to relax his players and that leads to the post season success. Who knows? But I think if you looked in the faces of the Cubs players even in game one you saw the weight of 100 years of let down fans weighing on their shoulders. I mean what player wouldn't want to be part of the team that lifted the sadness off this organization....they would become practically eternal heroes in Cubdom. Add to that a kind of lurking suspicion in my mind that the mass fan expectation that the bottom will eventually fall out creates a nervous, negative energy in the ballpark which may effect the play on the field. I mean I have my doubts about alot of new age sounding theories but if you get that many people in one place all thinking the same "How are they gonna blow it this time?" thoughts it must create a palpable feeling of dread that sneaks onto the field.

How to solve this? I guess we need the players to relax somehow, someway and forget about all those years and how amazing it will be when the team does win again. Rather they should just focus on playing good baseball and forget the expectations. Apparently Lou has not been able to create that kind of attitude yet in the clubhouse (at least in the post season). As for the fan created "mojo" I guess we could all try to get rid of our "we are going to lose" complex and find some way to up the positivity or at the least chase away our nagging doubts.

That and a left handed power hitter and a true lead off hitter oughtta do it!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of SB Nation or Al Yellon, managing editor (unless it's a FanPost posted by Al). FanPost opinions are valued expressions of opinion by passionate and knowledgeable baseball fans.

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The sad part is that the 100 year drought is so overdone by the press, the fans rarely talk about it. It’s the spectre of all these losing years that gets thrown in the face of the players on a daily basis that probably gets under their skin a little. They can never admit it, no matter how slight. Personally, I have been sick and tired of the negative propaganda for 30 years or more and I wish the press would simply cover the game and the players and give the past a rest. I guess the only true way to destroy the 100 year ghost is do what the White and Red Sox did…actually win a WS.

I was out of the country for the first 2 games so I didn’t see the players and how they looked. Last night, they looked tense, but D Lee came through and even Dome did. ARam and The Riot and Sori did nothing. Harden battled and you aren’t going to win many games only scoring one run.

It’s sad to say that the series basically came down to an error that prolonged an inning and a Grand Slam. That’s the thing about a short series, runs are at a premium and you have to play error-free and not let the other team do damage. We showed fight and grit coming back from deficits all year, I don’t know why we gag in October.

We have no one on this roster that has any post season success to fall back in except for Lee and Edmonds. Lee looked relaxed out there, no one else did. Maybe that’s why we got swept 2 years in a row. Until these guys actually come up big in a game and we actually win one, we will always choke.

"WGN, Channel 9 Cubs Baseball, Excitingly, Importantly, Dramatically Yours." - Jack Brickhouse

by BigJohnAZ on Oct 5, 2008 2:00 PM CDT reply actions