A Chicago Cubs Soliloquy

The Cubs were defeated by the Diamondbacks 6-1 Friday night.

It's not a tragedy -- this season was long ago lost -- but this game made me think of Hamlet's soliloquy.

Thus after the jump, the Chicago Cubs version.

To win, or not to win--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings of a pitcher like Josh Collmenter
Or to take Jeff Samardzija's arm against a sea of D'backs
And by opposing defeat them. To lose, to win --
No more -- and by a loss to say we keep
The heartache, and the hundred and four years
The Cubs are heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly not wished. To lose, to lose,
To lose -- thus is twenty-twelve: ay, there's the rub,
For in those multiple losses some dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
And give us hope. There's the respect
That we all have for Theo and Jed.
For they will bear the reversals of
The oppressors' wrong. The proud fans abide
The pangs of despised losses, the wins' delay,
The insolence of swinging at the first pitch,
Instead: patient merit of the most worthy takes.
When Theo himself might his quietus make
And trade Ryan Dempster. What would the bullpen bear,
To grunt and sweat in warming up,
In anticipation of keeping games close, and yet,
When entering the game, from whose mound
Few Cubs reliever succeeds, puzzles the fan,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus failure does make losers of Cubs all,
And thus the native hue of defeat
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitches and fielding
Seem to always turn awry
And lose the game of action. -- Soft you now,
Alfonso Soriano! -- Player, in thy orisons
Be all your sins remembered.