If Cubs Start Thinking Little, They Can Win It All This Year

Two interesting stories appeared in the sports pages last week. And I believe that I am, so far, the only one who has found a potential link between the two.

One story concerned the withdrawal of Taiwan from the Little League World Series. Because of a dispute related to population, plus possible rule violations, Taiwan’s team has decided to drop out of the series in Williamsport, Pa., which it has won 12 of the last 23 years. Taiwan will not defend its 1996 World Series title.

The other story is the Cubs.

As many of you know, major league baseball has gone nearly 90 years without the Chicago Cubs winning a World Series. Not since 1908 have the Cubs won a championship, and not since 1945 have they even played in one. Cub fans coast to coast continue to pray for a miracle. They want to see their team win, just once before they go to that big ivy-covered pearly gate in the sky.

Well . . .

Suppose the officials of Little League baseball were to bend their rules, just a teeny-weeny bit. Suppose that, say, rather than a Long Beach or a Northridge sending a team to Williamsport with the hope of representing the United States in the championship game, we instead send a cuddly little bunch of ballplayers from Chicago, with baby bears on their sleeves.

Yes, you read right. I am proposing that Little League baseball accept the entry of the Chicago Cubs for this, the 1997 season.

If I get a petition up, perhaps many of you will be kind enough to add your signatures.

After all, this is the least we can do for a nice National League baseball team that has been trying so hard, all these years. I honestly can say that no team in baseball has been trying the way the Chicago Cubs have.

They have tried everything. They have tried making Babe Ruth point to where he plans to hit the ball. They have tried making opponents play baseball in a roasting sun and in a twisterlike wind. They have tried Dave Kingman, which proves how desperate they are. They have tried a relief pitcher known as “Wild Thing” and another pitcher who brushes his teeth between innings.

Yet still they cannot win.

By giving the Cubs a shot at the Little League World Series, we could instill a sense of accomplishment into this little blue machine. One championship could be the very thing that gives Cub players the pride and self-confidence to, by golly, get out there in 1998 and defeat all of the big-time teams, including the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The entire city of Chicago should get behind my plan, immediately. Remember, it takes a village to aid a hungry ball team.

Like many of you, I have sympathized with the Cubbies this season while watching their record go from 0-1 to 0-2, 0-3, 0-4, 0-5, 0-6, 0-7, 0-8, 0-9, 0-10, 0-11, 0-12, 0-13 . . .

And I think the same things you probably do:

Like, why is baseball so worried about “small-market” teams, when obviously there are some needy big-market teams out there?

Like, well, they’ve tried day baseball, they’ve tried night baseball, can a 3 a.m. first pitch be far behind?

Like, poor Ernie Banks must look at this 1997 Cub team and say: “Ugh, let’s play none today.”

My cable TV company finally has come through with WGN, after all these years. Now I get to watch my old pal Harry Caray, whose gigantic, welder-goggle glasses must be damp with teardrops by now. Instead of singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” I think Harry should sing something more appropriate, like “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

The Cubs don’t belong on WGN. They belong on PBS, during pledge week.

If only Williamsport would give them a shot. Mark Grace would get to be in a World Series, at long last. So would Ryne Sandberg and Shawon Dunston, who missed the Cubs so much, they actually went back to them. (On his Hall of Fame plaque at Cooperstown, under Sandberg’s name somebody is going to write: GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT.)

I promise you, a Cub victory in the Little League World Series would be a good thing for America, the land of opportunity. And if the Cubs should lose in the championship game to the Philippines, well, it’s only because some of those Filipino kids were probably older than 15.