Can you really believe in the Cubs?
Back in 1972, there was an advertising campaign for a consumer audio company. It tried to get the public to believe that its cassette tapes were the AI (before AI, of course) of the sound-quality business. The campaign’s tagline was a simple question: “Is it live or is it Memorex?
The challenge put forth in the campaign: What do you believe? Is what we are showing you real? Do you believe your own eyes?
Because of how iconic it became and how it transcended marketing and expanded into areas of psychology and human rationale, the campaign grew beyond being what was “live” or not and into what is “real” or not.
It became the flash point for what separated seeing something with our own eyes and reality.
If anyone has gone to a Cubs game this year, especially the last two against the Dodgers at Wrigley, tell me, What did your eyes see? If anyone has watched the Cubs in this first month of baseball, they have season-series wins already against three of the four top teams in the National League West (three of the top five in the NL). So I ask: Were those wins real? Twenty-seven games in, you look at the NL Central and see the Cubs sitting pretty above every team in the division. What are you to believe?
Believe that what is happening could be the beginning of something real. Believe the reason behind this transcendental start of the season is more than Kyle Tucker putting on a Cubs uniform, but not far from that. Believe PCA (Pete Crow-Armstrong) is legit on the verge of super legitness. Believe Craig Counsell came into this season on a vendetta and made sure after those two losses in Japan to open the season that that’s not what his team was about to be for the next 160.
Believe that “play every inning as if it’s your last” is the proverb they decided to live by. As Cubs catcher Miguel Amaya said summing up this season into four words, “We don’t quit here.”
Here’s what is real: In paraphrasing Dansby Swanson, this “group is built for one another,” they’ve “built a toughness” and “something special” is happening at Wrigley. Seven games with 10 or more runs when no other team has more than three; they are third in the majors in home runs; their .982 fielding percentage is 21st in the NL but only 0.8% off the NL lead; the vibes are mid-October not end of April; their bats are fish-grease hot; the Cubs vs. NLW is a thing; Tucker’s 1.031 OPS; they are fluctuating between three and five on most outlets’ and analysts’ MLB Power Rankings lists; yes, they did score 167 runs in their first 27 games (which leads the majors, with the next-closest team being more than 20 runs behind); yes, they also lead the majors in batting average, RBI, hits and stolen bases; yes, they are bringing back “raising the roof.”
“Magical” (which is a word I heard a few times while at Wrigley during the second game of the Dodgers series this week) might be an oversell on what it is but not on the feeling that the team and the fans are experiencing. And if the rest of the city were paying attention to them right now the way everyone is the Bears and the NFL Draft, that “magical” sentiment would extend far outside of the Wrigleyville confines.
And magical is a feeling no team inside the Big 5 (Bears, Cubs, White Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks) has provided the city in a long time. Not for any substantial amount of time. Not for an entire month. No disrespect to the 2021 Sky and the 2018 Loyola Ramblers, but this is elevated. This current Cubs “thing” is something that has a chance, even with all of the ebbs and flows that come in a season, to be sustainable. Until July. Until September.
Until 2027.
The perspective is basic and beautiful as to where the belief in this team is right this second. After the Cubs took a 3-2 lead in the fourth inning and Teoscar Hernandez’s home run in the fifth gave the Dodgers back the lead, a guy siting next to me at Wrigley in the calmest voice I’ve heard during another roller-coaster game about a non-dynasty or non-dynasty-in-the-making team, said, “Uh, it’s just going to be another Cubs comeback victory.”
Yup, mid-October vibe.
It doesn’t take a research psychologist or a sports columnist for a Chicago newspaper to know that what is happening right before us with the Cubs has a chance to not be real. To be Memorex, not live. The “magic” to be a “mirage.” Gone by July. Gone by September. Never seeing 2027.
But for the “now” moment, the Cubs are as real as real can get.
MLB likes to say, “Welcome to The Show.” Well, the show is here. In Chicago. On the North Side. Which only leaves us with two simple questions: Who knew this would happen? And how long is this going to last?