COLUMN: Bigfoot, Elvis and the myths of yesteryear of MLB
Bigfoot exists.
Elvis is alive.
Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
And the Chicago Cubs and White Sox are contenders for the World Series.
One of these isn’t a myth anymore, and it’s not Bigfoot.
As of this weekend, both the Chicago Cubs and White Sox are in first place in their respective divisions.
The last time both Chicago teams were in contention this late in the season, Ty Cobb and Cy Young (yes, the player and not the award) ruled the league.
The year was 1908. Honus Wagner had the highest batting average and Tim Jordan led baseball with 12 homers. Coincidentally, that was the last year the Cubs won the World Series.
While the Braves, Giants and Yankees continue to win, the rest of this year appears to be no more unusual than 1908.
The White Sox are in the middle of a three-team race in the AL Central with the Twins and … Royals?
Kansas City hasn’t made the playoffs since their 1985 championship season, and hasn’t had a winning year since the 1994 strike. The Royals haven’t even placed second since 1995 when they finished 30 games behind the Cleveland Indians.
Success hasn’t exactly been their middle name.
How about the Cubs on top of the Astros and Cardinals in the NL Central.
The Cubbies have won their division only twice in the last 56 years, and during that stretch, the Yankees have won their division 25 times. But hey, it’s the Cubs.
This crazy year also extends to the NL Wild Card race.
The Philadelphia Phillies lead a list of eight teams in contention that includes the Marlins, Dodgers, Astros, Cardinals, Diamondbacks and Expos. (The Cubs are technically not in the Wild Card hunt because they lead their division, and trail the Phils by three games.)
Wait a minute. The Montreal Expos?
Yes, our brothers to the north are still in the mix. Keep in mind that the Expos have never been to the playoffs and are hardly even supposed to be playing right now.
At the end of the 2001 season, Major League Baseball, led by its esteemed commissioner Bud Selig, tried to contract the Expos and Twins from the league.
Fans in Minnesota threw a fit at this news, but the city of Montreal didn’t even blink.
The Expos played more than 20 of their home games in San Juan, Puerto Rico this year where the people actually cared about baseball. That made for some very gruesome road trips for the players.
As you can see, the fact the Expos are winning at all this year is incredible enough, let alone being a contender for the playoffs.
Let’s not forget the Marlins. Except for their World Series year in 1997, they have a career record of 614-777 – a .441 winning percentage. They haven’t even come close to the playoffs since.
As of last weekend, they trailed the Phillies by a mere game in the Wild Card race.
One other strange occurrence in baseball this year has been the Boston Red Sox.
They are winning. It’s mid-September.
Someone needs to remind them they are overdue for their annual late-season collapse. This weekend, they took two out of three games from the evil Yankees to pull to within three games of first place in the AL East.
And get this, they lead the Mariners in the AL Wild Car race.
All this means that if the playoffs were to start this week, the Cubs, White Sox and Red Sox would be playing.
What an exciting September this is going to be.
Bryan Hinton is a junior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to bhhinton@cc.usu.edu