Thanks, Cubs!

While monitoring both the Cubs-Reds and Brewers-Padres games last night, I couldn’t help but think back to the way this baseball season started for our family — that cold, snowy outing at U.S. Cellular Field and the slightly warmer game under the roof at Miller Park a few days later … a game between, yep, Chicago and Milwaukee.

Not being much of a prognosticator when it comes to these things, I didn’t really have an opinion back then on how the season would go for any of the teams, least of all the hard-luck Brewers and star-crossed Cubs. Hope springs eternal, of course, especially when it comes to the Cubbies. But I certainly didn’t imagine that Milwaukee would be in first place for 133 days this season, that Chicago would start so slowly and finish so strong (kind of a reverse of the usual pattern), or that both teams would be involved in such an exciting stretch run.

Now the Cubs get to play in October, the Brewers get a much-deserved tip of the cap, and a fun cross-border rivalry between teams from cities 90 miles apart gets a little stronger.

You’ve got to love it.

Silly me. I’m a Cubs fan. I’ve been a Cubs fan for more than 40 years. How could I have expected this to be easy?

I was actually dumb enough to let my guard down last weekend, after the Cubs swept the Pirates and the Brewers struggled in Atlanta. I actually thought the Braves’ comeback to beat the Brewers Sunday afternoon was some kind of sign. I actually thought it was all but over, that I’d be able to relax during the last week of the regular season and watch the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place.

Now it’s Thursday. The weekend is looming. The Brewers have taken two of three from those annoying Cardinals, who always seem to win when you want them to lose and lose when you need them to win.

And the Cubs — those lovable, exciting, completely exasperating Cubs — have dropped two in a row to the Marlins.

The standings are too tight. The magic number isn’t dropping nearly fast enough.

Could we really be heading right down to the final day? Could we, God forbid, even be facing a one-game playoff next Monday?

It might be too early to worry about such things. One game at a time and all that nonsense.

But still … still …

How could I have thought this was going to be easy?

Back home safe and sound, after a long day.

We left Chicago bright and early and made it to Milwaukee in plenty of time for the opening of the gates at Miller Park. The game was great, a 6-3 Cubs victory. It was good to see the Cubs get solid pitching from Carlos Zambrano, and to play ball the way it should be played: make contact, get on base; make contact, advance the runners. Also good to be snug under the roof, after our chilly White Sox outing the other day.

It was a toss-up whether there were more Cubs fans or Brewers fans in the park. Certainly, the Chicago fans overpowered the Milwaukee folks during the 7th inning stretch singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” with “Root, root, root for the Cubbies” easily drowning out “Root, root, root for the Brewers.”

After the game we meandered our way north, and on the spur of the moment I took the opportunity to show my daughters the place where I lived for the first 11 or so years of my life. It was the first time they’d ever seen the old homestead, and the first time for me in probably 20 years. To put it kindly, the place needs work — new paint and a new roof would be a good start — but it was nice to see it again.

Finally, we hit the freeway and made a beeline north, with a stop for dinner in Green Bay our only other diversion of the trip. It was a bit disheartening to drive the last hour or so in a steady snowfall on slippery roads, but not unexpected for April in this part of the country, especially when most of the east is also shivering and shoveling.

Now it’s back to the grind, wondering how a week could have possibly gone so fast.

Those darn meteorologists sure know their stuff. They had yesterday’s forecast exactly right.

It was 31 degrees at U.S. Cellular Field, the wind chill was in the teens, and snow flurries swirled throughout the game. In other words, a typical day for spring baseball in Chicago — and we took advantage of every minute of it, from the time the gates opened to the final heartbreaking out some five hours later.

Overlooking the questionable Chicago pitching, the game was an exciting one. It was, to use that favorite term of sportswriters, a “slugfest,” a seesaw battle that the White Sox only lost because of the Indians’ Jason Michaels, whose heroic catch at the warning track prevented Joe Crede’s two-out, two-on, bottom-of-the-ninth drive from knocking in the winning runs. Final score: Cleveland 8, Chicago 7.

Today it’s off to warmer pursuits: the Adler Planetarium this morning and a jaunt to the Western Suburbs to visit Medieval Times tonight. The famous “dinner and tournament” attraction was one of my daughters’ favorite places when they were in kindergarten, and rather surprisingly, it was near the top of their must-do lists for this vacation. Will it hold up for them, now that they’re 18?

The final score was disappointing, but the Sox did fire up the famous old Comiskey Park exploding scoreboard with a couple of homeruns.

We weren’t the only baseball fools who braved yesterday’s weather. The official attendance at the game was 26,337, though the end of every inning brought many departures. I’d estimate that fewer than 10,000 fans were left by the end.