The Boys of Late Summer

Flipping on SNY in the early afternoon Friday, I heard myself paraphrase Bill Terry: "Is Chicago still in the league?" I wasn't looking to take a shot at the Cubs the way the Giants manager was jabbing the downtrodden if eventually vengeful Dodgers in 1934. I was kind of serious. Here we were, on the last weekend of August 2009 and we hadn't played the Cubs since the final week of September 2008, the final week in the life of a stadium that no longer exists. We hadn't visited their ancient haunt since...gads, when was it? Two desultory days the April before the most recent one, actually. I heard something about the Cubs joining the Mets as the most disappointing clubs in the N.L. this year. They'd been so far off my radar — having been so far off our schedule — that I swear I actually hadn't noticed just how not in it they were. The Cardinals seem to have flown away with the Central. The Wild Card looked like the Rockies' (or even the Dodge...