They reached the NLCS for a third straight autumn, won their first World Series in 108 years last fall, failed to reach the World Series again only because they were facing a clearly superior team in the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This would qualify as outrageous success for the Chicago Cubs, back in the days when being Lovable Losers was their cultural identity. Any success that strayed beyond that identity was regarded as endearing and winsome and just enough balm to keep the good times rolling on summer afternoons and evenings in the Friendly Confines.
Making the playoffs used to be enough on the north side of Chicago. You watched the vines grow rusty with fall color out there on the Wrigley Field walls, and you were happy, if you were a Cubs fan.
Now?
Well, not so much.
And so a week after bowing out in the NLCS, the Cubs cleaned house. Pitching coach Chris Bosio, hitting coach John Mallee and third-base coach Gary Jones were shown the door. Jim Hickey, Chili Davis and Brian Butterfield arrived to replace them. And isn't this a brave new world on the north side of Chicago?
Three straight NLCS appearances and a World Series title would have gotten the deposed coaches chunky raises back in the old Lovable Losers days. Now it gets them replaced for not getting the Cubs to a second World Series. And now you understand that all the talk last fall that the Cubs were serious about all this winning was not just talk.
Theo Epstein said he was building something to last that was not just venerable old Wrigley, and it appears he meant it. Who knew?
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