Quantifying Hope: Cubs’ Steady Climb Puts Them Near 81% Playoff Odds

Just like my 401(k), the Cubs’ postseason odds have maintained a steady upward trajectory despite taking their share of bumps along the way. The only downside is that the Brewers are hovering just below 100% while the Pirates have begun a modest climb of their own. That means what is currently a 34-point gap could either widen or close appreciably based on the events of the next three days.

I’m a little disappointed in myself for not planning better, as my son and I were less than an hour from PNC Park yesterday and could have just bounced down to Pittsburgh for tonight’s game instead of driving home. Of course, we’ve been sleeping in strange beds for most of the last two weeks and I’ve taken a ton of PTO in that time. As cool as it would have been to do another Cubs game in Pittsburgh 10 years after our first one, I’m more than happy to watch at home.

That reminds me: My good friend Danny Rockett is collecting pictures of Cubs fans from 2016 and now as part of a song project he’s putting together. The 2016 pic I’m contributing is of me and my kids from that game in Pittsburgh just before the All-Star break, when we were actually tailgating with Danny and his family. I think about that little adventure often, much like the time I took the kids out to St. Louis to visit the City Museum, Arch, and zoo around a Cubs/Cards game. Little did we know how much more time we’d be spending there for my daughter’s scoliosis treatment just a couple years later.

Terrence Mann really nailed it in Field of Dreams when he said that “baseball has marked the time,” because that’s certainly been the case for me. So much of my life can be pinned to a certain game or player or trip. Hell, my son is named Ryne. He was barely up to my chest 10 years ago, and now he’s almost six inches taller than me. Then you’ve got this stupid website, which has both blessed and vexed me for nearly a decade and a half now.

This Cubs season may eventually be lost to the memory landfill like so many others before it, but there will no doubt be moments that stand out and beg to be retained for one reason or another. Pete Crow-Armstrong could very well capture the National League MVP, but he’ll have given us more than a few big moments even if he falls short. Maybe we’ll just remember all the injuries a decade from now, even if we can no longer name any of the myriad pitchers felled by one malady or another.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, frivolous as these weekly columns may seem, they’re my ham-fisted attempt to mark the time of seasons that can easily fall into mundanity. Thanks for keeping me company along yet another halting journey through 162 games.