"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"

R.E.M.

Sigh. The Astros lost on Saturday, their 6th loss in 8 games. Just prior to that slide they were 1-1/2 games ahead of the Cubs; following the Astros loss and a pair of Cubs wins in a double-header on Saturday afternoon, the Cubs won the NL Central pennant.

Another season, another choke for the Houston teams.

But a look at who's in the playoffs - on the NL side, the Braves, Cubs, Giants, and Marlins; on the AL side, the Yankees, Twins, Athletics, and Red Sox. The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908 and haven't played in one since 1945 because of the "Billy Goat Incident". The Red Sox haven't won a World Series since 1918 (when they beat the Cubs) and have suffered "The Curse of the Bambino" since trading Babe Ruth in 1920. That's a combined total of 180 years of baseball futility. What happens if they both meet again in the 2003 World Series - does one of them have to win? Or would the world might come to an end first?

The Cubs vs Red Sox in a tale of two curses - isn't that one of the signs of the Apocalypse?

Hmmm... while Googling for research on this, I found some earlier references:

An editorial in today's Marion (OH) Star, 9/29/03 says that "they play on and on and on for 99 innings without determining a winner" before the Series is declared a draw.

Bryan Burwell in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9/19/03 says that in the top of the 9th of Game 7 with the score tied, "the world will come to an end".

Hubert Mizell, St. Petersburg Times columnist, 7/8/01 says "Nah, it'll never happen".

Jeff Dinsky of the Daily Princetonian, 10/1/98 says "complete and total Armageddon ... The meeting of the Cubs and the Red Sox in the World Series could not be anything but the seventh sign of the coming of the apocalypse. The world would surely end before the completion of the Series."

Pat Bigold of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 9/29/98 says "for the sake of the little guy who never can seem to win an argument with his wife, a pay raise from his penny-pinching boss, or even the table centerpiece at his sister's wedding, bring on the Sox and Cubs."

Dinsky wrote of the inevitable tie in the inevitable Game 7: "Shortly thereafter the world would end, because it simply impossible for the Cubs or the Red Sox to win the World Series. The rest of us would join every Cub and Red Sox fan in a state of eternal damnation and fully understand what their existence is like."