This was just about perfect, just about the proper, near-maximum dosage of intense pain, just about the only way this could happen to the Cubs.
There are all sorts of ways to lose a baseball game, but not many as cruel and diabolical as the way the Cubs lost Game 6 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday night. There are torture chambers that look like playground equipment compared to this.
Years from now, when the story is being told, it will always start in the same way: "Once upon a time, there was a guy wearing a blue sweatshirt, a green turtleneck, headphones and a Cubs cap.".
It has the potential to be a tale of such woe as to render all the horror stories that went before it a collection of harmless fairy tales. Of course it happened this way. Had to. The Cubs lost to the Marlins 8-3 because of a chain of events that looked like a biblical plague by the time it was over.
It started because the aforementioned gentleman deflected a foul ball along the left-field line just before Moises Alou was about to catch it in the eighth inning. The Cubs were five outs away from the World Series at the time. Alou screamed at the guy, and if you're into foreshadowing, everything pretty much went black right there. Instead of being the second out of the inning, Luis Castillo eventually walked, and the Marlins had men on first and third. It was still 3-0 Cubs, but a shiver ran up and down the spine of Wrigley Field.
And just like that, as if history had been waiting to once again knee the Cubs in a very painful, personal place, the Marlins attacked. Mark Prior, untouchable for most of seven innings, seemed to come unglued in the process. The runs came like a river, and worse, didn't seem at all concerned that the Cubs were 58 years removed from their last World Series.
A single by Ivan Rodriguez . an error by the Cubs' Alex Gonzalez on a routine grounder . eight runs in the inning . some sort of record .