The great actor and Cubs fan Bill Murray recently celebrated his 65th birthday, and this post is dedicated to him. Thanks for all the laughs through the years.
Licensed to beat Pirates, by the government of the United Nations. A team free to beat Pirates at will.
To win, you must know your enemy and in this case, it’s the Pirates. The Pirates will never quit, ever. They’re like the Viet Cong: Pirate Cong.
So what we need to do is fall back, with superior firepower and superior intelligence.
And that’s all she wrote.
What is it that a pirate does, exactly? It’s not a peg leg and a parrot on the shoulder that makes pirates what they are. Eric Cartman’s hilarious song about Somalian Pirates was enough to prove that looks alone aren’t what makes a pirate. No, real piracy is the act of plundering something that doesn’t belong to you. It’s all about seizing the booty, by whatever treacherous means are available.
The Pittsburgh baseball team known as the Pirates is coming into Wrigley Field this weekend, but it’s the Chicago Cubs who are going to have to be the ones doing the plundering. The booty is home-field advantage in the National League wild card game on October 7. The Pittsburgh Pirates have it, by virtue of a better record than Chicago’s own pirates have.
Captain Maddon and his band of desperadoes won’t be able to take the booty away at Wrigley Field this weekend, even if they break out their pirate brooms and sweep the deck with this nominal Pirate crew. The deficit is three and a half games, so all the piracy in the world won’t be enough to pry that booty loose this weekend.
But an act of piracy by the shores of Lake Michigan this weekend will make for an exciting final week of the regular season still ahead of us. The team that calls itself the Pirates is hard to beat in their friendly PNC port.
In a one-game elimination scenario, Chicago’s pirate band needs to have that home field advantage for themselves. So the way to do that is to think like a pirate and, whenever possible, to look like one.
And this is just a dumb coincidence, but it’s interesting to point out, anyway. Back in 1890, there was a renegade player’s league that was formed to challenge the National League for baseball supremacy. There was a Chicago entry into the league, of course, and would it surprise anyone to learn that their team name was the Pirates? The league didn’t survive past the 1890 season, but it can legitimately be said that there is a legacy of Pirate baseball in Chicago.
Here’s hoping for an act of thievery this weekend that will make Bill Murray proud.
