8th-inning disaster so Cub-like

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.

"My first thought was, 'I pray to God that guy isn't a Cub fan,'" Marlins pitcher Carl Pavano said.

Some topics in this essay:
Kerry Wood, Championship Series, Gonzalez Cubs, Jack McKeon, , Alex Gonzalez, Randall Simon, Billy Goat, Mark Prior, Carl Pavano, game 6, cubs fans, cubs lose game, lose game, world series, cubs lost, cubs lose, eight runs, game 7, home game, green turtleneck,