Cubs Choke...Again

A few years ago, Steve Bartman was to blame for the Chicago Cubs' failure to make it to the World Series.  On a side note, Steve Bartman is highly regarded in my book.  Getting back to the point, the baseball players from North Chicago have no excuse this year.  They were simply outplayed by the Philadelphia Phillies, much to the delight of St. Louis Cardinal's fans I might add.  They were the hottest team in the National League throughout the year, and highly regarded as one of the teams favored to take the World Series Championship.  However, when it comes down to it, the Cubs do not have the extra push needed in October to win all the championship.  Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano, two of the "biggest bats" on the Cubs, hit for a combined 3-25 in their opening playoff series with the Phillies.  The result, a 3-game sweep.  97 wins over the course of six months were forgotten about in less than a week.  The most wins in the National League meant nothing when the Cubs' players could not even manage one against the Phillies.  This was the year the curse of Fred Merkle was to be broken.  The 100-year curse put on the Cubs in 1908 seemed like destiny.  On September 23, 2008, 100 years to the date after the curse, the Cubs fell to the New York Mets in the same city where the curse was placed upon them.  The then New York Giants Fred Merkle failed to step on second base to win the playoff game for the Giants on a game-winning hit when the Cubs second-baseman stepped on the bag for a force out, causing a tie.  Thus, it was destiny for the boys from Chicago to put their fans out of misery.  It was destiny, rolling over all of the opponents who usually held the upper hand against them.  However, they will have to suffer in woe and sorrow for at least another year as they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs of the year of "destiny", to the delight of the "haters" of Cub nation.