LOOKING AT YOU, CUBS
From here on out, we won’t be taking our eyes off 2016 favorites
ANAHEIM, Calif. — There’s still time for the Cubs to pretend the target on their back isn’t there. Avoidance is a very underrated coping mechanism, especially when the bull’s- eye is as big as a beach ball.
Nope, the Cubs say. Bring it on. Magnify it.
“I would not want to be picked to be in last place and have nothing surrounding us this year and nobody showing up,” manager Joe Maddon said before the Cubs beat the Angels 9- 0 in the season opener Monday. “It probably would be the wrong way to go about this. I think our guys do embrace the target, and it’s going to be a fun year.”
“Embrace the Target” is Maddon’s theme for the season, which is why, if you were in the clubhouse before Monday night’s game, you saw it printed on T- shirts worn by a few players. There were other T- shirts featuring some of Maddon’s favorite sayings, such as “Do Simple Better,” “The Process is Fearless,” “If You Ain’t First, You’re Last,” and, of course, “Try Not to Suck.” I don’t know what’s going to happen to the Cubs this season, but I do know they’ll lead the majors in T- shirts.
Lots of people are picking the Cubs to end their 107- year World Series drought this year, and lots of people are waiting for them not to do it, spectacularly. Either way, it will be impossible to look away.
The Cubs were at the center of the baseball universe Monday, and they figure to be situated that way for the rest of the season. When Dexter Fowler opened the game with a double and Anthony Rizzo knocked him in with a single, it seemed like the only proper start for a team with so much hype.
I don’t know if you’ve heard, but they’re the hunted.
“[ The target] should be pretty big,” third baseman Kris Bryant said. “I think the team we have here is pretty good. . . . We’re all here ready to embrace it.’’
According to oddsmaker Bovada, the Cubs, at 5- 1, are the favorites to win the World Series. Twelve percent of the money bet on a World Series winner has been placed on the Cubs, the highest of any team. Fourteen of 31 ESPN “experts” have the Cubs winning the World Series this season.
If you looked at the lineup the Cubs fielded Monday, you know why: Fowler, Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist, Rizzo, Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Jorge Soler, Miguel Montero and Addison Russell. Oh, and the pitcher was Jake Arrieta.
If you looked at the Cubs’ history, you have no earthly idea why so many people picked them to win it all.
But avoidance? Not going to work. And even if the Cubs wanted to pretend they weren’t the favorites this season, there’s no way their competitors are going to let them forget.
“The Cubs are the favorites this year, the people’s choice,” St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter said. “A lot of people aren’t giving us much of a chance. Even in Vegas, the odds of us winning the World Series aren’t great. It’s a different situation for us. We’re the ones used to having the targets on our backs. That’s fine with us, though. We’ve never been the type of team or organization to really worry about what those on the outside think.”
Perhaps the Cardinals don’t worry about what people are saying, but they sure seem to be paying a lot of attention.
By the way, their odds of winning the World Series are 18- 1, according to Bovada.
The Cubs aren’t going to sneak up on anybody this season, but it’s incorrect to say they surprised anyone in the playoffs last year, not after winning 97 regularseason games. I thought they were going to win it all. ( If the guy next to me in the press box Monday had been wearing an “I’m With Stupid’’ T- shirt, I wouldn’t have been able to protest.)
They’re used to this much attention. Sure, “Embrace the Target” is a rah- rah motivational tool meant to lighten the psychological load. But it’s only stating the obvious.
“We have high expectations for ourselves,” Maddon said. “I promise you they’ll exceed anybody else’s.”
Judging by public expectations, I promise you he’s wrong. There were lots of Cubs fans in attendance at Angel Stadium on Monday night, and they did not sound like people who were thinking anything less than World Series titles, plural.
Monday was the first page of a very long story. Whether it will be a gory tale we’ve heard too many times to count or something involving a trophy, champagne and quite possibly the end of the world remains to be seen.