The 2026 MLB Playoffs: A Cubs Fan's Guide to Having Absolutely No Fucking Fun: Part 1 NLCS
Four teams remain. Three of them are totally unlikeable, and the fourth is Tampa Bay, which is less of a rooting interest and more a last available woman at the bar near closing time. And even through that comment, I can feel 4 teams turning around to look at me as if I were on The Voice.
Well guess what, this was supposed to be my year so I'm gonna take it out on your cities. "Welcome to October, where my team is dead and everyone else is enjoying".
There is a special kind of misery that comes with being a Cubs fan in October.
It's not just that your team isn't playing. That's a familiar feeling. It's that we have become perpetual wild card knockouts. Through years of experience in this department, we could teach a master class and offer college credits for attending; it's become our identity.
Baseball has again continued without us, and somehow the remaining teams seemed to have orchestrated a backroom, low lit, conspiracy meeting with Manfred and his man boobs to make the experience as unpleasant as a trip to the DMV when you have filled out the wrong slip and don't have 4 forms of ID.
The Chicago Cubs are out. The Padres sent us packing in two games, including an 8-0 shutout in Game 1, because apparently even getting eliminated had to be doled out in the most depressing way imaginable. We managed one measly run in Game 2 before going home for the winter; or Aruba for some.
And now I'm supposed to watch the postseason with enthusiasm?
Enthusiasm for WHAT?
I have three teams I actively want to see lose, and one team I tolerate because the alternative is like kissing your sister. This isn't a playoff bracket. It's a personality test designed by God (who hates me). The b*tch.
Let's review our finalists.
The Milwaukee Brewers: Because apparently God and Craig Council hate when Chicago is top of the division.
Imagine losing the division to your brother-in-law, except he has better manners than you, lives in a friendlier city, and the rest of the country believes they are the face and you are the heel. Deep down you know they're wrong, but you can't prove that. And on top of that, they're at the top of the league and politely, but arrogantly, won't shut the fuck up about it?
The Milwaukee Brewers have somehow turned being a small-market team into a competitive advantage with borderline personality disorder. Milwaukee finished the regular season 103-59. I don't know if we have any future scholars out there, but that's the best record in baseball, and it means they have every right to be here.
For Cubs fans, rooting for Milwaukee is like watching your neighbor win the lottery. Sure, you're happy they won. But then you remember it's the guy who mows his lawn at 7 a.m. on Sundays, parks like an asshole, and spends every neighborhood cookout explaining why his house is actually nicer than yours. You can acknowledge his success. You can even congratulate him. But if he starts waving that money around, you're suddenly hoping the IRS takes his children.
And to be fair, right now, the Brewers are making it increasingly difficult to pretend they aren't really good.
They beat the Padres three games to one in the Division Series, and they've opened the NLCS by winning the first two games against the Dodgers. They're up 2-0 heading into Los Angeles, tonight at 7:00 P.M. central time.
The Brewers are one of the most successful regular-season teams in baseball, and they're two wins away from putting the Dodgers in a very uncomfortable position. Milwaukee even ended its 12-game postseason road losing streak against San Diego, because apparently this year, they're determined to remove every possible reason to make fun of them.
I would like to formally request that they stop.
There's also the small matter of the rivalry. Milwaukee is close enough to Chicago that its fans can make a day trip to Wrigley, but apparently far enough away that they have developed an entire identity around being our little brother who desperately wants everyone to know he's taller now.
And the worst part? They're actually good at baseball.
I hate when the enemy is competent. It makes the insults harder to write.
I hope their cheese curds get cold. I hope every beer they pour is 90 percent foam. I hope they finally run out of those stupid little sausages they wave around, while bringing back Albert Belle to crack one of those little pork turds with that baseball bat from The Walking Dead.
"Respectfully, little bro, don't @ me when you win; I'll see your feed."
The Los Angeles Dodgers: The Yankees, but with better weather and a mouth breathing media.
When your payroll has the gravitational pull of Saturn, losing should constitute a burning of the city; IF you can get the opportunity, before a seagull picks up a lit cigarette and drops it anywhere in your no-water-having-ass city.
The Dodgers are the other half of the NLCS, and under normal circumstances, I'd be rooting for them to lose regardless of the opponent. But now they're playing Milwaukee, which creates a fascinating moral dilemma: Do I root against the team I hate because they're baseball's ENRON, or the team I hate because I live in Chicago? Seems petty, right? But hey my name is now Tom and I'm free fallin' cause I am pulling for the Hollywood elite in this one. But only by a chin hair that'll be lasered off once I get that big acting gig.
It's not the easiest of decisions. It's like being asked to choose between stepping on a Lego and stepping on a Lego that belongs to your cousin.
Los Angeles finished the regular season 100-62. That's an excellent record. They have superstars, a loaded rotation, and enough money invested in the roster to make the payroll of Bing feel inadequate. Roughly a $339 million on the books. At that point, you aren't building a baseball team. You're assembling The Expendables.
And yet, here they are, trailing the Brewers 2-0. Milwaukee won Game 1 and 2. Both losses on the road after entering the series with all the advantages you'd expect from a team that can buy nearly every baseball player your imagination can conjure. It feels like when Mr. Burns hired Ozzie Smith, Darryl Strawberry, and Don Mattingly as ringers for his company softball league. I'm not saying money can't buy happiness. I'm saying that if you're spending that much money and still find yourself staring at a two-game deficit against Milwaukee, perhaps you should consider purchasing some team chemistry that works in October.
The Dodgers are trying to win a third consecutive World Series, which would be a "remarkable" achievement.
Imagine the coverage. "I don't how they did it."
Imagine the celebrations. "Against all odds."
Imagine the endless conversations about how this is the greatest dynasty of the modern era. "Untouched, Unparalleled..."
Imagine the smugness. I would rather listen to a two-hour lecture about the Infield Fly Rule, from a guy who thinks the designated hitter ruined baseball, while being water boarded by my ex-girlfriend. I would rather be castrated in the moonlight with fishing equipment near the woods by a psychopath wearing a Cardinals hat. And for the record, I don't particularly enjoy rooting for Milwaukee to beat Los Angeles. I just enjoy the possibility that Los Angeles might lose.
There is a difference.
If the Dodgers win, baseball loses a little of its soul. If the Dodgers lose, I get to spend the next 48 hours smiling at my television like a boy who just poured melted chocolate ice cream into an opened car window on a summers day and seeing the owner unlock and sit in it, only to later see his wife trying to clean it off with oh so few of napkins. (may or may not be a true story.)
Either way, I'm not happy.
