Extry! Extry! New Guest Columnist!

The editors of The New Enthusiast are not yet positive that it takes all kinds to make the world go round. We are more certain that it takes slightly more than two, poorly-disciplined layabouts to keep a blog afloat with new and decent-ish content. Thus, we’ve contracted Dan Woytek, Chicagoland native and proud Pole, to spill his guts electronically. Let me tell you what: this guy’s got hilarious and thought-provoking guts.

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It’s been said that October baseball is a crap shoot compared to the achieving and regressing to the mean that a 162 game regular season provides. This year’s post-season crap shoot happens to be in my pants as the Chicago Cubs have fielded not only their finest team in my lifetime but perhaps their best team since the Japanese got radiated.*

*Editor’s Note: While this might sound vaguely offensive in print, in Mr. Woytek’s nasal, Midwestern accent, it ain’t no thang.

Their roster, transformed from the depressing Dusty Baker hacktory of the 2006 season to their current incarnation (even with the addition of the spechackular Alfonso Soriano), the Cubs are the best OBP team in the NL in 2008, on pace to set the franchise single-season walk record. At the time of this writing they have accumulated the best record in the National League and a single digit magic number.

They have also survived a disappointing season from their prized Japanese free agent Kosuke Fukudome as well as the initial stage of decline of their franchise centerpiece Derrek Lee. These disappointments have been mitigated by career years from their ginger-goateed, mitt-flipping, closer-turned-starter Ryan Dempster, former-Ivy-League-quarterback-turned-uber-utilityman Mark DeRosa and the insurgence of rookie catcher, Geovany Soto. With these practical concerns addressed, dear reader, I will now proceed to the most self-serving, emotional portion of this piece.

What would happen to me as a Cub fan if per chance the Chicago Cubs do happen to harness October greatness and bring the World Series trophy north of Madison Street? How might my baseball fandom change having had a seemingly lifelong aspiration satisfied? How could hope spring eternal when hopes have been fulfilled?

In recent weeks, even with their playoff aspirations all but assured, these aforementioned questions have affected me in palatable ways. I have found myself cantankerous and anxious, talking shit to a third grade Cardinals fan after the Cubs won two out of three at Busch, and compulsively watching Brewers games online. As a developer of young minds I have often nipped “What if”-questions in the bud as they only precipitate more questions revealing irrational fears often spoken loudly and annoyingly by eight-year-olds.

You, the educated online reader (as I’ve heard this website attracts), you know it has been 99 years since the Cubs have won the World Series and 62 since they sniffed the Fall Classic. If the Cubs win will I only feel relief and no elation? Will I even pay attention to the hot stove league or April or May baseball next year? Will there be no more lamenting Ryan Theriot’s TOOTBLANs (Thrown Out on The Basepaths Like A Ninkumpoop) or Soriano’s bad swings early in counts? Am I going to be greedy for more Commissioner’s trophies, or self-righteous, like some Red Sox fans (you know who you are)? These are the “what ifs” that the eight-year-old inside me is asking as if the boogeyman is hiding in my closet. As a man said, “Only time will tell,” but unless the Cubs achieve eleven wins this, or any other, October these questions will remain conditional and I will remain a moody bastard in early fall.