Chicago Cubs: It’s time to put the past in the past and move forward

After the Chicago Cubs designated Miguel Montero for assignment, fans began calling for David Ross to come out of retirement. This is ridiculous.

In a season which fans thought couldn’t get worse, things spiraled downward over the last 48 hours. The Chicago Cubs dropped two-straight to the Washington Nationals, Miguel Montero’s postgame comments led to his getting the boot and reigning MVP Kris Bryant suffered a mild ankle injury in a bizarre play.

Oh, and the team continues to sit right around .500 – as they have for a month now.

Thankfully, the team plays in arguably the weakest division in Major League Baseball. The 41-39 Milwaukee Brewers entered play Thursday in first in the NL Central, with the Cubs trailing close behind.

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For the first time in over a century, baseball fans on the North Side are seemingly lost. In the past, losing was the norm – almost the expectation by this point in a season. Now, coming off a championship, expectations are different.

.500 just won’t cut it anymore. The ‘norm’ established over the last two seasons transformed fans into bloodthirsty, ravenous creatures demanding nothing short of perfection.

Well, maybe it’s not that bad, but what Cubs fans tolerate is next-to-nothing. With a pair of relatively inexperienced backstops in Willson Contreras and Victor Caratini handling the staff for the time being, panic is already setting in.

Time to call up the retirement home

To show you just how irrational Chicago fans have become, I present the latest nonsense I’ve seen making its way around the Windy City: bringing Grandpa Rossy out of retirement.

Never mind the fact he retired a World Series champion, ready to spend time with his family. Or that he literally ended his career on a picture-perfect note, taking Andrew Miller deep on Game 7. The season brought countless memories, as well: his 100th career home run, a standing ovation in his final game at Wrigley. Really, there are too many to count.

His final game ended with his teammates carrying him off the field on their shoulders. It was the perfect ending for one of baseball’s good guys.

Yet, leave it to Cubs fans to cling desperately to the past in an attempt to fill a void.

Fans’ desperation understandable, but ill-guided

For decades and decades, Cubs fans clung to the past: a World Series appearance in 1945 – a title last hoisted before the Titanic sank. The black cats and headphone-wearing twists of fate that pulled the team off-course.

And now, despite finally having that World Series title, too many are living in the past. Here’s a hard – but simple truth.

The Chicago Cubs won it all last year, thanks to the perfect mix of luck and talent. The entire starting rotation pitched better than expected. Addison Russell and other young players put up the best numbers of their big-league careers and even role players carried weight at times.

Perhaps more importantly, the team was exceptionally healthy – with scarcely a serious injury outside of losing Kyle Schwarber. The defense behind the staff? Historically sound.

Expecting a team – even one with as much talent on the roster as this one – to do the same thing two years in a row is foolish and unrealistic. But the story doesn’t stop there. Just because the team struggled in the first half hardly spells doom. Seasons are long and the Cubs remain in the hunt.

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But instead of looking at the past for solutions, it’s time to look forward. Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have assembled a young, sustainable core that will remain for years to come. The front office will continue to execute a plan that worked to perfection to-date. The hope Cubs fans so longingly crave isn’t in the ways or names of the past.

It’s in the names on the back of the jerseys taking the field in 2017.