All hail the champions of nothing

You can forgive the Cubs if they got a little overly exuberant yesterday as they dumped cheap champagne and terrible domestic beer on each other in the PNC visitor's clubhouse for the first time since Jake Arrieta shut out the Pirates in the 2015 wild card game. Because only one of these current Cubs has ever had the chance to enjoy such frivolity as a Cub, and that guy is Ian Happ and Happ really doesn't do fun.

The Cubs hadn't had a bonafide champagne celebration since way back in 2017 when they beat the Nationals in the NLDS and Jon Lester gave the greatest interview in sports history.

Jon's right, "life isn't always peaches and roses."

And, how can you disagree with what he thinks makes a winning clubhouse so special. "Winning?"

If it seems wrong that the Cubs hadn't had one of those since that wild night in DC, it's not. They lost the NLCS to the Dodgers that year. Then, in 2018 they didn't celebrate when they clinched a playoff spot in late September, waiting instead to celebrate when they won the NL Central. But there was one small problem. They didn't. The Brewers caught them on the second to last day and they ended up having to play a tiebreaker game 163 at Wrigley. The Cubs were going to celebrate after they won that, but they lost. And they had to play the Rockies in the wild card game the next night, and they were going to celebrate after they won that, and they didn't win that. And they didn't make the playoffs again until 2020 and because of Covid there was no playoff clinching celebration.

MLB did allow celebrations after teams won the pennant and then after the World Series, because those games were played in the "bubble" in Texas, and surely nobody would risk getting their teammates and their families sick if they knowingly had Covid and crashed the celebration anyway. Right?

Why does that guy look so familiar?

Yeah, I can't place it, either.

The Cubs are the third team in the National League to "punch their ticket" to the postseason, but the second to celebrate. The Phillies won the NL East on Tuesday night. The Brewers are waiting until they win the NL Central to have their weird little party, where ruddy faced Mat Purphy will probably read another imaginary letter.

You know what? Fuck that.

While getting to the playoffs has never been easier (twelve of the sport's 30 teams get in every year now), it hasn't been easy for our Cubs. They have had an excellent season. They have already won 88 games, they could very well win 94 or 95 before it's all over, and they clinched a spot with 10 days left in the season. That's really early. And even with all of that it has felt really, really hard.

Given their financial advantages (many of which they refuse to properly utilize) the Cubs should make the playoffs basically every year. But they haven't. It's been seven years since they did it in a real season. But even if they had been making it at a reasonable pace, say five of those seven years, they still should have celebrated like they did yesterday. Baseball's hard. Winning's hard. Winning's fun. Celebrate it.

The Cubs didn't pile on each other on the field when the final out landed in Happ's glove. (I'm surprised he didn't dive for it.) They did their regular handshake line and they seemed a little bit happier than normal. But they saved the dog pile for a celebration yet to come, if it ever does at all.

But in the clubhouse they let it rip.

I took a deep breath and deigned to watch the postgame show on Marquee where I was amused by Cliff Floyd's analysis of the celebration when he said, "The bus is going to stink. That flight is really going to stink."

Cliff's been through a few of them. He was a rookie on the 1997 Marlins (with Craig Counsell) and made cameo appearances in four of the World Series games to earn his ring. He went back to the playoffs in 2006 with the Mets and watched in horror as Carlos Beltran took strike three with the bases loaded to end game seven. (Cliff had struck out with two on just two batters before Carlos). He was on the 2007 Cubs who clinched their playoff spot in the Cincinnati visitor's clubhouse while watching Greg Maddux's Padres beat the Brewers to get the Cubs in. And, he was on Joe Maddon's miraculous 2008 Tampa Bay Rays who won a pennant in the first season in franchise history when they won more than 70 games. So Cliff knows that smell. And he was wistful about it. It was a genuinely nice moment.

The Cubs have a lot of questions to answer between now and the start of the playoffs, Tuesday, September 30. But we have plenty of time between now and then to figure all of that out for them. It would behoove them to win a few more games and get the first round at home.

And then the big question will be, what time will they play?

The wild card round starts Tuesday, September 30 with all four series starting that day. You would assume that the Cubs with their national fanbase would get the early prime time game.

But a quick look at the likely matchups shows it's not that easy. Because every series has at least one of those national fanbase teams in it, if the current standings hold.

Red Sox at Astros
Mariners at Yankees
Padres at Cubs
Mets at Dodgers

The Mariners and Red Sox are currently tied at 83-69 so this fluctuates from day to day. If they remain tied, they also split the season series against each other. The Mariners own the tiebreaker of better record within their own division, and they own it by enough that they'll likely maintain it.

If Seattke remains the four seed, they get the Yankees, which would put the Red Sox-Astros into the most likely position of being the 1:30 p.m. Tuesday game. But that leaves the 4 p.m.-ish start open. Day baseball at Wrigley? Against the Padres?

That's never gone poorly for the Cubs. In fact, they're undefeated.

The Dodgers-Mets in LA are a clear pick for the 8:30 p.m. time slot. So the Cubs are either going to play at 4 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. with the Yankees getting the other slot.

I wouldn't mind a little day baseball playoff action. The Cubs haven't had one of those since Dusty Baker claimed the Chicago Hilton's air conditioning gave Stephen Strasburg a cold. It was the day before Lester's drunken oration.

Game four of the 2017 NLDS started at 3:08 p.m. even though the wonderful weather made it look much later.

(Did Ian Happ play in that game? Yes, of course he did. It's why they lost.)

It doesn't matter when they play. But Wrigley looks cooler in the daytime. So we can hold out a little hope.

Regardless, the Cubs are going back the playoffs. It took way too long, but somehow it arrived just in time.

This would make a cool shirt, right?

And you know what? There might even be others.

Buy some crap