The Incredible Baseball Lesson That Will Save Cubs Fans From Blowing An Artery
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This is short and sweet. This is something most baseball fans already understand, and it appears a lot of social media fans should learn. Take this as the first lesson in Baseball 101, taught by Jamie Baker.
In a 162-game schedule, a baseball team will win 50 games, and they will lose 50 games. This is a predetermined fact of the game. This has been true for all but two of the 1,650 schedules that have been played since baseball turned to a 162-game schedule. You win 50, you lose 50, that’s just the way it is. In fact, the only teams to beat this trend were the 2001 Seattle Mariners (116-46) and the 1998 New York Yankees (116-48). Likewise, there have only been two teams to fail to win 50 games in a season (Baltimore is threatening to become the third to win less than 50).
What defines a team is what happens in the remaining 62 games on their schedule. I’ll give you a hint with the Cubs – they’ve been really damned good.
There seems to be a football mentality with a lot of Cubs fans on social media these days, and I mean that like this, in football, 85% of the time the better team wins the game. That just isn’t the case in baseball, and fans should temper their expectations.
Now, there isn’t anything wrong with expecting a team to win every time they play, and it’s fair to point out poor play or if there was something questionable that happened. What fans should be careful of is rattling off a laundry list of reasons the Cubs are horrible, or this player is bad, or the manager isn’t good or whatever other garbage that is spewed after each and every single one of the Cubs 65 loses this season. While you try to explain it away as you question it because “you know the game and anyone questioning you don’t,” in fact, it just comes off as you don’t understand the basic principle that, a baseball team will win 50 and lose 50, and it’s the other 62 that define the season.
So far, in those extra 62 games, the Cubs are 41-12. That’s the mark of an incredibly good baseball team.
